Puppy is awesome with old hardware. My parents have used it successfully as well... the most difficult part is wireless connections, but the wizard has gotten better lately. It's still a little confusing if you don'mt know what you're doing (e.g., what's DHCP, etc).
It's been a dream of mine to have a universal easy-to-use Linux instruction manual... e.g., exactly what you described: a "this is how I do this in Windows, can I do that in Linux" or a "This is the program I use in Windows, what do I use in Linux?"
The problem is, all the Linux distros are so different it seems they can't decide on a common way to do something. That's something Windows has as a major advantage. The Start menu is still the Start menu. Programs use Add/Remove Programs. Right clicking usually gives quite consistent results... etc.
Yes, it's that simple... and for most people, they don't want to research all that.
And if Linux wants to be popular with those people, it's going to have to change a bit.
It's more than knowing how a computer works. The only thing you're talking about right now is software. You're not talking about having to know how a graphics card works in order to use it. You're talking about software configuration. But the problem I have with your simplistic explanation is this: for most people, a generic configuration does work nicely.
And allow me to say I'm glad "Linux" didn't make my digital camera. I'd hate to have to go research on forums just to figure out how to take a picture at a different resolution than it was set at;) Joking aside, I'm somewhat serious. Most people want to research how to configure things they like working on. Most people don't like working on the computer... most people like working on something ELSE on the computer.
Well, I used K-Meleon and Konqueror on Linux. There's the Gnome one but I forgot what that is.
I don't know if seamonkey and icweweasel have Windows builds. I actually preferred it to Firefox on slower boxes that I installed with Linux... they both actually worked fairly well.
Opera is actually kinda nifty, but I still prefer Chrome at the moment:)
Right. They shouldn't have any sort of internal displaying method for their OS.
I'm afraid most of the world doesn't care that they use IE when they use Windows Update. And those that care as much as you appear to probably don't use Windows;):)
Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, K-Meleon, Konqueror, SeaMonkey, IceWeasel, and that's about all I can name.
Of course, IceWeasel and SeaMonkey are forks of Firefox I guess. On the whole, I agree with the GP - offering 11 browsers is ridiculous. Unfortunately, that was probably the only way to be "fair" to everyone... except the end user.
I would have rather had the EU tell Microsoft "You can keep your browser but you have to get it up to current standards." THAT would have accomplished something good.
Uh, forced? For-profit private companies should be forced to offer certain software packages to their customers?
That makes no sense at all. Unless you don't particularly like companies being able to choose what they do and would rather mandate what they do in the name of "common good" and the like. Of course, then you get to figure out just who gets to decide what the "common good" is for everyone else.
For the same reason they think what parents' teach their children about anything (culture, religion, science grammar, etc) is their business just because they are a public school.
The really bad part? Parents' don't care until something like this happens. When this blows over, it will be back to normal: public school raises your children and gives them what conceptions, perceptions, and ideas it wants. At the moment, ideas from the 60s seem to rule, for the most part.
Exactly opposite, though: It's not a new law. It's an interpretation of an old law to see if it applies to something new. And it did. Thus we DON'T need new laws.
But my question is: how is this any different from any random person sending giant e-mail addresses to your servers? Isn't that fairly easy to do, without a bug in a client?
Yes, it's a bug. Yes, it's a major bug. Yes, it's a major bug in an open beta. Of course, not having read the article, I have no idea HOW MANY people or how many e-mails it affected, how it affects them, etc. I don't know if it's sent e-mails or received e-mails - it sounds like it's sent e-mails, otherwise the ywouldn't bother saying that it's not retroactive (duh, it can't fix e-mails on someone else's servers!). But how is a bug in a beta big news?
You may as well report on a Thunderbird bug found in beta. I'm not sure that would be big news. I'm sure bugs are found in Mozilla products during lots of betas.
In fact, the Opera 10.5 beta crashed on me while going to gmail. Twice in a row. I was not surprised. And I wasn't using it for my business.
Heh heh. I thought about Gmail. First, it's not in beta anymore, right?;)
Second, don't they have an "enterprise" sort of e-mail hosting?
Third, there HAVE been gmail outages that affected businesses. My response was: serves you right for choosing a beta, even from Google, to do your important stuff. If it's really that important, maybe one should consider a competent system administrator to do your infrastructure for you...
Uhhh. I could give you an e-mail client that you could use against real servers, too. I still don't see how this is news. It's a beta. If someone is running an important e-mail system and using a beta, they're crazy...
at the cost of usability and freedom in the distro, such as the recent decision to use Yahoo search (powered by Bing) as the default)?
I was with you somewhat on usability - though bing is actually pretty usable IMO - but how is using Yahoo or Bing (or any other search) instead of Google a "freedom" issue? Can't you change it?
I'm not sure about that. I've been around stoned people and I've been around really tired people. Really tired people don't seem to have the same mental differences from their normal state than stoned people. Stoned people seem to lose certain asepcts of their personality. IQ? Sure, maybe that doesn't go down. But IQ isn't all you want your doctor to be. You'd also like to have your doctor, say, empathetic to your pain, realize what time it is, etc. Really tired people don't seem to have quite the same brain "skew" that someone who is stoned does.
I never suggested OO.org was not bloated too - its written in Java after all:)
Yes... I remember (I think?) that the "Java" part was optional or something like that. *sigh* If only.
Anyway OO.org 3.2 is out now, I've upgraded, its free and a good tool all thigns considered so thanks for a good job to all who contibuted to it.
Yup, in total agreement here. I think MS Office is pretty decent and could be worth the price to some people... but OO.org is definitely worth more than free. But it's nice that it's free... hehe.
Many would argue that being, for example, a devout Christian is stupid because you "miss out" on all the "fun" in life. Furthermore, many argue that religion of any sort is antithetical to intelligence. Do I agree? No. I'm simply saying that it is not at all universally held.
And there have been some very intelligent self-serving people.
Regarding what people teach in music classes - speaking from my training, we were taught to learn what "worked" from other composers, and don't just copy it.:)
The very terms you use imply non-ingenuity though. "Brute-forcing creativity" is not creativity, in my book.
Plus, there appear to be some things computers simply cannot do through brute force. Take music, for instance. How would a computer analyze the 1000's of works and compose a new, super-creative work? At best, the computer's "composition" would be derivative; at worst, it would be a conglomeration of similar traits that it found in various music. And would probably sound horrible. Sure, the computer could be told to stay within certain music theory rules and progressions... and I suppose it could analyze music and learn where composers break those rules... and there again, the computer is being extraordinarily derivative.
It's the difference between saying that the height of a Mozart piece appears to generally coordinate with the golden ratio and actually being able to compose a completely new piece of music with its own differences that still "coordinates" with the golden ratio. I don't know if a computer can really do that. Yes, the computer could come up with every possible subset - perhaps, with infinite processing ability - but how would it choose which piece it "liked" the best? Similar traits with other music? Similar chord progressions? Similar time? Similar... etc.
Plus, there are things that I'm not sure you really could compute. For example, some pieces of music have climactic moments that may not appear to be climactic until you actually hear it. On paper or in theory, it may not look like it.
Perhaps this is too aural and that's why it'd be difficult, but... well hey, if the computer doesn't tie in sensory perception to its creativity, I'm not sure how good "AI" that is...:)
That is only if you think that "intelligence" is similar to "altruism."
There's no reason to assume that very intelligent, smart, and even wise people are not simply living for their own pleasure. And if you live for your own pleasure, you are trying to fulfill carnal desires.
Besides. What good is advancing civilization? I'm going to be dead in under 100 years. *
* note: I actually have a very different worldview than that, but it doesn't come from science, AI, or an altruistic more-intelligent nature.:)
Calculation speed? An abacus was smarter than humans.
Memory? Not sure who wins that.
Ingenuity? Humans seem to rule on this one. I don't know if I count analyzing every single possible permutation of outcomes as "ingenuity." And I'm not sure we really understand what creativity, ingenuity, etc., really are in our brains.
Consciousness? We can barely define that, let alone define it for a computer.
It seems most people seem to think "calculation speed and memory" when they talk about computer "intelligence."
Offhand, I don't know what sort of "deals" the other providers have made with Iran... e.g., maybe Yahoo already allows Iran's government access to e-mail or something like that? Perhaps Google didn't?
Or perhaps gmail is the only significant webmail provider over there and the others have
Slashdot Mirror
Puppy is awesome with old hardware. My parents have used it successfully as well... the most difficult part is wireless connections, but the wizard has gotten better lately. It's still a little confusing if you don'mt know what you're doing (e.g., what's DHCP, etc).
It's been a dream of mine to have a universal easy-to-use Linux instruction manual... e.g., exactly what you described: a "this is how I do this in Windows, can I do that in Linux" or a "This is the program I use in Windows, what do I use in Linux?"
The problem is, all the Linux distros are so different it seems they can't decide on a common way to do something. That's something Windows has as a major advantage. The Start menu is still the Start menu. Programs use Add/Remove Programs. Right clicking usually gives quite consistent results... etc.
Yes, it's that simple... and for most people, they don't want to research all that.
And if Linux wants to be popular with those people, it's going to have to change a bit.
It's more than knowing how a computer works. The only thing you're talking about right now is software. You're not talking about having to know how a graphics card works in order to use it. You're talking about software configuration. But the problem I have with your simplistic explanation is this: for most people, a generic configuration does work nicely.
And allow me to say I'm glad "Linux" didn't make my digital camera. I'd hate to have to go research on forums just to figure out how to take a picture at a different resolution than it was set at ;) Joking aside, I'm somewhat serious. Most people want to research how to configure things they like working on. Most people don't like working on the computer... most people like working on something ELSE on the computer.
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.
Ah yes, AOL... good thing that's an option! Much better than IE.
I've heard of Avant and Flock. I've never heard of Maxthon, Sleipnir, or Slim Browser. I've used Avant and disliked it.
This seems remarkably ... pointless, as someone else said.
Well, I used K-Meleon and Konqueror on Linux. There's the Gnome one but I forgot what that is.
I don't know if seamonkey and icweweasel have Windows builds. I actually preferred it to Firefox on slower boxes that I installed with Linux... they both actually worked fairly well.
Opera is actually kinda nifty, but I still prefer Chrome at the moment :)
Right. They shouldn't have any sort of internal displaying method for their OS.
I'm afraid most of the world doesn't care that they use IE when they use Windows Update. And those that care as much as you appear to probably don't use Windows ;) :)
Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, K-Meleon, Konqueror, SeaMonkey, IceWeasel, and that's about all I can name.
Of course, IceWeasel and SeaMonkey are forks of Firefox I guess. On the whole, I agree with the GP - offering 11 browsers is ridiculous. Unfortunately, that was probably the only way to be "fair" to everyone... except the end user.
I would have rather had the EU tell Microsoft "You can keep your browser but you have to get it up to current standards." THAT would have accomplished something good.
Uh, forced? For-profit private companies should be forced to offer certain software packages to their customers?
That makes no sense at all. Unless you don't particularly like companies being able to choose what they do and would rather mandate what they do in the name of "common good" and the like. Of course, then you get to figure out just who gets to decide what the "common good" is for everyone else.
For the same reason they think what parents' teach their children about anything (culture, religion, science grammar, etc) is their business just because they are a public school.
The really bad part? Parents' don't care until something like this happens. When this blows over, it will be back to normal: public school raises your children and gives them what conceptions, perceptions, and ideas it wants. At the moment, ideas from the 60s seem to rule, for the most part.
Exactly opposite, though: It's not a new law. It's an interpretation of an old law to see if it applies to something new. And it did. Thus we DON'T need new laws.
But my question is: how is this any different from any random person sending giant e-mail addresses to your servers? Isn't that fairly easy to do, without a bug in a client?
Yes, it's a bug. Yes, it's a major bug. Yes, it's a major bug in an open beta. Of course, not having read the article, I have no idea HOW MANY people or how many e-mails it affected, how it affects them, etc. I don't know if it's sent e-mails or received e-mails - it sounds like it's sent e-mails, otherwise the ywouldn't bother saying that it's not retroactive (duh, it can't fix e-mails on someone else's servers!). But how is a bug in a beta big news?
You may as well report on a Thunderbird bug found in beta. I'm not sure that would be big news. I'm sure bugs are found in Mozilla products during lots of betas.
In fact, the Opera 10.5 beta crashed on me while going to gmail. Twice in a row. I was not surprised. And I wasn't using it for my business.
Heh heh. I thought about Gmail. First, it's not in beta anymore, right? ;)
Second, don't they have an "enterprise" sort of e-mail hosting?
Third, there HAVE been gmail outages that affected businesses. My response was: serves you right for choosing a beta, even from Google, to do your important stuff. If it's really that important, maybe one should consider a competent system administrator to do your infrastructure for you...
Uhhh. I could give you an e-mail client that you could use against real servers, too. I still don't see how this is news. It's a beta. If someone is running an important e-mail system and using a beta, they're crazy...
at the cost of usability and freedom in the distro, such as the recent decision to use Yahoo search (powered by Bing) as the default)?
I was with you somewhat on usability - though bing is actually pretty usable IMO - but how is using Yahoo or Bing (or any other search) instead of Google a "freedom" issue? Can't you change it?
I'm not sure about that. I've been around stoned people and I've been around really tired people. Really tired people don't seem to have the same mental differences from their normal state than stoned people. Stoned people seem to lose certain asepcts of their personality. IQ? Sure, maybe that doesn't go down. But IQ isn't all you want your doctor to be. You'd also like to have your doctor, say, empathetic to your pain, realize what time it is, etc. Really tired people don't seem to have quite the same brain "skew" that someone who is stoned does.
I never suggested OO.org was not bloated too - its written in Java after all :)
Yes... I remember (I think?) that the "Java" part was optional or something like that. *sigh* If only.
Anyway OO.org 3.2 is out now, I've upgraded, its free and a good tool all thigns considered so thanks for a good job to all who contibuted to it.
Yup, in total agreement here. I think MS Office is pretty decent and could be worth the price to some people... but OO.org is definitely worth more than free. But it's nice that it's free... hehe.
As opposed to the bloat in OpenOffice I guess.
Of course, some people think any software with more functionality than Notepad is bloat.
Either way, so far I do feel MS Office is more polished than OO.org, but OO.org has come a long, long way. And it's free. So, I use OO.org. :)
Many would argue that being, for example, a devout Christian is stupid because you "miss out" on all the "fun" in life. Furthermore, many argue that religion of any sort is antithetical to intelligence. Do I agree? No. I'm simply saying that it is not at all universally held.
And there have been some very intelligent self-serving people.
Regarding what people teach in music classes - speaking from my training, we were taught to learn what "worked" from other composers, and don't just copy it. :)
The very terms you use imply non-ingenuity though. "Brute-forcing creativity" is not creativity, in my book.
Plus, there appear to be some things computers simply cannot do through brute force. Take music, for instance. How would a computer analyze the 1000's of works and compose a new, super-creative work? At best, the computer's "composition" would be derivative; at worst, it would be a conglomeration of similar traits that it found in various music. And would probably sound horrible. Sure, the computer could be told to stay within certain music theory rules and progressions... and I suppose it could analyze music and learn where composers break those rules ... and there again, the computer is being extraordinarily derivative.
It's the difference between saying that the height of a Mozart piece appears to generally coordinate with the golden ratio and actually being able to compose a completely new piece of music with its own differences that still "coordinates" with the golden ratio. I don't know if a computer can really do that. Yes, the computer could come up with every possible subset - perhaps, with infinite processing ability - but how would it choose which piece it "liked" the best? Similar traits with other music? Similar chord progressions? Similar time? Similar ... etc.
Plus, there are things that I'm not sure you really could compute. For example, some pieces of music have climactic moments that may not appear to be climactic until you actually hear it. On paper or in theory, it may not look like it.
Perhaps this is too aural and that's why it'd be difficult, but... well hey, if the computer doesn't tie in sensory perception to its creativity, I'm not sure how good "AI" that is... :)
That is only if you think that "intelligence" is similar to "altruism."
There's no reason to assume that very intelligent, smart, and even wise people are not simply living for their own pleasure. And if you live for your own pleasure, you are trying to fulfill carnal desires.
Besides. What good is advancing civilization? I'm going to be dead in under 100 years. *
* note: I actually have a very different worldview than that, but it doesn't come from science, AI, or an altruistic more-intelligent nature. :)
Please define "intelligence."
Calculation speed? An abacus was smarter than humans.
Memory? Not sure who wins that.
Ingenuity? Humans seem to rule on this one. I don't know if I count analyzing every single possible permutation of outcomes as "ingenuity." And I'm not sure we really understand what creativity, ingenuity, etc., really are in our brains.
Consciousness? We can barely define that, let alone define it for a computer.
It seems most people seem to think "calculation speed and memory" when they talk about computer "intelligence."
Offhand, I don't know what sort of "deals" the other providers have made with Iran... e.g., maybe Yahoo already allows Iran's government access to e-mail or something like that? Perhaps Google didn't?
Or perhaps gmail is the only significant webmail provider over there and the others have
Ah, ok.
Isn't Maya on Mac? I thought Maya did 3D modeling... I know it does animation... (I don't personally use it, my brother does.)