I just don't see the point of removing the DRM from a paid for iTunes file, because FairPlay does seem pretty generous with what you are allowed to do with it.
I agree that the fairplay restrictions aren't very restrictive relative to other DRM that's out there. However, it's the nature of DRM that it doesn't feel restrictive so long as you're doing things that the DRM allows, but it's very restrictive to those who want to do anything the DRM doesn't allow.
If there were an easy way to strip the DRM without any negative side-effects, I'd do it to my iTMS-purchased music. Just because. I haven't run into a problem yet where the DRM stopped me from doing something, but all things being equal I'd rather have the piece of mind that I won't run into any in the future, either.
It's like buying a Ford and ripping the Ford emblem off the car and thinking that you're "sticking it to Ford." I have news for you: Ford (Apple) is laughing all the way to the bank.
Actually, it's not like that. It's like... the opposite of that. Or not really, but it's just not like that.
There are a bunch of differences here, the first being that I don't know how a Ford logo is anything like DRM. You might not like the Ford logo, and ripping it off might be a cosmetic improvement (or not, depending on your opinion), but it doesn't inhibit your use of the car. Second, I can't think of a reason why Ford's suppliers would stop selling to Ford if their cars didn't have a Ford logo. It's generally believed, on the other hand, that Apple fought with the record companies because Apple didn't want to use DRM, but for the RIAA, it was a deal-breaker. No DRM, no music, hence no music store.
In any event, I don't think people want to remove the DRM so they can "stick it to Apple". They buy from Apple because they like the service Apple is providing, and they strip the DRM because they don't like the DRM.
As for serious, by what standard? I'd readily admit I would not recommend running OSX on servers unless OSX adds geniune value (as it might in a Mac-based business).
In my world, Linux is best for backend. OSX is best for front-end.
Server software choice has a lot to do with the sorts of services you provide and the knowledge of whoever is supporting that server. Really OSX on the server is good if you want general, normal sorts of things like DNS, a web server, file services, and you want a decent GUI and don't care too much about optimization. Especially so if you're in an otherwise Mac environment and know Macintosh as your platform.
Likewise, if your tech staff only understands Windows and you want a Windows file server in an otherwise Windows environment, it's probably easiest to get a Windows server.
Otherwise, I agree with the sentiment. Given the state of things, my ideal setup is OSX on the desktop and Linux in the server room, though Linux on the desktop sure is getting more attractive.
I think it's fine so long as they keep the originals too. that's what annoys me about Star Wars-- it's not that Lucas wants to keep playing with it and releasing new versions, but that there isn't a DVD of the remastered original version.
It's important that we keep the originals intact, because that's our history. However, those old special effects are pretty dated, and I wouldn't mind seeing what someone could do with a little creativity. Hell, it might be fun if someone could take all the old footage as one source, and seeing if they could make different plot-lines from editing lone. Our dedication to history shouldn't stifle creativity.
I completely agree with you, though I wanted to point out that not every business can afford an IT staff.
That's fair. I've not dealt with IT support of companies of that size, and I suppose hosted services would be worthwhile for that, especially if they don't have the sort of information they're worried about being out in the open. It's one thing to have customer/personal correspondence through another company's e-mail server, but quite another if you're sending company confidential data between employees that you can't let go out of the company.
Re:Maybe Joe Schmoe shouldn't be using a computer.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
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· Score: 1
I'd rather they chance it, too. Personally I'd like to see someone in the open source community come up with a Windows security suite (firewall, antivirus, antispyware). Security needs lots of eyes on it, and should be free. We all benefit from fewer botted Windows machines, after all. However, I guess it goes against the political agenda of furthering free software, since one of the big reasons to switch from Windows is bad security. I'd still like to see it, though.
That's all great for uber l337 folks like yourself, but what about the rest of the world?
For business users, their IT staff should be hooking them up with some sort of VPN, or at least SSL access to the businesses own web server. For home users, TFA's apps are probably good, but I, for one, don't particularly like my data on other people's servers (and I don't think I would even if I didn't know any better).
Being able to access documents via the web from anywhere needs to be as easy as possible for regular joe's, otherwise they have no reason to leave MS Office.
How about the lack of open standards, the financial expense, and being forced into the vendor's upgrade cycle? Now, maybe that's not sufficient reason for many people, but it's certainly a reason.
Re:Maybe Joe Schmoe shouldn't be using a computer.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Failing that, Dells should all come with the firewall on, and AV and anti-spyware installed and running with a 6 month subscription, as well as a note (in dead tree form) reminding the user that he needs to update and renew the stuff in 6 months.
Or Dells should start shipping with an OS that's more resilient to viruses and spyware. I'm not MS-bashing, it can be Vista for all I care (assuming Vista fits that description). Part of the problem is that the most popular security software (McAfee and Norton) are absolutely terrible, suck up computer resources, and cost too much.
I've known a lot of users who won't buy security software because they view it as an unreasonable cost. They've just bought a new computer, and now they're supposed to spend $100 a year to make it work properly? Plus, half the time these security package break as much as they fix. Suddenly users programs stop working or they can't connect to something because the firewall is blocking it.
That's just from the Joe Schmo perspective. From a more expert perspective, it still doesn't make sense, since much of what the security software does is plug up Microsoft's poorly designed security. Maybe I'm just spoiled by open-source software, but being able to operate a computer securely doesn't seem to me to be something people should have to pay extra for. It seems like it'd be better if security were open to the public for review, analysis, and optimization anyhow.
I didn't say in your documents folder, but in your profile, and at the same level as your documents folder. Sheesh.
Settings that should be (or even can be) per-user settings should definitely be in the user profile, and there's no excuse for them to be anywhere else. This was one of the stupidest things Windows used to do, which was to put config files in the actual install. First, it assumes that users will have write access to the installation directory, and second that all users will want the same settings.
In Windows, for example, all settings should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\%program name%\", and deleting that folder shouldn't break the application, but only cause it to revert to its default settings. Many developers follow that rule. Some, including Microsoft, do not.
That's what I was saying. Within a given user's profile, there should be a folder for documents, and at the same level, a folder for config files. Windows does this, except that there's an "application data" in your profile, and then another in a hidden sub-directory called "local settings", which is dumb. Also, if you look in the "application data" folder, it's a bit of a mess.
This is not how I read the OS X loader documentation. It looks first in the application's bundle, then in the user's Frameworks folder, then the system Frameworks folders. Then it gives up. It never looks in other applications bundles. This means that if you run two applications that use the same library, and they both have a copy in their bundles, you will need two memory resident copies (ever wonder why OS X seems to need much more RAM than other systems?) It also means that if you need to update the library then you need to update it in all of the bundles.
I think he's just advocating that we not use shared libraries unless they're included with the OS, which is what the drag-and-drop-install applications in OSX do. Yes, it means you use more RAM and more HD space, but it also solves some problems with installing/uninstalling applications, as well as adding stability. I used to have this problem on Windows all the time in the Win95 days:
App-A and App-B both require whatever.dll, but expect different versions of whatever.dll, but they look for whatever.dll in the same places. If you use the version 2.1 of whatever.dll (the version of whatever.dll that App-A installs) then App-B doesn't work and reports that whatever.dll is corrupt. If you overwrite v2.1 with whatever.dll v3.5, then App-B works great, but App-A becomes really unstable and buggy.
So this sort of problem wouldn't happen if both apps just had their own version of whatever.dll instead of using a shared copy. I don't know what happened that made this less of a problem, but I never see that happen anymore. Still, I have suspected at times that some random instability I experience with Windows might be caused by this sort of thing.
And what about configuration files? Sometimes I uninstall an application because I want it gone. Sometimes I uninstall it because I want to install a new version. In the first case, I want configuration information to be deleted. In the second, I want it retained. The uninstaller needs to know which of these I'm doing. There is even the third case (although less common these days) that I am uninstalling it to free up some disk space, but I will want it back later. In this case, I probably want configuration files deleted.
My feeling is that configuration files (for most apps) should be in the user's profile (or "home directory", if you prefer). It should be easy to find and delete manually, by a user with little knowledge. Like there should be a folder in the profile for documents, and then a folder called "configuration files", "settings", or "preferences", with each app having a clearly named directory holding all its settings.
In fact, this is what pretty much all operating systems do. Even Windows encourages this behavior, even though the registry is always a problem, and some occasional developers still try to hide settings in the Windows or Program Files directory. Also, Windows splits this up, and some of the settings are held in a hidden "local settings" folder, which is completely retarded. But mostly, configuration files are held in the user's profile and not deleted by uninstall programs.
I do think, however, that uninstall programs should either offer to remove them for you, giving you the choice, or make note that configuration files remain in this directory or that. The reason is, many people try to fix programs by uninstalling and reinstalling, but sometimes the problem is in the configuration.
It's not that crazy an idea. I wonder, if Microsoft had fired their programming staff and R&D people years ago, cleared their buildings, and kept only their marketing team and their lawyers, would they have made fewer sales? Couldn't MS still be selling Windows 2000 and Office 2000 with just as much success?
The only difference I can think of is that it would have been harder to get people to pay for software assurance if Microsoft had admitted that they wouldn't release a substantially different product for 7 years, but other than that, what's the difference?
I have no actual knowledge on the subject whatsoever, but I'm going to just pull this out of my ass: it's management. Management sees Microsoft's business as relying entirely on Windows and Office, and their business model is to put every ounce of energy they can into sabotaging their competitors in those arenas and wringing every dime they can out of their customers for those two products. Microsoft's management has no interest in making a good product.
As for my qualms with Word, first there are things like the grammar check, which can be improved. Lots of little things could be better. Another example: I hate a lot of the autocorrection (which can be turned off, I know).
My second complaint is that all the other features get in the way. I know, it sounds stupid, but I've actually run into this problem quite a lot. The default view in Word 2003 is to be in page view (which is good for layout but not composing), with all the menu bars and such, and a "Getting Started" sidebar opened (comes up every time you open Word). Worse yet, with the sidebar opened on a 1024x768 screen, the 100% zoomed page layout is too wide, which means you have to scroll to see the whole page. I know, I know, these things can be customized, and you can go into "full screen mode". My point is, it's a whole lot of frustrating stuff on your screen which hinders concentration.
And I don't know, but I just had a lot of frustration trying to use the "styles" in Word. It should be a pretty simple thing, and I can't remember off-hand what all my problems were things like, I delete a word part way through a paragraph and suddenly the rest of the paragraph changes to another font. They're doing the right thing by having styles (like Heading 1, Normal, etc) but the way Word works, it doesn't encourage users to actually use those styles, and consequently they don't seem to be well tested and implemented. In my mind, they should implement something like the separation between HTML and CSS, but in a nice GUI fashion.
I guess that, when you come down to it, what I want for composition is something as lightweight as notepad.exe, but with a good spell-check and grammar-check, and some ability to tag blocks of text for later formatting (without having to memorize tags and type them in). Maybe throw in a couple extras like a word count. But make it so virtually the entire window is the text box, from the moment you open it. Then, separately, I want a layout application that will let me bring my graphics, text, spreadsheets, etc. into a specific layout for printing or display on the web.
Now, that's just what I want, but maybe I'm the only one.
This is the kind of thing that we should be cracking down on, the commercial pirates, not teenagers and old ladies who download a song or two.
Well, yeah. This is what copyright law was actually intended to do-- stop publishers from making money by undercutting the people who invested their own time and money to bring something to market. The other stuff is just an abuse of the law.
I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but yes, I think the ribbon is pretty good. At the very least, I think it's about damn time that someone admitted that, in word processing, composing and formatting are two different tasks. Well, Microsoft still seems to think that formatting is part of composing, but at least they're recognizing that "layout" is different.
My feeling is, Microsoft Word is neither ideal for composing (as a writer) or formatting/layout (as a graphic designer). The reason for its success is that it's a jack of all trades, but I'd rather see it broken down into two tasks so that it can be closer to being a master of each.
I was assuming that somebody knowledgable enough to know what they could use a router with torrent capabilities for would have things like monitor, keyboard and mouse at home, just in case.
Well, but that's the problem I'm trying to indicate, that I think there's room in the market to sell computing devices that can be turned into servers without requiring a whole bunch of extra junk to get it running. Maybe not. Maybe it's a niche market of people who know enough to set these things up, but aren't such hobbyists that they have tons of junk lying around. A USB key would be reasonable, since it's a pretty useful thing to have anyway, but even then, who offers a version of Linux that could easily be flashed to a USB key, and that has SSH turned on by default to a known password? I don't have a spare machine to build my own, but I'd need some way of getting the thing running headless from bare-metal.
Oh, my problem isn't installing Linux in general-- that's easy. But one of the things I'm trying to avoid is buying a CD drive, keyboard, or display for the initial setup.
All I have right now is a MacBook Pro. So the question I have in mind is, how do I install Linux without buying additional hardware that would only be useful to me for the initial install? I'm not saying it's impossible, but no easy methods jump out at me. Now, I'm exaggerating my situation because I can get what I need from work to get the job done, but I was trying to think about how normal home users can set up a home server with a little bit of know-how but not a lot of money.
Yeah, a Mac mini would do what I want, but if I use a Mac mini, I'm wasting a whole lot of computer. I'm not planning on using the graphics subsystem, audio, or CD drive, and it's far more powerful than I need. And I'm not going to use OSX, iLife stuff, or all sorts of other things.
Now, I don't really like waste things, especially my own money, so I was asking if anyone knew some something like a Mac mini, but less powerful without the stuff I don't want, for cheap.
huh... both of these look pretty interesting. But the deal is that KuroBox is more open? How tricky is it to reflash? Is there a real risk of bricking the thing?
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I just don't see the point of removing the DRM from a paid for iTunes file, because FairPlay does seem pretty generous with what you are allowed to do with it.
I agree that the fairplay restrictions aren't very restrictive relative to other DRM that's out there. However, it's the nature of DRM that it doesn't feel restrictive so long as you're doing things that the DRM allows, but it's very restrictive to those who want to do anything the DRM doesn't allow.
If there were an easy way to strip the DRM without any negative side-effects, I'd do it to my iTMS-purchased music. Just because. I haven't run into a problem yet where the DRM stopped me from doing something, but all things being equal I'd rather have the piece of mind that I won't run into any in the future, either.
It's like buying a Ford and ripping the Ford emblem off the car and thinking that you're "sticking it to Ford." I have news for you: Ford (Apple) is laughing all the way to the bank.
Actually, it's not like that. It's like... the opposite of that. Or not really, but it's just not like that.
There are a bunch of differences here, the first being that I don't know how a Ford logo is anything like DRM. You might not like the Ford logo, and ripping it off might be a cosmetic improvement (or not, depending on your opinion), but it doesn't inhibit your use of the car. Second, I can't think of a reason why Ford's suppliers would stop selling to Ford if their cars didn't have a Ford logo. It's generally believed, on the other hand, that Apple fought with the record companies because Apple didn't want to use DRM, but for the RIAA, it was a deal-breaker. No DRM, no music, hence no music store.
In any event, I don't think people want to remove the DRM so they can "stick it to Apple". They buy from Apple because they like the service Apple is providing, and they strip the DRM because they don't like the DRM.
As for serious, by what standard? I'd readily admit I would not recommend running OSX on servers unless OSX adds geniune value (as it might in a Mac-based business).
In my world, Linux is best for backend. OSX is best for front-end.
Server software choice has a lot to do with the sorts of services you provide and the knowledge of whoever is supporting that server. Really OSX on the server is good if you want general, normal sorts of things like DNS, a web server, file services, and you want a decent GUI and don't care too much about optimization. Especially so if you're in an otherwise Mac environment and know Macintosh as your platform.
Likewise, if your tech staff only understands Windows and you want a Windows file server in an otherwise Windows environment, it's probably easiest to get a Windows server.
Otherwise, I agree with the sentiment. Given the state of things, my ideal setup is OSX on the desktop and Linux in the server room, though Linux on the desktop sure is getting more attractive.
And why on earth does anyone think Linux will diminish in the server market? It's too.... well suited for that purpose.
I think it's fine so long as they keep the originals too. that's what annoys me about Star Wars-- it's not that Lucas wants to keep playing with it and releasing new versions, but that there isn't a DVD of the remastered original version.
It's important that we keep the originals intact, because that's our history. However, those old special effects are pretty dated, and I wouldn't mind seeing what someone could do with a little creativity. Hell, it might be fun if someone could take all the old footage as one source, and seeing if they could make different plot-lines from editing lone. Our dedication to history shouldn't stifle creativity.
I completely agree with you, though I wanted to point out that not every business can afford an IT staff.
That's fair. I've not dealt with IT support of companies of that size, and I suppose hosted services would be worthwhile for that, especially if they don't have the sort of information they're worried about being out in the open. It's one thing to have customer/personal correspondence through another company's e-mail server, but quite another if you're sending company confidential data between employees that you can't let go out of the company.
I'd rather they chance it, too. Personally I'd like to see someone in the open source community come up with a Windows security suite (firewall, antivirus, antispyware). Security needs lots of eyes on it, and should be free. We all benefit from fewer botted Windows machines, after all. However, I guess it goes against the political agenda of furthering free software, since one of the big reasons to switch from Windows is bad security. I'd still like to see it, though.
That's all great for uber l337 folks like yourself, but what about the rest of the world?
For business users, their IT staff should be hooking them up with some sort of VPN, or at least SSL access to the businesses own web server. For home users, TFA's apps are probably good, but I, for one, don't particularly like my data on other people's servers (and I don't think I would even if I didn't know any better).
Being able to access documents via the web from anywhere needs to be as easy as possible for regular joe's, otherwise they have no reason to leave MS Office.
How about the lack of open standards, the financial expense, and being forced into the vendor's upgrade cycle? Now, maybe that's not sufficient reason for many people, but it's certainly a reason.
Failing that, Dells should all come with the firewall on, and AV and anti-spyware installed and running with a 6 month subscription, as well as a note (in dead tree form) reminding the user that he needs to update and renew the stuff in 6 months.
Or Dells should start shipping with an OS that's more resilient to viruses and spyware. I'm not MS-bashing, it can be Vista for all I care (assuming Vista fits that description). Part of the problem is that the most popular security software (McAfee and Norton) are absolutely terrible, suck up computer resources, and cost too much.
I've known a lot of users who won't buy security software because they view it as an unreasonable cost. They've just bought a new computer, and now they're supposed to spend $100 a year to make it work properly? Plus, half the time these security package break as much as they fix. Suddenly users programs stop working or they can't connect to something because the firewall is blocking it.
That's just from the Joe Schmo perspective. From a more expert perspective, it still doesn't make sense, since much of what the security software does is plug up Microsoft's poorly designed security. Maybe I'm just spoiled by open-source software, but being able to operate a computer securely doesn't seem to me to be something people should have to pay extra for. It seems like it'd be better if security were open to the public for review, analysis, and optimization anyhow.
I didn't say in your documents folder, but in your profile, and at the same level as your documents folder. Sheesh.
Settings that should be (or even can be) per-user settings should definitely be in the user profile, and there's no excuse for them to be anywhere else. This was one of the stupidest things Windows used to do, which was to put config files in the actual install. First, it assumes that users will have write access to the installation directory, and second that all users will want the same settings.
In Windows, for example, all settings should be in "C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\%program name%\", and deleting that folder shouldn't break the application, but only cause it to revert to its default settings. Many developers follow that rule. Some, including Microsoft, do not.
That's what I was saying. Within a given user's profile, there should be a folder for documents, and at the same level, a folder for config files. Windows does this, except that there's an "application data" in your profile, and then another in a hidden sub-directory called "local settings", which is dumb. Also, if you look in the "application data" folder, it's a bit of a mess.
This is not how I read the OS X loader documentation. It looks first in the application's bundle, then in the user's Frameworks folder, then the system Frameworks folders. Then it gives up. It never looks in other applications bundles. This means that if you run two applications that use the same library, and they both have a copy in their bundles, you will need two memory resident copies (ever wonder why OS X seems to need much more RAM than other systems?) It also means that if you need to update the library then you need to update it in all of the bundles.
I think he's just advocating that we not use shared libraries unless they're included with the OS, which is what the drag-and-drop-install applications in OSX do. Yes, it means you use more RAM and more HD space, but it also solves some problems with installing/uninstalling applications, as well as adding stability. I used to have this problem on Windows all the time in the Win95 days:
So this sort of problem wouldn't happen if both apps just had their own version of whatever.dll instead of using a shared copy. I don't know what happened that made this less of a problem, but I never see that happen anymore. Still, I have suspected at times that some random instability I experience with Windows might be caused by this sort of thing.
And what about configuration files? Sometimes I uninstall an application because I want it gone. Sometimes I uninstall it because I want to install a new version. In the first case, I want configuration information to be deleted. In the second, I want it retained. The uninstaller needs to know which of these I'm doing. There is even the third case (although less common these days) that I am uninstalling it to free up some disk space, but I will want it back later. In this case, I probably want configuration files deleted.
My feeling is that configuration files (for most apps) should be in the user's profile (or "home directory", if you prefer). It should be easy to find and delete manually, by a user with little knowledge. Like there should be a folder in the profile for documents, and then a folder called "configuration files", "settings", or "preferences", with each app having a clearly named directory holding all its settings.
In fact, this is what pretty much all operating systems do. Even Windows encourages this behavior, even though the registry is always a problem, and some occasional developers still try to hide settings in the Windows or Program Files directory. Also, Windows splits this up, and some of the settings are held in a hidden "local settings" folder, which is completely retarded. But mostly, configuration files are held in the user's profile and not deleted by uninstall programs.
I do think, however, that uninstall programs should either offer to remove them for you, giving you the choice, or make note that configuration files remain in this directory or that. The reason is, many people try to fix programs by uninstalling and reinstalling, but sometimes the problem is in the configuration.
Of course you could starve and loot Microsoft and make a lot of money, but only if your plan is to dispose of the carcase before it begins to rot.
Too late already?
It's not that crazy an idea. I wonder, if Microsoft had fired their programming staff and R&D people years ago, cleared their buildings, and kept only their marketing team and their lawyers, would they have made fewer sales? Couldn't MS still be selling Windows 2000 and Office 2000 with just as much success?
The only difference I can think of is that it would have been harder to get people to pay for software assurance if Microsoft had admitted that they wouldn't release a substantially different product for 7 years, but other than that, what's the difference?
I have no actual knowledge on the subject whatsoever, but I'm going to just pull this out of my ass: it's management. Management sees Microsoft's business as relying entirely on Windows and Office, and their business model is to put every ounce of energy they can into sabotaging their competitors in those arenas and wringing every dime they can out of their customers for those two products. Microsoft's management has no interest in making a good product.
As for my qualms with Word, first there are things like the grammar check, which can be improved. Lots of little things could be better. Another example: I hate a lot of the autocorrection (which can be turned off, I know).
My second complaint is that all the other features get in the way. I know, it sounds stupid, but I've actually run into this problem quite a lot. The default view in Word 2003 is to be in page view (which is good for layout but not composing), with all the menu bars and such, and a "Getting Started" sidebar opened (comes up every time you open Word). Worse yet, with the sidebar opened on a 1024x768 screen, the 100% zoomed page layout is too wide, which means you have to scroll to see the whole page. I know, I know, these things can be customized, and you can go into "full screen mode". My point is, it's a whole lot of frustrating stuff on your screen which hinders concentration.
And I don't know, but I just had a lot of frustration trying to use the "styles" in Word. It should be a pretty simple thing, and I can't remember off-hand what all my problems were things like, I delete a word part way through a paragraph and suddenly the rest of the paragraph changes to another font. They're doing the right thing by having styles (like Heading 1, Normal, etc) but the way Word works, it doesn't encourage users to actually use those styles, and consequently they don't seem to be well tested and implemented. In my mind, they should implement something like the separation between HTML and CSS, but in a nice GUI fashion.
I guess that, when you come down to it, what I want for composition is something as lightweight as notepad.exe, but with a good spell-check and grammar-check, and some ability to tag blocks of text for later formatting (without having to memorize tags and type them in). Maybe throw in a couple extras like a word count. But make it so virtually the entire window is the text box, from the moment you open it. Then, separately, I want a layout application that will let me bring my graphics, text, spreadsheets, etc. into a specific layout for printing or display on the web.
Now, that's just what I want, but maybe I'm the only one.
You sound bitter. What, are you angry that we might be able to cure diseases without injecting ground-up-baby into people?
This is the kind of thing that we should be cracking down on, the commercial pirates, not teenagers and old ladies who download a song or two.
Well, yeah. This is what copyright law was actually intended to do-- stop publishers from making money by undercutting the people who invested their own time and money to bring something to market. The other stuff is just an abuse of the law.
I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but yes, I think the ribbon is pretty good. At the very least, I think it's about damn time that someone admitted that, in word processing, composing and formatting are two different tasks. Well, Microsoft still seems to think that formatting is part of composing, but at least they're recognizing that "layout" is different.
My feeling is, Microsoft Word is neither ideal for composing (as a writer) or formatting/layout (as a graphic designer). The reason for its success is that it's a jack of all trades, but I'd rather see it broken down into two tasks so that it can be closer to being a master of each.
We're all geeks here. All you had to say was Kobayashi Maru.
I was assuming that somebody knowledgable enough to know what they could use a router with torrent capabilities for would have things like monitor, keyboard and mouse at home, just in case.
Well, but that's the problem I'm trying to indicate, that I think there's room in the market to sell computing devices that can be turned into servers without requiring a whole bunch of extra junk to get it running. Maybe not. Maybe it's a niche market of people who know enough to set these things up, but aren't such hobbyists that they have tons of junk lying around. A USB key would be reasonable, since it's a pretty useful thing to have anyway, but even then, who offers a version of Linux that could easily be flashed to a USB key, and that has SSH turned on by default to a known password? I don't have a spare machine to build my own, but I'd need some way of getting the thing running headless from bare-metal.
Oh, my problem isn't installing Linux in general-- that's easy. But one of the things I'm trying to avoid is buying a CD drive, keyboard, or display for the initial setup.
All I have right now is a MacBook Pro. So the question I have in mind is, how do I install Linux without buying additional hardware that would only be useful to me for the initial install? I'm not saying it's impossible, but no easy methods jump out at me. Now, I'm exaggerating my situation because I can get what I need from work to get the job done, but I was trying to think about how normal home users can set up a home server with a little bit of know-how but not a lot of money.
Yeah, a Mac mini would do what I want, but if I use a Mac mini, I'm wasting a whole lot of computer. I'm not planning on using the graphics subsystem, audio, or CD drive, and it's far more powerful than I need. And I'm not going to use OSX, iLife stuff, or all sorts of other things.
Now, I don't really like waste things, especially my own money, so I was asking if anyone knew some something like a Mac mini, but less powerful without the stuff I don't want, for cheap.
huh... both of these look pretty interesting. But the deal is that KuroBox is more open? How tricky is it to reflash? Is there a real risk of bricking the thing?