KDE has dCop, which nearly all apps support. dBus is coming along that GNOME is likely to support (I think they have their own version already COBRA or something?) Combine that with scripting language of your choice (python has KDE bindings so that might be easiest) and you have must the same thing. There is even a REXX port for Unix somewhere if you like REXX.
Mind I've never used an Amiga so I'm not sure if they are used the same, but they could be.
I don't know, I can feel the text on laser printouts, it is just plastic and has a feel. I don't have any impact printed samples to test.
Not being blind I can't comment on readability (well I could attempt to learn it, but seems like too much effort). I would note though that prior to the invention of Braille blind were taught to read "raised relief" letters, which were basically the above without much success, once Braille was introduced they had no trouble reading. I suspect that neither system would work well for blind people.
The DMCA contains an obscure clause about interoperability, what does this mean? That is could I break encryption to allow DVD player to work, so long as I maintained the spirit of the encryption (not allowing copies)? Can I break the encryption on various games to allow them to run under Wine?
I've used kde since the 1.0 days, upgrading all along on my dual ppro-200. Even in the slowest 2.0 days, it ran fast enough on my system. Sure I turned the eye-candy slider way down when I configured KDE the first time, but that is all. It works, and is fast enough.
The only time I have problems is when I hear the harddrive grinding away, swapping. Even then I'm running something heavy duty in addition to KDE, something that can take up most of my memory alone.
To clarify, the customer only printed text. That old printer was sitting right behind the secritarys chair. A laser printer makes perfect sense, only a couple hundred bucks, and nearly silent. (I know a lot of deaf people, I hate to add to their number) If they had an old laser I would have found drivers for it, but the dot-matrix just isn't worth it. (Unless you use multi-part forms, and even then I'd wonder if the processes can change to not needing them)
As for ink savings: I ment replace the ink-jet with a laser, which would save a lot on ink because toner is cheaper per page than ink.
When people contract with me, they do it because I know technology better than they do. I don't expect them to know anything about printers, and the advantages of new ones, that is what they hire me for. Sure I could make the old one work, but it isn't the right solution. Anyone can tell by looking that their text quality wasn't good. Now their text looks just as professional as anyone else's. They knew that old printer was noisy, but didn't know that it didn't have to be that way. I know enough deaf people as it is, I prefer not to add to that number, and if they only knew it they would thank me. (damage is already done, but at least more isn't being done)
In summary: It's disgusting that you would make an non-idea solution work when for just a few extra dollars you could come up with a much better solution. Contracters are hired to solve problems, both ones the customer knows about, and ones they do not.
Right, sort of, but the only reason to use a dot-matrix printer these days is you have a boatload of carbonless multipart forms, and programs and procedures setup to use them. This client did not have that, they used their dot-matrix printer without a color ribbon (if indeed one was available) to print text. A laser printer is about the same cost per page, but only a blind man could claim no difference in output quality. Combine that with the lack of noise, and upgrading is a no-brainier.
True you can just stream text to the parallel port, but generally you stream graphics, which just happens to be a picture of the text. There is no other way to get fonts correct. (Not that they care about fonts)
Yes the driver was built in. It wasn't worth looking for. (No way to auto-detect this printer as opposed to an Oki-data or other brand) Laser printers are cheap nowadays. Perhaps not quite as high quality as that old printer, but if they have to replace it every 10 years, it isn't a big cost. In the meantime they no longer have that printer making noise behind their chair all day long. Just the savings on the ears seem worth it to me. (I know a lot of older deaf people)
So long as Windows doesn't have the security to prevent it[1], that $300 is a recurring expense. Sure a new computer would solve the virus/spyware issues, but either way you will have the same problem back again in 3 months. So your choice: pay the tech $300 every 3 months to fix the problem, or buy a new machine for $800, plus figure out how to migrate your data to the new machine (perhaps hire the tech to do it, perhaps $100?).
[1]Linux and Macs would suffer the same problem if they had the market share of windows. It is now known how much though, either appears more secure on the surface. It might be less because of that, but we can't know.
Last (well the only) time I helped someone out, I did in fact sell them a printer instead of look for a driver. I'm sure Windows XP has a dirver for their Epson dot-matrix printer, but the fact remains that it is obsolete, and not worth the time (10 minutes max) to find it. Even though it took longer hook up the new one. In the long run they are better off without that old noisy thing. Their text looks a lot better too, laser print looks a lot nicer than dot-matrix.
If their old printer was an ink-jet I would have sold them the new one just on the basis of ink savings, but at least an ink-jet has a place, if you do color.
While evaluating your other questions, here is one more: are you still the right type of business? Perhaps you should be a corporation, or if you are, change to a different type. Lawyers and books can advise you on differences between "chapter C", "chapter S" and others[1]. Remember that what is right now wasn't right when you were alone, and won't be right latter on if when you grow, or laws change, so keep on top of this.
Running a business is hard. There is however charities of retired executives who exist to help people like you. Look into this, and get their advice. It isn't always worth following, but they may have advice that can really help you out. For that matter, you might be better off hiring a good president to handle the business while you do the tech work you are good at.
[1]I doubt that a public corporation is right for your size, but it might be worth checking out if you have an odd situation you didn't tell us about. Or perhaps you are still small enough that the risk of not being a corporation is worth it.
A large scale war that called up not just everyone of normal "war going" age, but also everyone who we could get to hold a gun. And think civil war, where it is on home turf, people are willing to fight. In general Americans are not willing to take out women. In my original post I all but said this is an extremely unlikely situation, so that is seems like a stretch shouldn't surprise you, it is intended to be an extreme and unlikely situation.
Agreed, but in an emergency this might be needed. An unlikely emergency, but if it ever happend those survivors would wish strongly that it was a goal up until it was needed. Because we don't know when/if the worst case will be reached, we need to act as if we believe it really will happen just in case. Well, at least as far as practical, when discussing worst cases you always need to balance the effect on your life, some things are not worth the other costs they bring.
In the real world my handwriting is if anything worse. I don't have the fine motor abilities to do better. Fortunately in the real world everything is either typed, or done with a template (straight edge) so I can easily avoid the situations where I need to writing abilities. It helps that I choose a career in computer programing. Even when I work in something like carpentry, most of the work doesn't require anything nice, and if I can read my 10 minutes latter that is good enough. My career choices are limited a little, but not much as you might think, at least in my experience.
Note, abilities, as opposed to skills which practice helps. This also means I don't throw baseballs well, and other such things. though if I practiced I'd have the power, just not the control to get it where I want it
All the advice above is okay, but you can easily ad $30,000 in extras by following it, and you will never get it back when you sell.
Figure out what you want and put it in. I'd go cable TV to each room, and a two runs of cat-5/6, one for phone, one for network. Wireless works great for a lot of purposes, use it!
Put surround sound jacks in the rooms where you will use it - family room, and perhaps living room.
Run two cable runs to the attic for future satellite and antennas. Hook them up if you want latter.
Forget about conduit, it sounds nice, but will you ever use it? Even if you will, will it help? For a single story house it is easy to come up from the basement/crawlspace where you need wires. Even for a two story, do you really think you will ever want more wires in the bedrooms? For that matter I've been in houses that have been completely re-wired a couple times, and you can't tell from the inside. Wall spaces are empty, meaning they serve double duty as conduit.
BUT WATCH THE MONEY. All these add ons cost money, a little planning will reveal that not much is likely to change, so why spend extra money planning for a change that won't happen? Instead plan for todays needs, and the obvious needs of the future, and counts on the far future taking care of itself.
He just doesn't get it. How many movies are made every year? Enough that there is nobody in the world who sees them all. A few blockbusters, and a lot that go nowhere. How many books in a year, or lets go down farther, how many science fiction books in a year, in English? Still enough that nobody will read them all. (And thats ignoring all the rejects publishers send out)
Video games will be around a long time to come. Look at the difference between the two 3d games he shows. Yet someone published both of them. Customers demand new, and publishers are happy to oblige. Some will make money, some will not.
Crash? Perhaps the next console generation will be the last, perhaps not. Either way though, video games will survive, because people want to be entertained.
Okay, there is one chance they won't survive. It involves the collapse of civilization as we know it though, so I don't worry about it too much.
Where do you get the idea that there is one slashdot ideal? There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million different people registered to post comments, not to mention all the anonymous cowards, and those who don't post at all. Every person has their own set of beliefs. There are republicans and democrats, libratarians, and socalists, and that just covers those from the US. Slashdot is global, I don't know what parties exist in Norway, but I'll bet that all with any importance at all are represented by someone reading slashdot. (And English isn't the native language in Norway so it is skewed a little OTOH english is a popular second language there so I don't know how much) And that is just one of the hundred different countries in the world.
There is no one slashdot position. All there is, is an interest in technology; and a slight US bias (on the editors part). What I belive cannot be taken to mean what anyone else believes, even if I'm modded +5 insightful it doesn't mean anyone agrees, it just means a few moderators were able to overcome their own bias to admit that some position I took had value even if wrong.
Public school vary in quality, but there is no reason to say they are as a whole better or worse than any other system. First of all kids learn differently, and so there will always be kids that learn better in a different setting. Second, private schools know that money is an issue for most parents so they are often hire cheaper teachers who are not as good to bring total costs down. Home schooling might work, but only if the parent(s) put forth the effort to make it work, otherwise you end up with problems like kids who have no socail skills. (On a level to make a typical geek look good!)
Public schools can be very good, if you want them to be. They are run by a local school board, who you elect (in the US), so if there is a problem fix it - often voter turnout is low enough that you can get elected by just talking to voters into voting for you, in person! If you can't move someplace where you can, in this day and age there are a number of school districts close to where you work. I think the bigger problem is the federal and state governments messing with the system because you cannot correct their mistakes locally.
Perhaps not quite first world, but a lot closer to the US than to India in living conditions. 3 years ago when I last checked I could move to Spain and get a job, no more paperwork required. The only restriction is I could not stay in the country for more than 3 months at a time, but just going to France for a weekend (only a couple hour drive) is the obvious way around that restriction. (The only hard part is getting proof that you visited, with the EU there is nobody to stamp your passport)
My Spanish isn't good enough to get a good job there, and I really didn't try. Nice country though, I wouldn't mind living there.
Your ISP won't like it, but setup an AP in a neighbor's House with broadband, and get her a laptop with 802.11. You might need to play around with antennas and the like to get it working, but it is the only thing I think is worth it in the long run.
The cardboard I was talking about is buildrite (a brand name). It is weaker than standard cardboard if you punch it. However in the direction where the strength is needed it is plenty strong.
It doesn't matter how good it is, or how cheap. People are Luddites are heart and won't trust it. I know builders who want to try things like SIP (Structural insulated panels), whichs are both stronger, and insulate better, but nobody is willing to buy it. Or skipping that, just something other than something other than standard fiberglass insulation, which is only slightly more, and would pay for itself in the first winter.
They made a lot of junk houses 100 years ago, but most are not standing now, so all you see are exceptions.
Modern construction relies on science, not intuition. Sometimes what seems like cheap junk construction is better than the "stronger" stuff in what seems like quality. For instance you can use plywood or cardboard on the outside of a new house, plywood however traps water in the walls, and the house rots away from the inside, so even though it is stronger it doesn't last as long as cardboard which breaths and lets the water out. (Depending on climate this may or may not be an issue)
You haven't payed attention to KDE[1] have you? Sure KDE looks similar at first glance to Windows, but it works different. Further you can configure it a lot more if you want. It just happens that Microsoft has a lot of highly payed useability people who have come up with a very good interface, so copying their interface is a good first start.
However the above is only on the surface. KDE has a very different design underneath. Things are configurable to look any way you want. One common configuration is menu bar at the top, like mac has, fully supported in all KDE applications. Then there is double click/single click policies, and KDE supports your choice of them, not one. It looks to the eye exactly the same, but it works very different.
[1]With apologies to the GNOME people, I only know KDE but I would assume GNOME has a lot of similar differences.
As a KDE developer I would like to know what is missing? I don't use windows much, I don't even have it at home, and I can't think of everything. What is missing? What are you looking for? You just sent an accusation to use without backing it up, and we can't tell if you are a troll; have a real concern that we need to address; or just are missing some part of KDE.
Okay, I'm not a big KDE developer, but I have done some work with it. I can write a new KDE app to solve your problem, if it can be done. I need to know what though.
Slashdot Mirror
KDE has dCop, which nearly all apps support. dBus is coming along that GNOME is likely to support (I think they have their own version already COBRA or something?) Combine that with scripting language of your choice (python has KDE bindings so that might be easiest) and you have must the same thing. There is even a REXX port for Unix somewhere if you like REXX.
Mind I've never used an Amiga so I'm not sure if they are used the same, but they could be.
I don't know, I can feel the text on laser printouts, it is just plastic and has a feel. I don't have any impact printed samples to test.
Not being blind I can't comment on readability (well I could attempt to learn it, but seems like too much effort). I would note though that prior to the invention of Braille blind were taught to read "raised relief" letters, which were basically the above without much success, once Braille was introduced they had no trouble reading. I suspect that neither system would work well for blind people.
The DMCA contains an obscure clause about interoperability, what does this mean? That is could I break encryption to allow DVD player to work, so long as I maintained the spirit of the encryption (not allowing copies)? Can I break the encryption on various games to allow them to run under Wine?
I've used kde since the 1.0 days, upgrading all along on my dual ppro-200. Even in the slowest 2.0 days, it ran fast enough on my system. Sure I turned the eye-candy slider way down when I configured KDE the first time, but that is all. It works, and is fast enough.
The only time I have problems is when I hear the harddrive grinding away, swapping. Even then I'm running something heavy duty in addition to KDE, something that can take up most of my memory alone.
To clarify, the customer only printed text. That old printer was sitting right behind the secritarys chair. A laser printer makes perfect sense, only a couple hundred bucks, and nearly silent. (I know a lot of deaf people, I hate to add to their number) If they had an old laser I would have found drivers for it, but the dot-matrix just isn't worth it. (Unless you use multi-part forms, and even then I'd wonder if the processes can change to not needing them)
As for ink savings: I ment replace the ink-jet with a laser, which would save a lot on ink because toner is cheaper per page than ink.
When people contract with me, they do it because I know technology better than they do. I don't expect them to know anything about printers, and the advantages of new ones, that is what they hire me for. Sure I could make the old one work, but it isn't the right solution. Anyone can tell by looking that their text quality wasn't good. Now their text looks just as professional as anyone else's. They knew that old printer was noisy, but didn't know that it didn't have to be that way. I know enough deaf people as it is, I prefer not to add to that number, and if they only knew it they would thank me. (damage is already done, but at least more isn't being done)
In summary: It's disgusting that you would make an non-idea solution work when for just a few extra dollars you could come up with a much better solution. Contracters are hired to solve problems, both ones the customer knows about, and ones they do not.
Right, sort of, but the only reason to use a dot-matrix printer these days is you have a boatload of carbonless multipart forms, and programs and procedures setup to use them. This client did not have that, they used their dot-matrix printer without a color ribbon (if indeed one was available) to print text. A laser printer is about the same cost per page, but only a blind man could claim no difference in output quality. Combine that with the lack of noise, and upgrading is a no-brainier.
True you can just stream text to the parallel port, but generally you stream graphics, which just happens to be a picture of the text. There is no other way to get fonts correct. (Not that they care about fonts)
Yes the driver was built in. It wasn't worth looking for. (No way to auto-detect this printer as opposed to an Oki-data or other brand) Laser printers are cheap nowadays. Perhaps not quite as high quality as that old printer, but if they have to replace it every 10 years, it isn't a big cost. In the meantime they no longer have that printer making noise behind their chair all day long. Just the savings on the ears seem worth it to me. (I know a lot of older deaf people)
So long as Windows doesn't have the security to prevent it[1], that $300 is a recurring expense. Sure a new computer would solve the virus/spyware issues, but either way you will have the same problem back again in 3 months. So your choice: pay the tech $300 every 3 months to fix the problem, or buy a new machine for $800, plus figure out how to migrate your data to the new machine (perhaps hire the tech to do it, perhaps $100?).
[1]Linux and Macs would suffer the same problem if they had the market share of windows. It is now known how much though, either appears more secure on the surface. It might be less because of that, but we can't know.
Last (well the only) time I helped someone out, I did in fact sell them a printer instead of look for a driver. I'm sure Windows XP has a dirver for their Epson dot-matrix printer, but the fact remains that it is obsolete, and not worth the time (10 minutes max) to find it. Even though it took longer hook up the new one. In the long run they are better off without that old noisy thing. Their text looks a lot better too, laser print looks a lot nicer than dot-matrix.
If their old printer was an ink-jet I would have sold them the new one just on the basis of ink savings, but at least an ink-jet has a place, if you do color.
While evaluating your other questions, here is one more: are you still the right type of business? Perhaps you should be a corporation, or if you are, change to a different type. Lawyers and books can advise you on differences between "chapter C", "chapter S" and others[1]. Remember that what is right now wasn't right when you were alone, and won't be right latter on if when you grow, or laws change, so keep on top of this.
Running a business is hard. There is however charities of retired executives who exist to help people like you. Look into this, and get their advice. It isn't always worth following, but they may have advice that can really help you out. For that matter, you might be better off hiring a good president to handle the business while you do the tech work you are good at.
[1]I doubt that a public corporation is right for your size, but it might be worth checking out if you have an odd situation you didn't tell us about. Or perhaps you are still small enough that the risk of not being a corporation is worth it.
A large scale war that called up not just everyone of normal "war going" age, but also everyone who we could get to hold a gun. And think civil war, where it is on home turf, people are willing to fight. In general Americans are not willing to take out women. In my original post I all but said this is an extremely unlikely situation, so that is seems like a stretch shouldn't surprise you, it is intended to be an extreme and unlikely situation.
Agreed, but in an emergency this might be needed. An unlikely emergency, but if it ever happend those survivors would wish strongly that it was a goal up until it was needed. Because we don't know when/if the worst case will be reached, we need to act as if we believe it really will happen just in case. Well, at least as far as practical, when discussing worst cases you always need to balance the effect on your life, some things are not worth the other costs they bring.
In the real world my handwriting is if anything worse. I don't have the fine motor abilities to do better. Fortunately in the real world everything is either typed, or done with a template (straight edge) so I can easily avoid the situations where I need to writing abilities. It helps that I choose a career in computer programing. Even when I work in something like carpentry, most of the work doesn't require anything nice, and if I can read my 10 minutes latter that is good enough. My career choices are limited a little, but not much as you might think, at least in my experience.
Note, abilities, as opposed to skills which practice helps. This also means I don't throw baseballs well, and other such things. though if I practiced I'd have the power, just not the control to get it where I want it
All the advice above is okay, but you can easily ad $30,000 in extras by following it, and you will never get it back when you sell.
Figure out what you want and put it in. I'd go cable TV to each room, and a two runs of cat-5/6, one for phone, one for network. Wireless works great for a lot of purposes, use it!
Put surround sound jacks in the rooms where you will use it - family room, and perhaps living room.
Run two cable runs to the attic for future satellite and antennas. Hook them up if you want latter.
Forget about conduit, it sounds nice, but will you ever use it? Even if you will, will it help? For a single story house it is easy to come up from the basement/crawlspace where you need wires. Even for a two story, do you really think you will ever want more wires in the bedrooms? For that matter I've been in houses that have been completely re-wired a couple times, and you can't tell from the inside. Wall spaces are empty, meaning they serve double duty as conduit.
BUT WATCH THE MONEY. All these add ons cost money, a little planning will reveal that not much is likely to change, so why spend extra money planning for a change that won't happen? Instead plan for todays needs, and the obvious needs of the future, and counts on the far future taking care of itself.
I can't think of any "first world" country that I can't say the same thing about.
He just doesn't get it. How many movies are made every year? Enough that there is nobody in the world who sees them all. A few blockbusters, and a lot that go nowhere. How many books in a year, or lets go down farther, how many science fiction books in a year, in English? Still enough that nobody will read them all. (And thats ignoring all the rejects publishers send out)
Video games will be around a long time to come. Look at the difference between the two 3d games he shows. Yet someone published both of them. Customers demand new, and publishers are happy to oblige. Some will make money, some will not.
Crash? Perhaps the next console generation will be the last, perhaps not. Either way though, video games will survive, because people want to be entertained.
Okay, there is one chance they won't survive. It involves the collapse of civilization as we know it though, so I don't worry about it too much.
A bottle of soda is overpriced there too? Truth told, you can buy bottles of soda for $.50 in the US if you don't buy just one from a vending machine.
Though either place water is not only healthier, but cheaper. (so long as you don't buy it in a bottle)
Where do you get the idea that there is one slashdot ideal? There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million different people registered to post comments, not to mention all the anonymous cowards, and those who don't post at all. Every person has their own set of beliefs. There are republicans and democrats, libratarians, and socalists, and that just covers those from the US. Slashdot is global, I don't know what parties exist in Norway, but I'll bet that all with any importance at all are represented by someone reading slashdot. (And English isn't the native language in Norway so it is skewed a little OTOH english is a popular second language there so I don't know how much) And that is just one of the hundred different countries in the world.
There is no one slashdot position. All there is, is an interest in technology; and a slight US bias (on the editors part). What I belive cannot be taken to mean what anyone else believes, even if I'm modded +5 insightful it doesn't mean anyone agrees, it just means a few moderators were able to overcome their own bias to admit that some position I took had value even if wrong.
Public school vary in quality, but there is no reason to say they are as a whole better or worse than any other system. First of all kids learn differently, and so there will always be kids that learn better in a different setting. Second, private schools know that money is an issue for most parents so they are often hire cheaper teachers who are not as good to bring total costs down. Home schooling might work, but only if the parent(s) put forth the effort to make it work, otherwise you end up with problems like kids who have no socail skills. (On a level to make a typical geek look good!)
Public schools can be very good, if you want them to be. They are run by a local school board, who you elect (in the US), so if there is a problem fix it - often voter turnout is low enough that you can get elected by just talking to voters into voting for you, in person! If you can't move someplace where you can, in this day and age there are a number of school districts close to where you work. I think the bigger problem is the federal and state governments messing with the system because you cannot correct their mistakes locally.
Perhaps not quite first world, but a lot closer to the US than to India in living conditions. 3 years ago when I last checked I could move to Spain and get a job, no more paperwork required. The only restriction is I could not stay in the country for more than 3 months at a time, but just going to France for a weekend (only a couple hour drive) is the obvious way around that restriction. (The only hard part is getting proof that you visited, with the EU there is nobody to stamp your passport)
My Spanish isn't good enough to get a good job there, and I really didn't try. Nice country though, I wouldn't mind living there.
Your ISP won't like it, but setup an AP in a neighbor's House with broadband, and get her a laptop with 802.11. You might need to play around with antennas and the like to get it working, but it is the only thing I think is worth it in the long run.
The cardboard I was talking about is buildrite (a brand name). It is weaker than standard cardboard if you punch it. However in the direction where the strength is needed it is plenty strong.
It doesn't matter how good it is, or how cheap. People are Luddites are heart and won't trust it. I know builders who want to try things like SIP (Structural insulated panels), whichs are both stronger, and insulate better, but nobody is willing to buy it. Or skipping that, just something other than something other than standard fiberglass insulation, which is only slightly more, and would pay for itself in the first winter.
They made a lot of junk houses 100 years ago, but most are not standing now, so all you see are exceptions.
Modern construction relies on science, not intuition. Sometimes what seems like cheap junk construction is better than the "stronger" stuff in what seems like quality. For instance you can use plywood or cardboard on the outside of a new house, plywood however traps water in the walls, and the house rots away from the inside, so even though it is stronger it doesn't last as long as cardboard which breaths and lets the water out. (Depending on climate this may or may not be an issue)
You haven't payed attention to KDE[1] have you? Sure KDE looks similar at first glance to Windows, but it works different. Further you can configure it a lot more if you want. It just happens that Microsoft has a lot of highly payed useability people who have come up with a very good interface, so copying their interface is a good first start.
However the above is only on the surface. KDE has a very different design underneath. Things are configurable to look any way you want. One common configuration is menu bar at the top, like mac has, fully supported in all KDE applications. Then there is double click/single click policies, and KDE supports your choice of them, not one. It looks to the eye exactly the same, but it works very different.
[1]With apologies to the GNOME people, I only know KDE but I would assume GNOME has a lot of similar differences.
As a KDE developer I would like to know what is missing? I don't use windows much, I don't even have it at home, and I can't think of everything. What is missing? What are you looking for? You just sent an accusation to use without backing it up, and we can't tell if you are a troll; have a real concern that we need to address; or just are missing some part of KDE.
Okay, I'm not a big KDE developer, but I have done some work with it. I can write a new KDE app to solve your problem, if it can be done. I need to know what though.