I thought that a steep learning curve meant that getting the basics was tough but once over that, it got easier, and a shallow learning curve meant that doing simple things was easy and intuitive, but more complex tasks were harder.
Damn it!!!!!!! The lameness filter clears won't let me post my text charts!!!! BASTARD!!!!!
*Sigh* oh well. Anyway I could be wrong, perhaps it's just the mental association with steep->hard shallow->easy.
I would also point out that any HR-type who would throw out a resume because someone has WordPerfect or StarOffice experience instead of MSOffice experience should be taken out and beaten with a cluestick. In many ways, an office suite is an office suite is an office suite. The vast majority of the knowledge learned from one can be transferred to another.
Exactly right. This is why my resume reads "Experienced with industry standard office productivity software". Covers most office suites (I've never had problems picking up new programs).
As soon as the government starts passing laws regulating business you don't have a free unencumbered capitalism, you have a socialism.
Actually they are not talking about laws regulating what software other people can use, but regulating what government departments can use. Whole different kettle of fish. The problem is that the Government is such a big organisation that standardisation on an app creates huge ripples in the industry (plus any other businesses that want to be compatible with the gov.)
From J.D. Hogg's comment:
You forget half of the equation : a government is more than a company, and they have to take national interests into account, which is usually more important than the technical solution. For non-US governments, that often means one of the most important requirements is to not run closed-source software from a US monopoly.
I would say that a government is not a company in the usual sense of the word at all. Their primary interest is to get their administrative jobs done, and for that, the best technical solution is paramount. [Spurious example] Would you like to hear that your tax refund check is going to be an extra month late because the tax department computer system purchased was inapropriate for their needs because they couldn't find an open source vendor that could deliver the goods dispite closed source companies that could?
I too belive that open source should be using in government, but I don't think it should be jumpped into and mandated across the whole of government when it is inapropriate. Moderation in all things.
For government purchasing of IT solutions, cost effectiveness and price/performance is more important than vendor relationships or IT community placating. The various government departments have their own jobs to do and they should use the best tools at their disposal to do it, regardless of where they come from. It is up to the linux community and the companies that participate/support it to supply the best tools for the government, so that choosing open source will be a quality desicion and not a philisophical/political one.
You sure did quote me out of context, or did you not realise. Oh, that's right. Americans don't believe in context. Everything to suit themselves.
You see I posted this:
[quote]
HA HA HA HA HA. That is the stupidest thing I have heard in a long time. What is especially funny is that so many Americans actually do believe this, that some how the world is there to support and adore the US.
[end quote]
And you replied with this:
[quote]
...that some how the world is there to support and adore the US...
Well if you'd really like to lick our boots, please go ahead. Just try not to be so sychophantic about it, okay? It's embarrassing.:):)
[end quote]
So if you can't understand that that is quoting out of context you obviously are a lost cause. So go back to your isolated, secluded US life, shouting at the TV when the "green back" is not doing so well against foreign currency.
Oh and while we are on the subject of spelling it's "sycophantic" not "sychophantic" (were you trying to invent a word like "psychophantic" perhaps??). I can get the big words right.:)
And as far as "growing a sense of humor" (ah, the humour crops are up this year, there will be plenty of humour seeds to plant next year), I think that the fact that I have continued this conversation with you for this long without getting angry or being nasty is a testament to my humour. (And if you notice, it can be spelt as humor(US) or humour(the rest of the english speaking world))
Anyway, it's been a pleasure talking with you (no really). So have a nice day (no REALLY) and try to see things from other peoples point of view (it really makes the world a better place). I look forward to our continued correspondence in the near future.
That's the other annoying american habbit, they tend to quote out of context to try to look clever. As you put it:
The other day... the... CIA... found it interesting to note that China... isn't all that spectactular yet, but... [would - ed] really like to lick our boots,... It's embarrassing.:):)
The USA, functionally speaking, owns the world. If you think of the Earth as a corporation, the USA is the majority shareholder
HA HA HA HA HA. That is the stupidist thing I have heard in a long time. What is especially funny is that so many Americans actually do believe this, that some how the world is there to support and adore the US.
This is actually more stupid than an event that happened to my Brother-In-Law studying on a international Scholarship in Germany.
Apparantly, the US has a separate agreement with the German government to the rest of the world for their students (they can't play nicely with the other children, or they don't want to be shown up or something), so US students study in a separate class to the rest of the world.
Anyway, my Brother-In-Law was talking to one of them and the American says "So it's really hot in Australia at the moment isn't it?" to which B-I-L answers "Yeah, it is quite hot over there."
Then the American student says "But you do still call it winter, don't you? I mean it's winter in the rest of the world!" Even this guys friends had to turn away in amazement.
Firstly, at this point in time the LSB is not making any stands on issues like windows managers and desktop environments. It's all strictly back end stuff (general support libraries and installation methods and standard shell scripting languages etc).
Secondly as far as menu items is concerned, why not just use menudrake. With this you can set menu items for either global users or just for your own login. It's all point and click and it's quite easy to use. Then when you install new software, your custom buttons are there. I've used it to add all the star office icons as well as a set of shortcuts to my more heavily used folders. Works great. BTW This is all explained on their web site.
Subject: I send you this file in order to have your advice
Body:To whom it may concern.
We, the undersigned, are writing today to vehemently oppose the current settlement in the Microsoft Anti-Trust case. I feel that the current proposed settlement does not address the failings of Judge Thomas Penfield Jacksons erroneous conclusions and fully vindicate the actions committed by Microsoft in the past, nor ensure their ability to commit similar actions in the future.
A great man (perhaps A. Lincon) once said that the software industry is build on innovation and that consumers need this software innovation to survive (I'm paraphrasing of course). This has never been more truthfull than it is right now, in these days of economic uncertainty. Microsoft is in a unique position due to it's "Market Leading Position(tm)" created by a "Natural Monopoly(tm)" to bring these innovations to the "Consumers(tm)". As you are probably well aware, Microsoft is the only company on the planet that produces working software (the reason it has it's "Natural Monopoly(tm)") so it is the only company able to bring "Consumers(tm)" worldwide the "Software Innovation(tm)" that they need to survive in these hostile ecconomic times.
Furthermore, the settlement does nothing to protect Microsoft from frivilous lawsuits designed to allow evil corporations (such as AOL/TW, Lindows.com, The Federal Government of the United States of America, Europe, et.al.) to profit, aiding in the denial of "Software Innovation(tm)" from innocent "Consumers(tm)", thus risking the death, destruction or at the very least, horrible disfigurement of the very people that information technology was designed to protect.
So in closing, I would like to remind the courts to take into consideration, the people for whom this ruling matters most, the "Consumers(tm)".
Yours Sincerely
Llib Setag.
Evets Remlab.
Mr. Snrub.
(P.S. I have.... "Found" that account number you "lost" at Gewerbebank Zürich. B.G.)
I'm sure the courts will realise the clever Irony (oh ok, the poor sarcasm) and interpret the letter correctly.
And if any Christian sect believes in the "original sin' bit its the catholics.
My point exactly. It's the Catholic sect that believes in "original sin" (as well as anglicans, baptists and many other sects) but that it is not a part of being a "Christian".
So they all relate in the fashion that rectangles, squares, trapizoids and rhombus are all quadralaterals, in that they all have four sides, but not all quadralaterals have all the features of, say a rhombus. In this respect all Christians belive in the existance of Christ and Christ's basic message (ie treat others the way you want them to treat you), but the rest of their beliefs can, and do, vary enourmously. And no, not all Christians believe in the "original sin" thing, that is a very Chatholic (and Catholic descended) based belief.
Anyway, christians (and therefore, I) believe that every single person is 'fallen' and inclined to be 'bad'
How dare you make that stupid statement and claim it represents the view of all Christians. Christianity goes far beyond whatever sect you're a part of.
Christianity is a blanket term for all people who follow the various religions based on the belief in the existence and teachings of Christ (Jesus).
Jesus never preached that people were "'fallen' and inclined to be 'bad'". Rather, his teachings were based on the idea that people were inherently good.
Most of the teachings that you talk about come from the Old Testament, and the post Gospel New Testament, all of which were written with goals other that recording the direct teachings of Christ.
Now I'm a Christian too (raised Roman Catholic, but much more eclectic since then) and I must say that your blanket description of my faith could not be more wrong. You can keep believing the Old Testament's fire and brimstone message, I'll stick with Christ's real message, the eleventh commandment.
But the interesting question is, why did they want a GPL code base when they already had a *BSD code base. Not to mention that they could get either of them for free.
I would say that it would be RedHat's involvement in the embedded space that would particularly interest them.
They would gain the programming expertise to not only produce a Linux based desktop client/OS/environment for AOL, but the embedded skills to produce a complete set top box AOL client that could be combined into the Time Warner Cable system.
This would allow AOL to reach a lot of cable using people who otherwise would not bother with internet access. Then all they need is to license the Sun ONE Webtop suite (essentially web enabled star office) and they would be set.
windoz 98 as a SERVER , please !, serving up what ?
I believe that Empty Sands was answering the point made by the AC. The AC stated that Linux was a poor desktop because it was "server capable".
This means that the system can run publicly accessable services such as http and ftp and a whole host of others. These services must be administered properly in order to remain secure and that is simply a headache not needed for a desktop system.
Empty Sands then replyed by pointing out that these services CAN be run under windows 9x/NT/2k desktops as well (I myself run an Apache-Tomcat server under Win98 in order to test my java servlets localy before uploading to the main test system, but my PC is firewalled off with zone alarm as an extra precaution), and that running these services, (although inefficent as far as high load would be concerned) is possible, and opens up the OS to the same security problems.
Not sure if you're trolling or just missinterpreting the point of the article.
The point here is that a new "open monopoly" is meant to be a monopoly of ideology.
The monopoly is, that all software of the future will be based on open source technology and tools and that proprietry software will be a disadvantaged outsider, not that there will be a single set of software tools/apps that happen to be open sourced. It would mean that in order to join the software market, aligning with open source aligns you with the majority, giving you an advantage over those who choose to stay proprietry.
And I'd have to say that if that did happen, I would not be all that upset.:)
I don't know what kind of coverage they were hoping for with this article, but I'd have to say that the first paragraph made me think that there wasn't much to the new release:
The system promises fewer computer crashes and will allow users to delete data from their hard drive.
struck me as funny. My first thought was that I could delete files perfectly well at the moment...
I think I'd have to disagree with you, but only a little bit. I think that IDEs like KDevelop are a very usefull thing from the point of view of barrier to entry. There are a lot of novice programmers out there for whomb commming to grips with the concept of software development in the first place is a daunting task. For these people an intergrated IDE with things like icons to build the project, quick start wizards and avoiding the neccessity of make files, allow them to get into the basics of programming quickly and easily. Now some people may argue that getting into the nitty gritty from the start means that you learn it better is true for some people but not all people. Anyway, it's just another point of view.
Re:Now that they've won the desktop "war"
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 1
You're a bit picky. I commute 80-90 minutes to then from (almost 3 hours round trip) work to get paid a clerical wage to do mostly database application customizing.
I'm not evangelizing or trolling here, but have you had a look at the latest Star Office 6.0 Beta? I've been a bit disappointed with *NIX based office suites until I had a look at the beta. I was just wondering, since you seem to have a decent opinion on this subject if you've seen it, and what do you think? (Oh and I feel that outlook/exchange could be replaced with insite client/server, but once again...)
Right, I just have to make a quick complaint here, from the article: The Lego people seem unruffled by Sir Harry's criticism. "Lego bricks are about more than engineering," says Lego spokesman Michael McNally. "They're about creativity." This guy obviously knows nothing about engineering or he'd know that creativity is half of engineering. You gotta be creative to overcome many of the problems faced by engineers every day.
</rant>
Anyway, now that's out of the way, I have to agree with the majority of the comments here and post up a healthy "ME TOO" comment. We had a whole plethora of those sorts of toys in our familiy (along with a museum full of ancient computers, and my dad was a lawyer) and in some ways I feel sorry that those sorts of things are found less in the shops around here. Those multi electronic kits were great too.
Re:What are you gonna do with it?
on
Webpads, Anyone?
·
· Score: 2
So I agree with you that the thing isn't very useful unless you're sitting around the house, but when you are, why not just go to your computer? Are you so lazy you can't drag your butt to your desk?
Well I work fulltime and study a 50% uni load AND have a familly (Wife, 1 kid), and we like to spend time reading together (me, uni materials, her, natural health/gemology magazines) but being an external CompSci student, a lot of my material is on the computer (web pages mostly) so I would love a device that lets me browse my web material away from the desk. Also the chance to read the online material outside on a warm sunny day is very tempting.
Also on the point of the stereo, for me (once more the above criteria) I like to listen to classical music while I study, if I had one of these,I believe they have a headphone connector, so I could read my online material outside listening to Bach or Mozart with headphones. I think it's pretty nice looking myself, I just wonder how easy it would be to set up with X.
(Also I was thinking that coupled with a server that is administered with WebMin, it could become a handy little mobile administration unit for the server adimin on the go, providing it handles https, and I don't see why not.)
Probably unlikely, but you might want to keep an eye on hancom office 2.0. The boxed edition will come with win,linux and mac versions all in the same box. Based on koffice and theKompanies apps. Looks pretty nice, but still in the beta stages. Light weight too.
And if you do need EJB support, give JBoss a look. It's open source and intergrates well with Tomcat to provide the EJB side of things.
Re:Perhaps War is what's needed (read below)
on
A New Kind of War
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· Score: 2
I believe that the biggest reason for those two countries (Germany and Japan) prosperity after the second world war is that that both countries had huge restrictions on how much they could spend on defense/military.
They were only allowed a military sizable enough to defend their territories from attack and not enough to wage war. So all the extra cash that would otherwise be spent on defense, went into economic development. This resulted in a booming economy.
Mind you I could be wrong...
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
on
More On Tragedy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm not sure when this was originally written (or broadcast). But I would like to point out the efforts of the Australian Firefighters during the recent forest fires in the US. Many Australian CFS (country fire service) personel went to the US to lend their considerable expertise in fighting bush fires to help stop the blazes (in california??).
I know it's not much compared to the rest of that article, but it is a small token of thanks from a small burgeoning country.
I started off with DosLinux, one of those file image systems that runs from a file in the dos partition, and a couple of those single floppy distros (hal and toms I think). Didn't even have X windows until I finnally got a dual boot with RedHat 4.something. Afterstep was just amazing. So much better than The Win95 shell to my eyes.
I only actually got started on those because of a course I did as part of a Cert IV in Computer Maintenance on UNIX. We did basic shell stuff with either slack or redhat, really early version with xdm logins and using twm.
Still it blew me away, especially when I started reading on the net about being free and all. I had to get it.
Anyway I use Mandrake now, not because I think it's superiour to others (it's actually pretty bumpy to tell you the truth, but lots of eye candy), but because of the community around it, I quite like the help forums, and the couple of mandrake specific IRC chatrooms. Good people. So I'm comfortable where I am for now. Also Mandrake should have 8.1 out in about two months...
Slashdot Mirror
I thought it was the other way around.
I thought that a steep learning curve meant that getting the basics was tough but once over that, it got easier, and a shallow learning curve meant that doing simple things was easy and intuitive, but more complex tasks were harder.
Damn it!!!!!!! The lameness filter clears won't let me post my text charts!!!! BASTARD!!!!!
*Sigh* oh well. Anyway I could be wrong, perhaps it's just the mental association with steep->hard shallow->easy.
I would also point out that any HR-type who would throw out a resume because someone has WordPerfect or StarOffice experience instead of MSOffice experience should be taken out and beaten with a cluestick. In many ways, an office suite is an office suite is an office suite. The vast majority of the knowledge learned from one can be transferred to another.
Exactly right. This is why my resume reads "Experienced with industry standard office productivity software". Covers most office suites (I've never had problems picking up new programs).
As soon as the government starts passing laws regulating business you don't have a free unencumbered capitalism, you have a socialism.
Actually they are not talking about laws regulating what software other people can use, but regulating what government departments can use. Whole different kettle of fish. The problem is that the Government is such a big organisation that standardisation on an app creates huge ripples in the industry (plus any other businesses that want to be compatible with the gov.)
From J.D. Hogg's comment:
You forget half of the equation : a government is more than a company, and they have to take national interests into account, which is usually more important than the technical solution. For non-US governments, that often means one of the most important requirements is to not run closed-source software from a US monopoly.
I would say that a government is not a company in the usual sense of the word at all. Their primary interest is to get their administrative jobs done, and for that, the best technical solution is paramount. [Spurious example] Would you like to hear that your tax refund check is going to be an extra month late because the tax department computer system purchased was inapropriate for their needs because they couldn't find an open source vendor that could deliver the goods dispite closed source companies that could?
I too belive that open source should be using in government, but I don't think it should be jumpped into and mandated across the whole of government when it is inapropriate. Moderation in all things.
For government purchasing of IT solutions, cost effectiveness and price/performance is more important than vendor relationships or IT community placating. The various government departments have their own jobs to do and they should use the best tools at their disposal to do it, regardless of where they come from. It is up to the linux community and the companies that participate/support it to supply the best tools for the government, so that choosing open source will be a quality desicion and not a philisophical/political one.
I didn't quote you out of context.
...that some how the world is there to support and adore the US...
:) :)
:)
You sure did quote me out of context, or did you not realise. Oh, that's right. Americans don't believe in context. Everything to suit themselves.
You see I posted this:
[quote]
HA HA HA HA HA. That is the stupidest thing I have heard in a long time. What is especially funny is that so many Americans actually do believe this, that some how the world is there to support and adore the US.
[end quote]
And you replied with this:
[quote]
Well if you'd really like to lick our boots, please go ahead. Just try not to be so sychophantic about it, okay? It's embarrassing.
[end quote]
So if you can't understand that that is quoting out of context you obviously are a lost cause. So go back to your isolated, secluded US life, shouting at the TV when the "green back" is not doing so well against foreign currency.
Oh and while we are on the subject of spelling it's "sycophantic" not "sychophantic" (were you trying to invent a word like "psychophantic" perhaps??). I can get the big words right.
And as far as "growing a sense of humor" (ah, the humour crops are up this year, there will be plenty of humour seeds to plant next year), I think that the fact that I have continued this conversation with you for this long without getting angry or being nasty is a testament to my humour. (And if you notice, it can be spelt as humor(US) or humour(the rest of the english speaking world))
Anyway, it's been a pleasure talking with you (no really). So have a nice day (no REALLY) and try to see things from other peoples point of view (it really makes the world a better place). I look forward to our continued correspondence in the near future.
Yours Sincerely.
Damien Byrne.
The other day ... the ... CIA ... found it interesting to note that China ... isn't all that spectactular yet, but ... [would - ed] really like to lick our boots, ... It's embarrassing. :) :)
I think that says it all really.
The USA, functionally speaking, owns the world. If you think of the Earth as a corporation, the USA is the majority shareholder
HA HA HA HA HA. That is the stupidist thing I have heard in a long time. What is especially funny is that so many Americans actually do believe this, that some how the world is there to support and adore the US.
This is actually more stupid than an event that happened to my Brother-In-Law studying on a international Scholarship in Germany.
Apparantly, the US has a separate agreement with the German government to the rest of the world for their students (they can't play nicely with the other children, or they don't want to be shown up or something), so US students study in a separate class to the rest of the world.
Anyway, my Brother-In-Law was talking to one of them and the American says "So it's really hot in Australia at the moment isn't it?" to which B-I-L answers "Yeah, it is quite hot over there."
Then the American student says "But you do still call it winter, don't you? I mean it's winter in the rest of the world!" Even this guys friends had to turn away in amazement.
Firstly, at this point in time the LSB is not making any stands on issues like windows managers and desktop environments. It's all strictly back end stuff (general support libraries and installation methods and standard shell scripting languages etc).
Secondly as far as menu items is concerned, why not just use menudrake. With this you can set menu items for either global users or just for your own login. It's all point and click and it's quite easy to use. Then when you install new software, your custom buttons are there. I've used it to add all the star office icons as well as a set of shortcuts to my more heavily used folders. Works great. BTW This is all explained on their web site.
Subject: I send you this file in order to have your advice
.... "Found" that account number you "lost" at Gewerbebank Zürich. B.G.)
Body: To whom it may concern.
We, the undersigned, are writing today to vehemently oppose the current settlement in the Microsoft Anti-Trust case. I feel that the current proposed settlement does not address the failings of Judge Thomas Penfield Jacksons erroneous conclusions and fully vindicate the actions committed by Microsoft in the past, nor ensure their ability to commit similar actions in the future.
A great man (perhaps A. Lincon) once said that the software industry is build on innovation and that consumers need this software innovation to survive (I'm paraphrasing of course). This has never been more truthfull than it is right now, in these days of economic uncertainty. Microsoft is in a unique position due to it's "Market Leading Position(tm)" created by a "Natural Monopoly(tm)" to bring these innovations to the "Consumers(tm)". As you are probably well aware, Microsoft is the only company on the planet that produces working software (the reason it has it's "Natural Monopoly(tm)") so it is the only company able to bring "Consumers(tm)" worldwide the "Software Innovation(tm)" that they need to survive in these hostile ecconomic times.
Furthermore, the settlement does nothing to protect Microsoft from frivilous lawsuits designed to allow evil corporations (such as AOL/TW, Lindows.com, The Federal Government of the United States of America, Europe, et.al.) to profit, aiding in the denial of "Software Innovation(tm)" from innocent "Consumers(tm)", thus risking the death, destruction or at the very least, horrible disfigurement of the very people that information technology was designed to protect.
So in closing, I would like to remind the courts to take into consideration, the people for whom this ruling matters most, the "Consumers(tm)".
Yours Sincerely
Llib Setag.
Evets Remlab.
Mr. Snrub.
(P.S. I have
I'm sure the courts will realise the clever Irony (oh ok, the poor sarcasm) and interpret the letter correctly.
And if any Christian sect believes in the "original sin' bit its the catholics.
My point exactly. It's the Catholic sect that believes in "original sin" (as well as anglicans, baptists and many other sects) but that it is not a part of being a "Christian".
Think of it this way:
Christian -> Quadralateral
Catholic -> Rectangle
Baptist -> Square
Anglican -> Trapizoid
Jahovas Witness -> Rhombus
So they all relate in the fashion that rectangles, squares, trapizoids and rhombus are all quadralaterals, in that they all have four sides, but not all quadralaterals have all the features of, say a rhombus. In this respect all Christians belive in the existance of Christ and Christ's basic message (ie treat others the way you want them to treat you), but the rest of their beliefs can, and do, vary enourmously. And no, not all Christians believe in the "original sin" thing, that is a very Chatholic (and Catholic descended) based belief.
Anyway, christians (and therefore, I) believe that every single person is 'fallen' and inclined to be 'bad'
How dare you make that stupid statement and claim it represents the view of all Christians. Christianity goes far beyond whatever sect you're a part of.
Christianity is a blanket term for all people who follow the various religions based on the belief in the existence and teachings of Christ (Jesus).
Jesus never preached that people were "'fallen' and inclined to be 'bad'". Rather, his teachings were based on the idea that people were inherently good.
Most of the teachings that you talk about come from the Old Testament, and the post Gospel New Testament, all of which were written with goals other that recording the direct teachings of Christ.
Now I'm a Christian too (raised Roman Catholic, but much more eclectic since then) and I must say that your blanket description of my faith could not be more wrong. You can keep believing the Old Testament's fire and brimstone message, I'll stick with Christ's real message, the eleventh commandment.
But the interesting question is, why did they want a GPL code base when they already had a *BSD code base. Not to mention that they could get either of them for free.
I would say that it would be RedHat's involvement in the embedded space that would particularly interest them.
They would gain the programming expertise to not only produce a Linux based desktop client/OS/environment for AOL, but the embedded skills to produce a complete set top box AOL client that could be combined into the Time Warner Cable system.
This would allow AOL to reach a lot of cable using people who otherwise would not bother with internet access. Then all they need is to license the Sun ONE Webtop suite (essentially web enabled star office) and they would be set.
windoz 98 as a SERVER , please !, serving up what ?
I believe that Empty Sands was answering the point made by the AC. The AC stated that Linux was a poor desktop because it was "server capable".
This means that the system can run publicly accessable services such as http and ftp and a whole host of others. These services must be administered properly in order to remain secure and that is simply a headache not needed for a desktop system.
Empty Sands then replyed by pointing out that these services CAN be run under windows 9x/NT/2k desktops as well (I myself run an Apache-Tomcat server under Win98 in order to test my java servlets localy before uploading to the main test system, but my PC is firewalled off with zone alarm as an extra precaution), and that running these services, (although inefficent as far as high load would be concerned) is possible, and opens up the OS to the same security problems.
At least, that's how I read it.
Not sure if you're trolling or just missinterpreting the point of the article.
:)
The point here is that a new "open monopoly" is meant to be a monopoly of ideology.
The monopoly is, that all software of the future will be based on open source technology and tools and that proprietry software will be a disadvantaged outsider, not that there will be a single set of software tools/apps that happen to be open sourced. It would mean that in order to join the software market, aligning with open source aligns you with the majority, giving you an advantage over those who choose to stay proprietry.
And I'd have to say that if that did happen, I would not be all that upset.
I don't know what kind of coverage they were hoping for with this article, but I'd have to say that the first paragraph made me think that there wasn't much to the new release:
The system promises fewer computer crashes and will allow users to delete data from their hard drive.
struck me as funny. My first thought was that I could delete files perfectly well at the moment...
I think I'd have to disagree with you, but only a little bit. I think that IDEs like KDevelop are a very usefull thing from the point of view of barrier to entry. There are a lot of novice programmers out there for whomb commming to grips with the concept of software development in the first place is a daunting task. For these people an intergrated IDE with things like icons to build the project, quick start wizards and avoiding the neccessity of make files, allow them to get into the basics of programming quickly and easily. Now some people may argue that getting into the nitty gritty from the start means that you learn it better is true for some people but not all people. Anyway, it's just another point of view.
That should be www.citeseer.com.
:-)
You're a bit picky. I commute 80-90 minutes to then from (almost 3 hours round trip) work to get paid a clerical wage to do mostly database application customizing.
I'm not evangelizing or trolling here, but have you had a look at the latest Star Office 6.0 Beta? I've been a bit disappointed with *NIX based office suites until I had a look at the beta. I was just wondering, since you seem to have a decent opinion on this subject if you've seen it, and what do you think? (Oh and I feel that outlook/exchange could be replaced with insite client/server, but once again...)
Right, I just have to make a quick complaint here, from the article: The Lego people seem unruffled by Sir Harry's criticism. "Lego bricks are about more than engineering," says Lego spokesman Michael McNally. "They're about creativity." This guy obviously knows nothing about engineering or he'd know that creativity is half of engineering. You gotta be creative to overcome many of the problems faced by engineers every day.
</rant>
Anyway, now that's out of the way, I have to agree with the majority of the comments here and post up a healthy "ME TOO" comment. We had a whole plethora of those sorts of toys in our familiy (along with a museum full of ancient computers, and my dad was a lawyer) and in some ways I feel sorry that those sorts of things are found less in the shops around here. Those multi electronic kits were great too.
So I agree with you that the thing isn't very useful unless you're sitting around the house, but when you are, why not just go to your computer? Are you so lazy you can't drag your butt to your desk?
Well I work fulltime and study a 50% uni load AND have a familly (Wife, 1 kid), and we like to spend time reading together (me, uni materials, her, natural health/gemology magazines) but being an external CompSci student, a lot of my material is on the computer (web pages mostly) so I would love a device that lets me browse my web material away from the desk. Also the chance to read the online material outside on a warm sunny day is very tempting.
Also on the point of the stereo, for me (once more the above criteria) I like to listen to classical music while I study, if I had one of these,I believe they have a headphone connector, so I could read my online material outside listening to Bach or Mozart with headphones. I think it's pretty nice looking myself, I just wonder how easy it would be to set up with X.
(Also I was thinking that coupled with a server that is administered with WebMin, it could become a handy little mobile administration unit for the server adimin on the go, providing it handles https, and I don't see why not.)
Probably unlikely, but you might want to keep an eye on hancom office 2.0. The boxed edition will come with win,linux and mac versions all in the same box. Based on koffice and theKompanies apps. Looks pretty nice, but still in the beta stages. Light weight too.
And if you do need EJB support, give JBoss a look. It's open source and intergrates well with Tomcat to provide the EJB side of things.
I believe that the biggest reason for those two countries (Germany and Japan) prosperity after the second world war is that that both countries had huge restrictions on how much they could spend on defense/military.
They were only allowed a military sizable enough to defend their territories from attack and not enough to wage war. So all the extra cash that would otherwise be spent on defense, went into economic development. This resulted in a booming economy.
Mind you I could be wrong...
I'm not sure when this was originally written (or broadcast). But I would like to point out the efforts of the Australian Firefighters during the recent forest fires in the US. Many Australian CFS (country fire service) personel went to the US to lend their considerable expertise in fighting bush fires to help stop the blazes (in california??).
I know it's not much compared to the rest of that article, but it is a small token of thanks from a small burgeoning country.
I only actually got started on those because of a course I did as part of a Cert IV in Computer Maintenance on UNIX. We did basic shell stuff with either slack or redhat, really early version with xdm logins and using twm.
Still it blew me away, especially when I started reading on the net about being free and all. I had to get it.
Anyway I use Mandrake now, not because I think it's superiour to others (it's actually pretty bumpy to tell you the truth, but lots of eye candy), but because of the community around it, I quite like the help forums, and the couple of mandrake specific IRC chatrooms. Good people. So I'm comfortable where I am for now. Also Mandrake should have 8.1 out in about two months...