I was the webmaster of my high school NJROTC unit when one of our computers crashed and we were forced to wipe the hard drive. We were able to get a copy of Windows (my suggestion to install Xandros, Mandrake, or some other user-frienlty Linux distro didn't fly). Unfortunately, no one had a copy of MS Office at home. We could have purchased a copy or licensed one from the school, but the cost to the unit would be astronomical. The "powers that be" (read: those who don't know that there's an alternative to MS Office) decided to just leave the computer without an office suite and just use WordPad for everything. Eventually, I got sick of not having a "real" office suite on the computer and installed OpenOffice.org. It went great! To this day (I'm graduating today, this was at the beginnign of the year), I have encountered no compatibility problems and everyone who has used the computer instantaneously picked up the new program (and most of the users weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer).
Experiences I've had like this goes to show that OpenOffice.org is one of the most useful free, open source products available to home users (with the exception of Firefox). The interfaces of OpenOffice.org and MS Office are so similar that a user can pick them up in a second. When I see stories like this on/., I cheer my heart out. It's time we get free software like this into a high-school setting to expose kids to this kind of stuff early.
As a dialup user, I can say that AJAX is a massive improvement over a standard Javascript page. GMail's web uses AJAX, and, though it takes quite a while to load the page initially, not having to go through the server for something as simple as clicking on a thread is highly preferable to reloading the page each and every time a link is clicked. Hopefully, we'll see more Javascript applications that run on the client side as opposed to old-fashioned form-based applications.
When they say "bring balance to the force", then technically wouldn't that mean that Anakin would have to convert to the dark side? At the time, the Sith had been extinct for thousands of years. To bring balance to the force, wouldn't he have to strengthen the dark side to counteract the massive amount of light that had been present for so many thousands of years?
Is this competition of any significance, then? If it's just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route, then it doesn't seem too exciting. The organizers of the event should hold the event at a random course with a maze of radio-emitting beacons that the "robot" has to follow. The robot would be forced to overcome the obstacles on the fly as opposed to following a predetermined course....
Before I say this, let it be known that I am just as much of a Linux zealot as you probably are.
My father works for the local power company developing customer support systems. Rather than an Open Source alternative, such as Linux, they opted to go with Microsoft Windows. The reason? Costs. They figured that the TCO of Linux, including support, training developers, etc. would actually be more expensive than the licensing fees that a Windows solution would incur.
This being said, I would have personally gone with a Linux setup. I think that the former situation exemplifies one of the biggest misconceptions about Linux: people think that, because it's not provided by a corporation, if you have a problem, you're screwed. That's why the support services provided by Red Hat and IBM are so vital. Corporations can't just go on a developer's word that their system works well. They need someone that they can sue if something goes hugely wrong and they lose everything due to an operating system glitch. Red Hat provides a much-needed corporate backing to an already-great operating system. Most of the misconceptions out there about Linux are due to FUD spread by MS. If the open source community can simply overcome the stereotypes of Linux as having no support at all, then I think we'll see Linux begin to totally take over MS's marketshare.
Before I say this, let it be known that I am just as much of a Linux zealot as you probably are.
My father works for the local power company developing customer support systems. Rather than an Open Source alternative, such as Linux, they opted to go with Microsoft Windows. The reason? Costs. They figured that the TCO of Linux, including support, training developers, etc. would actually be more expensive than the licensing fees that a Windows solution would incur.
This being said, I would have personally gone with a Linux setup. I think that the former situation exemplifies one of the biggest misconceptions about Linux: people think that, because it's not provided by a corporation, if you have a problem, you're screwed. That's why the support services provided by Red Hat and IBM are so vital. Corporations can't just go on a developer's word that their system works well. They need someone that they can sue if something goes hugely wrong and they lose everything due to an operating system glitch. Red Hat provides a much-needed corporate backing to an already-great operating system.
Most of the misconceptions out there about Linux are due to FUD spread by MS. If the open source community can simply overcome the stereotypes of Linux as having no support at all, then I think we'll see Linux begin to totally take over MS's marketshare.
...their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information...
Ranting against those who are interested in computers and the glorification of information?? Isn't he...erm...a LIBRARIAN??? The glorification of information, if I am not mistaken, is his JOB.
Slashdot Mirror
I was the webmaster of my high school NJROTC unit when one of our computers crashed and we were forced to wipe the hard drive. We were able to get a copy of Windows (my suggestion to install Xandros, Mandrake, or some other user-frienlty Linux distro didn't fly). Unfortunately, no one had a copy of MS Office at home. We could have purchased a copy or licensed one from the school, but the cost to the unit would be astronomical. The "powers that be" (read: those who don't know that there's an alternative to MS Office) decided to just leave the computer without an office suite and just use WordPad for everything. Eventually, I got sick of not having a "real" office suite on the computer and installed OpenOffice.org. It went great! To this day (I'm graduating today, this was at the beginnign of the year), I have encountered no compatibility problems and everyone who has used the computer instantaneously picked up the new program (and most of the users weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer).
/., I cheer my heart out. It's time we get free software like this into a high-school setting to expose kids to this kind of stuff early.
Experiences I've had like this goes to show that OpenOffice.org is one of the most useful free, open source products available to home users (with the exception of Firefox). The interfaces of OpenOffice.org and MS Office are so similar that a user can pick them up in a second. When I see stories like this on
As a dialup user, I can say that AJAX is a massive improvement over a standard Javascript page. GMail's web uses AJAX, and, though it takes quite a while to load the page initially, not having to go through the server for something as simple as clicking on a thread is highly preferable to reloading the page each and every time a link is clicked. Hopefully, we'll see more Javascript applications that run on the client side as opposed to old-fashioned form-based applications.
When they say "bring balance to the force", then technically wouldn't that mean that Anakin would have to convert to the dark side? At the time, the Sith had been extinct for thousands of years. To bring balance to the force, wouldn't he have to strengthen the dark side to counteract the massive amount of light that had been present for so many thousands of years?
Is this competition of any significance, then? If it's just a bunch of cars that follow a predetermined route, then it doesn't seem too exciting. The organizers of the event should hold the event at a random course with a maze of radio-emitting beacons that the "robot" has to follow. The robot would be forced to overcome the obstacles on the fly as opposed to following a predetermined course....
Before I say this, let it be known that I am just as much of a Linux zealot as you probably are.
My father works for the local power company developing customer support systems. Rather than an Open Source alternative, such as Linux, they opted to go with Microsoft Windows. The reason? Costs. They figured that the TCO of Linux, including support, training developers, etc. would actually be more expensive than the licensing fees that a Windows solution would incur.
This being said, I would have personally gone with a Linux setup. I think that the former situation exemplifies one of the biggest misconceptions about Linux: people think that, because it's not provided by a corporation, if you have a problem, you're screwed. That's why the support services provided by Red Hat and IBM are so vital. Corporations can't just go on a developer's word that their system works well. They need someone that they can sue if something goes hugely wrong and they lose everything due to an operating system glitch. Red Hat provides a much-needed corporate backing to an already-great operating system. Most of the misconceptions out there about Linux are due to FUD spread by MS. If the open source community can simply overcome the stereotypes of Linux as having no support at all, then I think we'll see Linux begin to totally take over MS's marketshare.
Before I say this, let it be known that I am just as much of a Linux zealot as you probably are.
My father works for the local power company developing customer support systems. Rather than an Open Source alternative, such as Linux, they opted to go with Microsoft Windows. The reason? Costs. They figured that the TCO of Linux, including support, training developers, etc. would actually be more expensive than the licensing fees that a Windows solution would incur.
This being said, I would have personally gone with a Linux setup. I think that the former situation exemplifies one of the biggest misconceptions about Linux: people think that, because it's not provided by a corporation, if you have a problem, you're screwed. That's why the support services provided by Red Hat and IBM are so vital. Corporations can't just go on a developer's word that their system works well. They need someone that they can sue if something goes hugely wrong and they lose everything due to an operating system glitch. Red Hat provides a much-needed corporate backing to an already-great operating system. Most of the misconceptions out there about Linux are due to FUD spread by MS. If the open source community can simply overcome the stereotypes of Linux as having no support at all, then I think we'll see Linux begin to totally take over MS's marketshare.
...their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information...
Ranting against those who are interested in computers and the glorification of information?? Isn't he...erm...a LIBRARIAN??? The glorification of information, if I am not mistaken, is his JOB.