"But I do know that Microsoft offers free tech support for desktops for the first two calls."
That doesn't sound dissimilar to Ubuntu's support prices then, assuming the Microsoft definition of "free". Which isn't surprising - the cost of a call centre doesn't change much just because of your product's choice of license.
"I really have no idea if Unbuntu has on demand phone in support or if you have to wait for them to call you back."
"Response time 4 hours" apparently - we're just guessing now, but I expect there are various options from different companies.
For home users, I would have thought that calling the vendor is pretty low on their list of fun things to do anyway. Certainly if it were me, I'd want to call the local shop or repair guy. And it sounds like that's what Ubuntu is encouraging, by providing support to those shops when they need it.
"But, I'm not really a Linux guy - so I'm not all that knowledgable on the subject. I have been itching to try it out, but I really don't have the time to try and set up a machine."
The best trick I found so far was removable hard disk caddies. You can try 10 different distros in turn on your second disk until you find one that installs flawlessly and seems generally amiable, and if anything fails, or if you want to do something else for a few days, you just put the other disk back and reboot to whatever your previous OS was. Very useful when anything fundamental in Linux isn't working and you want to ask someone on the internet what to do about it. Plus the hassle you save by not fscking around with formatting partitions and dual-booting.
Alternatively, have a second PC handy. e.g. you can get a Mac Mini for about the cost of a used cheeseburger and run web browsers, MS Office, Adobe stuff, and all the rest on that while playing with Linux on your PC. It can even do the internet connection, which makes Linux much easier (no internal winmodems or broadband USB modems to make your life difficult, just tell it to use the Mac as a gateway).
"I also don't have time to configure things I really don't understand."
Me neither, but I haven't noticed any obvious differences between operating systems in this area. It's not like kcontrol isn't a widget-for-widget copy of Windows configuration for example...
I've not had to edit any textfile configs on Ubuntu, if that's what you mean. The trick is probably to dump any distro which fails to configure the graphics properly the first time -- it's not worth the frustration if an installer leaves you fighting with xfree86 just to get a graphical desktop on your first install.
It's not that strange is it? How much did AOL and the rest use to pay to put icons on the default Windows desktop? And Google's business is advertising. People are paying $2/click for adwords on google.com and we're struggling to find a way that they could profit from skinning someone's entire desktop?
Remember we're only taking the cost of modifying an OS and distributing it on the net -- they don't exactly need to make much per install for it to be worthwhile.
Not that I know what they're thinking. If I were google, I'd leak rumours of a GoogleOS, just to scare the crap out of Microsoft. Although that would rather be sinking to their level.
"what does Google plan to do that Ubuntu isn't already doing?...|... How about live person tech support on the phone?"
I thought that sounded weird (the idea of a consumer Linux distro not offering phone support), so I just visited Ubuntu's website:
Support options, Premium package, "Phone support: Yes". $250 for 1 year of phone support for desktop PCs.
They also act as backup for other support options (such as local computer shops) who can answer simple questions themselves, and refer to Canonical for anything they don't know.
Most Linux distros have phone support now, I was tempted once to phone Mandrake (now Mandriva) but I got an answer from their paid support team via the web interface instead as it happens. I'm pretty sure that Suse, RedHat and all the rest will let you phone them if you pay for the person's time.
(Just as an order-of-magnitude reference, I googled "Microsoft support", and people are advertising "as low as £10 pcm", which is about $210 per year. I would look on support.microsoft.com, but I really don't have the bandwidth at the moment...)
Sounds like an interesting premise for discussion, rather than a concrete fact. As safety goes, I'll post a link to Category:Nuclear_accidents, and perhaps someone could provide the opposing argument with (say) the list of wind turbine accidents, or the list of hydroelectric generator accidents. They do seem to be rather in a field of their own, as safety goes.
As to cost, I seem to remember nuclear installations being rather unique in the level of government funding required to make their operation "profitable". Certainly I'd be interested to hear alternative figures on this, but the "nuclear-powered electricity will be so cheap that people won't need electricity meters" claim seems to have been dropped by the wayside.
I suppose efficiency is the third thing in that list, but not much to say about that other than nuclear reactors being pretty similar to gas ones in terms of heat to electricity. In terms of mass to energy, they benefit from the c^2 of course, or do you need to measure it in tons U sent off as radioactive waste per gram of U converted to energy?
That's rubbish. Plenty of people are forced to use Microsoft Software, including employees of most companies, and anyone who works for a government.
OK, theoretically people could quit their job, stop working in industry, install GNU on a computer that came with a full-price copy of Windows, stop filing tax returns, sending resumes, etc. if they wanted to avoid Microsoft Software, but that doesn't quite tally with "not being forced"
Well it also means much lower viewer figures, so if you're selling DVDs to 100 people, and 3 of them can't play it in Linux, or can't play it in Europe, you're going to hear about it pretty quick, whereas somebody selling a million DVDs through publishing companies, distribution companies, and nationwide chains of retail stores probably won't give a shit if 3% of viewers are inconvenienced by their digital restrictions management.
"GIMP fills the need for a nice photo editor for those who don't need tons of features, and don't want to pay for it"
I'd be interested to find out all the features Photoshop has though. People keep saying it's better than GIMP, but I've never used it to see what the fuss is about. What features does it have that you find useful?
Personally, I do need "tons of features", which is why I use the GIMP for most things (using layers, paths, fuzzy-edged selections, transparency, etc.). I don't have any problem with paying for software, so long as it's Free Software (as in, no stupid licensing restrictions), and available for all my computers (Windows, Mac, and Linux). What features can the Photoshop users suggest which would make my graphics editing easier?
"The UK has a lot of old houses (Victorian/Edwardian) and there is a snobbery against new houses"
Could be that most new houses here have low ceilings which make them unbearably hot in summer? There are also a lot of new houses which aren't built so well, whereas a Victorian house has obviously been built to last (and is still around, which the new houses won't be in 200 years...)
Location is sometimes a factor too. The houses which got built earliest picked the best spots. Modern houses might be in a "housing development" somewhere (i.e. no shops, pubs, etc. within waking distance) or in tall blocks of flats, or near a flood plain, or by a main road.
As people say, the insulation on old british houses is awful. But most of the modern alternatives seem to be very small and expensive by comparison.
Surely the turning point will be when those villagers have cameras and internet connections. There's no intrinsic requirement for journalists to white american men, especially when villages start getting mobile phones or $100 laptops. I think wikipedia/wikinews might be ideal for them...
Perhaps they could study what % of adult IT staff can correctly understand a software EULA, just as an example of the sort of contract which people are regularly expected to agree/refuse without any sort of legal assistance...
"the government seeks the data to enforce the Child Online Protection Act, designed to protect minors from pornography."
That's quite an interesting phrase isn't it? It's on all the news sites now (maybe from a newswire source?) but linguistially, look at it!
(Background info on the Child Online Protection Act is here, in case anyone hasn't seen it)
Briefly skimming the phrase would lead you to believe "the government seeks to protect minors from pornography", or more briefly "the government... protect... child... pornography". And in the spirit of headlines, RSS titles, etc., that's exactly what most people will understand.
But it relies on several assumptions. It assumes that enforcement of the COPA is related to the purpose of COPA. It assumes that COPA itself reflects the "intent" of COPA. It assumes the normal meanings of "protect", "children", and "pornography", all of which have a wide range of meanings in different situations.
The "enforcement" of COPA, as many people have noticed, was prevented by courts, which were interpreting US law, the US consitition, etc.
So by denying this request, Google appears to be siding with the US courts and with US law, and against someone who is in diagreement with the US courts. Or more simply, Google is refusing to cooperate with somebody who's trying to break the law (in the sense of trying to achieve something that the courts have said shouldn't be done).
Imagine "Police prevented a burglary attempt, which was designed to make lots of money and increase the standard of living for the burglar's family". Nobody writes that, because they don't care what the presumed intent was, when the action itself is much more extreme. Laws have to be clear and uncontradictory, so wouldn't it have been easier to write what COPA does in the summary, rather than what it intended to do?
"Kiddieporn laws badly need reformed. Why is legal to jerk it to movies of 18 year olds that are late bloomers+made up to look even younger, being simulated-kidnap and raped"
Because it doesn't involve using children (in the legal sense of that word) nor anyone who's not considered mature enough to reasonably understand what they're doing?
OK, the change doesn't take place instantly on someone's 18th birthday. But it's still worrying to see people equating "simulated" child porn (i.e. adult actors) with actual child porn (i.e. child abuse)
Interesting that the CNN article labels this as a "child porn case", while other news agencies say that the proposal being discussed applies to "regular" pornography (i.e. images of adults).
Has the phrase "child porn" changed in the last few years, so that it can reasonably be used in a newspaper to refer to pornography which doesn't involve children?
For example, CNN seems to be using "child porn" to refer to pornography which can be viewed by children. Does that mean that we can all start using the phrase in that way? Or does it mean that CNN is stretching the language so far as to mislead readers as to what they're saying?
"What is difference between Word on Windows and Mac that prevents those notorious macro virus?"
a) Nobody uses it
b) It's being discontinued
c) Nobody uses it.
Sorry, that was worth mentioning twice. Pages costs the same and is better. NeoOffice costs nothing and is compatible. And professional Mac users probably use something from Adobe or Macromedia (can't remember the product names) which make Word look like a toy
"Windows ships with ports open for non-essential services"
Not being a security expert myself, but when I installed various types of Linux, they all seem to have ports open for non-essential services. For example, my current machine (default KUbuntu) there's CUPS (I don't have a printer, but all sorts of applications complain when I try to remove it), XML-RPC (don't think I've ever used that), X11 (it's a desktop, why expose that to the network?) and interestingly enough seems to be listening on SMTP too.
As far as I can tell, that's about the same number of default open ports as Windows.
By comparison, my Mac seems to be showing just port 53 open -- not sure whether that's because it's routing internet requests from the PC...
"Now the DRM 'block;, can we not purchase that 'block' ?"
Of course not. You would merely "license" a single limited nonexclusive right to be able to use it under certain conditions. Purchases are so old-fashioned in the Microsoft era -- they'd imply that you owned the computer or something silly like that!
Just look at the back of a computer to see one of the great unsolved design problems -- there still seems to be a "rats' nest" of cables behind every computer.
My PC has about 6 mains leads, for the PC, the monitor, a desktop light, the speakers, the modem, the camera charger, etc. If I had an MP3 player, or a network hub, or a KVM box, or a printer, or a wireless mouse, they would all need mains cables too. 6-foot long cables, with massive plugs on the end, all sitting on the floor behind the computer. Surely a power strip inside the computer, or mains-power-carrying versions of the standard connectors (USB, video, PS/2, etc) aren't impossible to design?
Apple have had a go (wireless peripherals, merging the monitor power/DVI cable, integrating the computer/monitor, connecting the mouse to the keyboard to the monitor, etc.)
With all the spare space inside a tower PC, and with all the fantastic connector designs that people have come up with, there must be a better solution than having a USB hub with cables to the computer, cables to the camera, cables to the GPS, cables to the external disk, and with the hub on your desk anyway so you can plug-in a USB key easily. Apple computers have got USB ports on the back of the keyboard for this, but apparently they're not enough to plug a camera or USB key into (low power warnings)
"So why the WMF function in particular? What ADVANTAGE does it have as a back door, that other more-convenient exploits can't offer?"
Being in a section of code where auditors aren't looking for backdoors would be the obvious one. When security agencies etc. get their leaded Windows source code, you can bet they'll be scouring the internet, security, and user-authentication functions looking for anything suspicious. Who would be looking in an obscure image-handling function?
"my understanding is that the relevant WMF functions date back to the Win3.0 era (maybe Win2.0, not sure -- the earliest date I've seen was 1991) and in any event, long before M$ had much of a clue about the internet"
So would you trust the rest of that code?
How many more 1991-era functions are still processing data, on the latest versions of Windows? (which people are buying brand-new and installing on their critical infrastructure)
I'm still not entirely sure whether that was a joke. I received so many spam emails today (about 250 in my "normal" email account) that it's become easier to do a search for legitimate messages, than it is to delete the spam.
Slashdot Mirror
"But I do know that Microsoft offers free tech support for desktops for the first two calls."
That doesn't sound dissimilar to Ubuntu's support prices then, assuming the Microsoft definition of "free". Which isn't surprising - the cost of a call centre doesn't change much just because of your product's choice of license.
"I really have no idea if Unbuntu has on demand phone in support or if you have to wait for them to call you back."
"Response time 4 hours" apparently - we're just guessing now, but I expect there are various options from different companies.
For home users, I would have thought that calling the vendor is pretty low on their list of fun things to do anyway. Certainly if it were me, I'd want to call the local shop or repair guy. And it sounds like that's what Ubuntu is encouraging, by providing support to those shops when they need it.
"But, I'm not really a Linux guy - so I'm not all that knowledgable on the subject. I have been itching to try it out, but I really don't have the time to try and set up a machine."
The best trick I found so far was removable hard disk caddies. You can try 10 different distros in turn on your second disk until you find one that installs flawlessly and seems generally amiable, and if anything fails, or if you want to do something else for a few days, you just put the other disk back and reboot to whatever your previous OS was. Very useful when anything fundamental in Linux isn't working and you want to ask someone on the internet what to do about it. Plus the hassle you save by not fscking around with formatting partitions and dual-booting.
Alternatively, have a second PC handy. e.g. you can get a Mac Mini for about the cost of a used cheeseburger and run web browsers, MS Office, Adobe stuff, and all the rest on that while playing with Linux on your PC. It can even do the internet connection, which makes Linux much easier (no internal winmodems or broadband USB modems to make your life difficult, just tell it to use the Mac as a gateway).
"I also don't have time to configure things I really don't understand."
Me neither, but I haven't noticed any obvious differences between operating systems in this area. It's not like kcontrol isn't a widget-for-widget copy of Windows configuration for example...
I've not had to edit any textfile configs on Ubuntu, if that's what you mean. The trick is probably to dump any distro which fails to configure the graphics properly the first time -- it's not worth the frustration if an installer leaves you fighting with xfree86 just to get a graphical desktop on your first install.
"They plan on making it up in volume."
It's not that strange is it? How much did AOL and the rest use to pay to put icons on the default Windows desktop? And Google's business is advertising. People are paying $2/click for adwords on google.com and we're struggling to find a way that they could profit from skinning someone's entire desktop?
Remember we're only taking the cost of modifying an OS and distributing it on the net -- they don't exactly need to make much per install for it to be worthwhile.
Not that I know what they're thinking. If I were google, I'd leak rumours of a GoogleOS, just to scare the crap out of Microsoft. Although that would rather be sinking to their level.
"what does Google plan to do that Ubuntu isn't already doing? ...|... How about live person tech support on the phone?"
I thought that sounded weird (the idea of a consumer Linux distro not offering phone support), so I just visited Ubuntu's website:
Support options, Premium package, "Phone support: Yes". $250 for 1 year of phone support for desktop PCs.
They also act as backup for other support options (such as local computer shops) who can answer simple questions themselves, and refer to Canonical for anything they don't know.
Most Linux distros have phone support now, I was tempted once to phone Mandrake (now Mandriva) but I got an answer from their paid support team via the web interface instead as it happens. I'm pretty sure that Suse, RedHat and all the rest will let you phone them if you pay for the person's time.
(Just as an order-of-magnitude reference, I googled "Microsoft support", and people are advertising "as low as £10 pcm", which is about $210 per year. I would look on support.microsoft.com, but I really don't have the bandwidth at the moment...)
"Nuclear power is cheap, safe, and efficient."
Sounds like an interesting premise for discussion, rather than a concrete fact. As safety goes, I'll post a link to Category:Nuclear_accidents, and perhaps someone could provide the opposing argument with (say) the list of wind turbine accidents, or the list of hydroelectric generator accidents. They do seem to be rather in a field of their own, as safety goes.
As to cost, I seem to remember nuclear installations being rather unique in the level of government funding required to make their operation "profitable". Certainly I'd be interested to hear alternative figures on this, but the "nuclear-powered electricity will be so cheap that people won't need electricity meters" claim seems to have been dropped by the wayside.
I suppose efficiency is the third thing in that list, but not much to say about that other than nuclear reactors being pretty similar to gas ones in terms of heat to electricity. In terms of mass to energy, they benefit from the c^2 of course, or do you need to measure it in tons U sent off as radioactive waste per gram of U converted to energy?
"why would someone go pay good money for a mac, only to install RadHat?"
Because the Mac is as cheap as the equivalent PC hardware, and because RedHat is a better operating system than Mac OS X?
"No one is forced to use Microsoft software."
That's rubbish. Plenty of people are forced to use Microsoft Software, including employees of most companies, and anyone who works for a government.
OK, theoretically people could quit their job, stop working in industry, install GNU on a computer that came with a full-price copy of Windows, stop filing tax returns, sending resumes, etc. if they wanted to avoid Microsoft Software, but that doesn't quite tally with "not being forced"
"Yes, but I like using my pc as a space heater."
Heatsinks and fans aren't going to reduce the amount of heat being produced by your PC...
Well it also means much lower viewer figures, so if you're selling DVDs to 100 people, and 3 of them can't play it in Linux, or can't play it in Europe, you're going to hear about it pretty quick, whereas somebody selling a million DVDs through publishing companies, distribution companies, and nationwide chains of retail stores probably won't give a shit if 3% of viewers are inconvenienced by their digital restrictions management.
"GIMP fills the need for a nice photo editor for those who don't need tons of features, and don't want to pay for it"
I'd be interested to find out all the features Photoshop has though. People keep saying it's better than GIMP, but I've never used it to see what the fuss is about. What features does it have that you find useful?
Personally, I do need "tons of features", which is why I use the GIMP for most things (using layers, paths, fuzzy-edged selections, transparency, etc.). I don't have any problem with paying for software, so long as it's Free Software (as in, no stupid licensing restrictions), and available for all my computers (Windows, Mac, and Linux). What features can the Photoshop users suggest which would make my graphics editing easier?
"The UK has a lot of old houses (Victorian/Edwardian) and there is a snobbery against new houses"
Could be that most new houses here have low ceilings which make them unbearably hot in summer? There are also a lot of new houses which aren't built so well, whereas a Victorian house has obviously been built to last (and is still around, which the new houses won't be in 200 years...)
Location is sometimes a factor too. The houses which got built earliest picked the best spots. Modern houses might be in a "housing development" somewhere (i.e. no shops, pubs, etc. within waking distance) or in tall blocks of flats, or near a flood plain, or by a main road.
As people say, the insulation on old british houses is awful. But most of the modern alternatives seem to be very small and expensive by comparison.
Surely the turning point will be when those villagers have cameras and internet connections. There's no intrinsic requirement for journalists to white american men, especially when villages start getting mobile phones or $100 laptops. I think wikipedia/wikinews might be ideal for them...
Perhaps they could study what % of adult IT staff can correctly understand a software EULA, just as an example of the sort of contract which people are regularly expected to agree/refuse without any sort of legal assistance...
"MSN works closely with law enforcement officials ... The company would not confirm or deny whether it complied with the Justice Department's subpoena"
Sounds like they've been hanging around with the officials a bit too long...
"the government seeks the data to enforce the Child Online Protection Act, designed to protect minors from pornography."
That's quite an interesting phrase isn't it? It's on all the news sites now (maybe from a newswire source?) but linguistially, look at it!
(Background info on the Child Online Protection Act is here, in case anyone hasn't seen it)
Briefly skimming the phrase would lead you to believe "the government seeks to protect minors from pornography", or more briefly "the government... protect... child... pornography". And in the spirit of headlines, RSS titles, etc., that's exactly what most people will understand.
But it relies on several assumptions. It assumes that enforcement of the COPA is related to the purpose of COPA. It assumes that COPA itself reflects the "intent" of COPA. It assumes the normal meanings of "protect", "children", and "pornography", all of which have a wide range of meanings in different situations.
The "enforcement" of COPA, as many people have noticed, was prevented by courts, which were interpreting US law, the US consitition, etc.
So by denying this request, Google appears to be siding with the US courts and with US law, and against someone who is in diagreement with the US courts. Or more simply, Google is refusing to cooperate with somebody who's trying to break the law (in the sense of trying to achieve something that the courts have said shouldn't be done).
Imagine "Police prevented a burglary attempt, which was designed to make lots of money and increase the standard of living for the burglar's family". Nobody writes that, because they don't care what the presumed intent was, when the action itself is much more extreme. Laws have to be clear and uncontradictory, so wouldn't it have been easier to write what COPA does in the summary, rather than what it intended to do?
"Kiddieporn laws badly need reformed. Why is legal to jerk it to movies of 18 year olds that are late bloomers+made up to look even younger, being simulated-kidnap and raped"
Because it doesn't involve using children (in the legal sense of that word) nor anyone who's not considered mature enough to reasonably understand what they're doing?
OK, the change doesn't take place instantly on someone's 18th birthday. But it's still worrying to see people equating "simulated" child porn (i.e. adult actors) with actual child porn (i.e. child abuse)
"I hate child porn and all that, but..."
Interesting that the CNN article labels this as a "child porn case", while other news agencies say that the proposal being discussed applies to "regular" pornography (i.e. images of adults).
Has the phrase "child porn" changed in the last few years, so that it can reasonably be used in a newspaper to refer to pornography which doesn't involve children?
For example, CNN seems to be using "child porn" to refer to pornography which can be viewed by children. Does that mean that we can all start using the phrase in that way? Or does it mean that CNN is stretching the language so far as to mislead readers as to what they're saying?
"What is difference between Word on Windows and Mac that prevents those notorious macro virus?"
a) Nobody uses it
b) It's being discontinued
c) Nobody uses it.
Sorry, that was worth mentioning twice. Pages costs the same and is better. NeoOffice costs nothing and is compatible. And professional Mac users probably use something from Adobe or Macromedia (can't remember the product names) which make Word look like a toy
"Windows ships with ports open for non-essential services"
Not being a security expert myself, but when I installed various types of Linux, they all seem to have ports open for non-essential services. For example, my current machine (default KUbuntu) there's CUPS (I don't have a printer, but all sorts of applications complain when I try to remove it), XML-RPC (don't think I've ever used that), X11 (it's a desktop, why expose that to the network?) and interestingly enough seems to be listening on SMTP too.
As far as I can tell, that's about the same number of default open ports as Windows.
By comparison, my Mac seems to be showing just port 53 open -- not sure whether that's because it's routing internet requests from the PC...
"I'll be looking forward to the "Wikipedia Kills Baby Seals" article tomorrow."
Aren't all seals adults?
"Now the DRM 'block;, can we not purchase that 'block' ?"
Of course not. You would merely "license" a single limited nonexclusive right to be able to use it under certain conditions. Purchases are so old-fashioned in the Microsoft era -- they'd imply that you owned the computer or something silly like that!
Just look at the back of a computer to see one of the great unsolved design problems -- there still seems to be a "rats' nest" of cables behind every computer.
My PC has about 6 mains leads, for the PC, the monitor, a desktop light, the speakers, the modem, the camera charger, etc. If I had an MP3 player, or a network hub, or a KVM box, or a printer, or a wireless mouse, they would all need mains cables too. 6-foot long cables, with massive plugs on the end, all sitting on the floor behind the computer. Surely a power strip inside the computer, or mains-power-carrying versions of the standard connectors (USB, video, PS/2, etc) aren't impossible to design?
Apple have had a go (wireless peripherals, merging the monitor power/DVI cable, integrating the computer/monitor, connecting the mouse to the keyboard to the monitor, etc.)
With all the spare space inside a tower PC, and with all the fantastic connector designs that people have come up with, there must be a better solution than having a USB hub with cables to the computer, cables to the camera, cables to the GPS, cables to the external disk, and with the hub on your desk anyway so you can plug-in a USB key easily. Apple computers have got USB ports on the back of the keyboard for this, but apparently they're not enough to plug a camera or USB key into (low power warnings)
"So why the WMF function in particular? What ADVANTAGE does it have as a back door, that other more-convenient exploits can't offer?"
Being in a section of code where auditors aren't looking for backdoors would be the obvious one. When security agencies etc. get their leaded Windows source code, you can bet they'll be scouring the internet, security, and user-authentication functions looking for anything suspicious. Who would be looking in an obscure image-handling function?
"my understanding is that the relevant WMF functions date back to the Win3.0 era (maybe Win2.0, not sure -- the earliest date I've seen was 1991) and in any event, long before M$ had much of a clue about the internet"
So would you trust the rest of that code?
How many more 1991-era functions are still processing data, on the latest versions of Windows? (which people are buying brand-new and installing on their critical infrastructure)
"The main problem here is that your wife is an idiot"
Ahhh, Slashdot diplomacy. Can't beat it...
I have gotten 7 today alone. Argh.
I'm still not entirely sure whether that was a joke. I received so many spam emails today (about 250 in my "normal" email account) that it's become easier to do a search for legitimate messages, than it is to delete the spam.