The biggest problem for FOSS is that it still has to shed a serious maturity image. Penguins as mascots and now this? What exactly is the point of this map? That a 13 year old kid can use gimp or paint (lol)?!
It would have been more practical to have side by side comparisons of the programs and protocols themselves. At least this would seem a bit more legitimate. As it is presented, it appears nothing more than silliness.
I spent much time in Pakistan (over 3 years) and I have had first hand experience with the limited growth of the internet in rural Pakistan. Outside of the mega cities of Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpinidi(twin city Islamabad), rural areas had very limited access to the internet via 56k modem based internet.
During my last visit (last may) I witnessed a massive surge in cell phone use and purchases by the middle class and dare I say lower income brackets (very parallel to us in Canada and America). Access to information and technology should never be restricted to income or literacy.
Do you really think the people of rural USA or rural Canada are any better or worse than those in rural Pakistan. Hardly, I grew up in rural Ontario and I can not see a major difference (apart from religions though the rural south west of Punjab province in Pakistan is dominated by Christian populations). Regardless of country, income, class information and access to it should always be free.
Shame on use for thinking anything else.
The real boom behind this is the fact land lines require a position on a waiting list which means a heavy bribe. Cell phones and wireless technology have side stepped dated briery practices because there is so much competition in Pakistan for this to take root. While WiMax may not better the poor it gives the poor rural population a technology they would have had access to otherwise. This in turn leads to education (in various forms) and an increase in job potential.
Price the movies equal to the admission of a theater ticket (thereby eliminating the theater's slice of the pie) and they will explode in growth. I don't mind paying $8 for a movie that I can watch in comfort at home with my own food.
I think they could really make it big. But at $30 it's a no brainer...no one would use it
iTunes became big because it's fair priced. $1 is not that much and you feel good about not pirating.
Half my class was busy playing online games or IM each other or other friends. It proved too distracting to us who wanted to actually learn something. Lapotops are useless in linguistics because it's a thinking class.
My professor sent us all an email and verbally told us: Pen & paper and a brain are required for class. Leave the laptop at home please.
After a month, I'd say it was a big change. More class input and greater involvement in the lectures and seminars. By the end no one cared about laptops.
I found the noise fromt he keyboards really annoying so I welcomed this move.
It's not the syntax but the logic that matters in programming.
I have met many great programmer who were masters in different languages that could easily switch between programming languages that were not their ususal cup of tea. They did this easily because it was always the logic not the syntax.
As a volunteer ESL teacher who has built a school network abroad (South Asia) you really have 2 main choices in Linux:
1) Edubuntu (has some serious limitations for practical use) 2) K-12 Linux (which has less configuration headaches and more what the %#@! moments when configuring the terminals)
I have tried both in vain and decided to go with a straight Fedora Core 4 setup for the school since I wanted the least headaches. The administration agreed and we have had few real problems. That says something when it owuld take me 1 hour Long distance calling to sort something out or a 15.5 hour flight.
FOSS is an excellent choice for cash strapped schools like the rural metric school I work with.
I have been playing around with Ubuntu, Fedora Core 4, Mandriva LE 2005 and have come to the same conclusion I did laster year and the year before...Linux is too complicated for my staff.
I can't rely on the office geeks who charge loads of $$ to fix problems that shouldn't happen to begin with. I am a lawyer with a personal staff that is fairly good at using the Windows operating systems. Windows is not perfect (sometimes I find it just as fustrating as understanding Linux).
Here are 2 simple things Linux can't do but should
1) Hit the windows key + E to bring up a file explorer immediately (yes I realize I can code this but this should already be done).
2) When I hit Windows + F it should allow me to do a file search immediately (I shouldn't have to type anything in a terminal)
Now here are the problems I have with Linux in our office:
1) Linux doesn't recognize our printer off the bat I would have to "find" and configure the printer which was easier this year than last year's assessment.
2) Gnome vs KDE gui??? Just pick one and make it a standard that corporate America will accept (get rid of the cartoon penguin nonsense) Too fustrating for novices like my staff
3) Linux doesn't support 2/3 of the law programs including all of the billing and recording software we use.
4) Our accounting package is not Linux compliant (yet)
5) Our mailing lists are in Access (yuk I know) and I can't get it right in Base(OpenOffice) yet
Ok here is what we already use that is open source:
1) Abiword
2) Firefox & Thunderbird
3) Apache web server (though in Windows)
4) MySQL (Windows)
5) A host of open source stuff for PDAs
I totally appreciate the open source idea but Linux is not ready to be our workstation though it is a solid server (We use it as a fileserver\mail server and firewall)...but even these things took too long to configure
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The biggest problem for FOSS is that it still has to shed a serious maturity image.
Penguins as mascots and now this?
What exactly is the point of this map?
That a 13 year old kid can use gimp or paint (lol)?!
It would have been more practical to have side by side comparisons of the
programs and protocols themselves.
At least this would seem a bit more legitimate. As it is presented, it appears nothing more than silliness.
I spent much time in Pakistan (over 3 years) and I have had first hand experience with the limited growth of the internet in rural Pakistan. Outside of the mega cities of Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpinidi(twin city Islamabad), rural areas had very limited access to the internet via 56k modem based internet.
During my last visit (last may) I witnessed a massive surge in cell phone use and purchases by the middle class and dare I say lower income brackets (very parallel to us in Canada and America). Access to information and technology should never be restricted to income or literacy.
Do you really think the people of rural USA or rural Canada are any better or worse than those in rural Pakistan. Hardly, I grew up in rural Ontario and I can not see a major difference (apart from religions though the rural south west of Punjab province in Pakistan is dominated by Christian populations). Regardless of country, income, class information and access to it should always be free.
Shame on use for thinking anything else.
The real boom behind this is the fact land lines require a position on a waiting list which means a heavy bribe. Cell phones and wireless technology have side stepped dated briery practices because there is so much competition in Pakistan for this to take root. While WiMax may not better the poor it gives the poor rural population a technology they would have had access to otherwise. This in turn leads to education (in various forms) and an increase in job potential.
Price the movies equal to the admission of a theater ticket (thereby eliminating the theater's slice of the pie) and they will explode in growth. I don't
mind paying $8 for a movie that I can watch in comfort at home with my own food.
I think they could really make it big. But at $30 it's a no brainer...no one would use it
iTunes became big because it's fair priced. $1 is not that much and you feel good about not pirating.
Half my class was busy playing online games or IM each other or other friends.
It proved too distracting to us who wanted to actually learn something.
Lapotops are useless in linguistics because it's a thinking class.
My professor sent us all an email and verbally told us:
Pen & paper and a brain are required for class. Leave the laptop at home please.
After a month, I'd say it was a big change. More class input and greater involvement in the lectures and seminars. By the end no one cared about laptops.
I found the noise fromt he keyboards really annoying so I welcomed this move.
I typed "Microsoft sucks" and after 3 minutes timed out!
Yeah tell me they aren't bias.
It's not the syntax but the logic that matters in programming.
I have met many great programmer who were masters in different languages that could easily switch between programming languages that were not their ususal cup of tea. They did this easily because it was always the logic not the syntax.
As a volunteer ESL teacher who has built a school network abroad (South Asia) you really have 2 main choices in Linux:
1) Edubuntu (has some serious limitations for practical use)
2) K-12 Linux (which has less configuration headaches and more what the %#@! moments when configuring the terminals)
I have tried both in vain and decided to go with a straight Fedora Core 4 setup for the school since I wanted the least headaches. The administration agreed and we have had few real problems. That says something when it owuld take me 1 hour Long distance calling to sort something out or a 15.5 hour flight.
FOSS is an excellent choice for cash strapped schools like the rural metric school I work with.
I have been playing around with Ubuntu, Fedora Core 4, Mandriva LE 2005 and have come to the same conclusion I did laster year and the year before...Linux is too complicated for my staff. I can't rely on the office geeks who charge loads of $$ to fix problems that shouldn't happen to begin with. I am a lawyer with a personal staff that is fairly good at using the Windows operating systems. Windows is not perfect (sometimes I find it just as fustrating as understanding Linux). Here are 2 simple things Linux can't do but should 1) Hit the windows key + E to bring up a file explorer immediately (yes I realize I can code this but this should already be done). 2) When I hit Windows + F it should allow me to do a file search immediately (I shouldn't have to type anything in a terminal) Now here are the problems I have with Linux in our office: 1) Linux doesn't recognize our printer off the bat I would have to "find" and configure the printer which was easier this year than last year's assessment. 2) Gnome vs KDE gui??? Just pick one and make it a standard that corporate America will accept (get rid of the cartoon penguin nonsense) Too fustrating for novices like my staff 3) Linux doesn't support 2/3 of the law programs including all of the billing and recording software we use. 4) Our accounting package is not Linux compliant (yet) 5) Our mailing lists are in Access (yuk I know) and I can't get it right in Base(OpenOffice) yet Ok here is what we already use that is open source: 1) Abiword 2) Firefox & Thunderbird 3) Apache web server (though in Windows) 4) MySQL (Windows) 5) A host of open source stuff for PDAs I totally appreciate the open source idea but Linux is not ready to be our workstation though it is a solid server (We use it as a fileserver\mail server and firewall)...but even these things took too long to configure