Just a thought, but now that Novell is offically in the game as a linux Vendor, won't people be scrambling over themselves for their certification products. <p> I know I considered getting Novell certified a few years ago, even tho I knew netware was dying, I sorta figured it was the best option available which would build on my Linux skills. Now Novell has an investmment in building Linux certification, I think this will be a major money pull for the company. It also benefit's the community as finally we get somthing which already is recognised (yes i know RHC and LCP) but novell is already embeeded in the heads of many an IT manager and is sought after. <p> Just a thought.
It's the representation, strait to the point names mostly aid this along, brands mostly can acheive the same status when they become widely used, but names which have some morphology in common work alot better. i.e Hoovering the floor, Excel;-). Most users have no idea about the discourses which flow behind an App, having a name which somewhat resembles the app allows thier imagination to fill in the gaps.
Oh, people don't like the Name... Sounds silly, but Mozilla is still thought of as somthing of a toy and not as a web browser. I'm pretty sure that changing the name to somthing more accepted (and more representitive of what it actually does) will increase user acceptance 10 fold.
One has only to look at Phoenix/Firebird increasing popularity to understand, how this is applicable. As for internet explorer... well it's straight and to the point, somthing Technology elites sometimes forget counts alot to end users.
I'm a Psyc Graduate, specialising in Social Representations of Technology. Mozilla needs to be tweaked in a number of area's for one main reason: Users have become familiar with existant styles and layout. I have observered what happens when changing a client to Mozilla, and the reaction is this... It dosen't have this and that... and this is in the wrong place... and there is no easy way to do X.
Change the theme to Luna XP tweak some of the default display options (in mail). And they don't flinch. If Mozilla wants to continue to exist as a suite, it needs to slide itself un noticed into users desktops, to do this it needs a major rework of how preferences are displayed, default widgets, and most importantly making sure that it has all the same options eaisly accessible as the current counterparts. (Automatic Icons for replied/read messages in mail, not checking quoted text in messages). Yes you can do these things, but not in any way easy.
As for why bother? A number of reasons, improved security is one. Raising the level of competancy in users web browsing is anohter(end users don't desrve to have to wade through pop-ups and adverstising disguised as system messages, just because they arn't in the know), 3 because, especially in business using an Open source solution prevents issues like, the current plugin fiacso with IE from occuring.
For too long we have dismissed the possibilities that lie within the collective knowledge and to some degree anti knowledge base that is the Internet. Not only does the Internet not have cultural ties, it has no morals, no judicial system and no religious archetype to which to cling to for comfort. It was designed with independence in mind from the strictures of the physical and material world. (Remember ARPA Net's vision to be able to withstand holocaust?). For this reason it became the choice of the freethinking and those who did not place import on the simple philosophical meandering of the current systems that they found themselves placed into that could never conceive of a place were there was no right and wrong. A simple principle of "if it's conceivable then it's possible" was adopted, no one questioned if it was ethically right at the time of it's conception, and up until recently this held true.
As the Internet has grown it has harbored the knowledge and human creativity of a billion users. Seen the waves of the tides of information lap upon it's impressionable surface and gently scour a landscape out of the freewill, cooperation or squabbling of it's users. There were no borders only land, no one claimed it for there own, they only made use of what was there. And there were no laws, no one to say:
"well that came from over there so that's not allowed here." Or "that might hurt this part of the landscape so I'm not going to let you do it."
If something is burned to a cinder in the web, it's not a bad thing, we can't understand that, the governments and systems can't understand that. To destroy, alter or distribute in the web is just to make a different texture and add depth to what's there. Because none of it's real and has no cultural or ethical base then no one in the material world should be able to make any decision to effect the behavior of it's dizidends or the availability of parts of it. In this community and indeed much of the Corporate feed world aswell we make one assumption, Knowledge is Power. This is true in our world but in the world of the Web this is incorrect, how many cases of severe stupidity and or paranoia have come about from this notion, the web isn't Power it's the actions which are power. So where am I going with this? Well the fact that the old systems are trying to impression themselves upon the web along with the political ethical religious legislative laws and baggage which go along with them, is like saying let's create borders and laws where there is no metaphysic system to support them. And because of the time frame which they are trying to do it it's like they are erecting them with a 1000 kilo tonne hydrogen bomb.
So would the legislation that the corporations would push to create a better firewall, (and that's all it would be, to make sure there corporate Sky towers are protected a little more), create a nuclear winter? Because of the sudden introduction of a paradigm which was never meant to be. Or would it all collapse under it's own hypocrisy in a world which does not stand for rules?
Because the corporations understand that there is not right and wrong, just like the rest of us who chose to plug ourselves into this culture, it's quite possible that the holocaust will come to be, then on the other hand it's possible that the nature of internet will not stand it.
So what of the internet being sentient? And enough with the parodies. If the human race wishes to live in a comfort blanket where bad things never happen Iike it has tried to do for so long, and we all discard the lesson of positive entropy, then the internet is defiantly clamping down. And as far as the internet being sentient, just look at search engines, and tell me with a straight face that they must not have some sort of consciousness. =-)
Slashdot Mirror
I gota stop putting HTML tags in everything I write... ;-)
Just a thought, but now that Novell is offically in the game as a linux Vendor, won't people be scrambling over themselves for their certification products.
<p>
I know I considered getting Novell certified a few years ago, even tho I knew netware was dying, I sorta figured it was the best option available which would build on my Linux skills. Now Novell has an investmment in building Linux certification, I think this will be a major money pull for the company. It also benefit's the community as finally we get somthing which already is recognised (yes i know RHC and LCP) but novell is already embeeded in the heads of many an IT manager and is sought after.
<p>
Just a thought.
It's the representation, strait to the point names mostly aid this along, brands mostly can acheive the same status when they become widely used, but names which have some morphology in common work alot better. i.e Hoovering the floor, Excel ;-). Most users have no idea about the discourses which flow behind an App, having a name which somewhat resembles the app allows thier imagination to fill in the gaps.
Oh, people don't like the Name... Sounds silly, but Mozilla is still thought of as somthing of a toy and not as a web browser. I'm pretty sure that changing the name to somthing more accepted (and more representitive of what it actually does) will increase user acceptance 10 fold.
One has only to look at Phoenix/Firebird increasing popularity to understand, how this is applicable. As for internet explorer... well it's straight and to the point, somthing Technology elites sometimes forget counts alot to end users.
I'm a Psyc Graduate, specialising in Social Representations of Technology. Mozilla needs to be tweaked in a number of area's for one main reason: Users have become familiar with existant styles and layout.
I have observered what happens when changing a client to Mozilla, and the reaction is this... It dosen't have this and that... and this is in the wrong place... and there is no easy way to do X.
Change the theme to Luna XP tweak some of the default display options (in mail). And they don't flinch. If Mozilla wants to continue to exist as a suite, it needs to slide itself un noticed into users desktops, to do this it needs a major rework of how preferences are displayed, default widgets, and most importantly making sure that it has all the same options eaisly accessible as the current counterparts. (Automatic Icons for replied/read messages in mail, not checking quoted text in messages). Yes you can do these things, but not in any way easy.
As for why bother? A number of reasons, improved security is one. Raising the level of competancy in users web browsing is anohter(end users don't desrve to have to wade through pop-ups and adverstising disguised as system messages, just because they arn't in the know), 3 because, especially in business using an Open source solution prevents issues like, the current plugin fiacso with IE from occuring.
The Internet Is Sentient
For too long we have dismissed the possibilities that lie within the collective knowledge and to some degree anti knowledge base that is the Internet. Not only does the Internet not have cultural ties, it has no morals, no judicial system and no religious archetype to which to cling to for comfort. It was designed with independence in mind from the strictures of the physical and material world. (Remember ARPA Net's vision to be able to withstand holocaust?). For this reason it became the choice of the freethinking and those who did not place import on the simple philosophical meandering of the current systems that they found themselves placed into that could never conceive of a place were there was no right and wrong. A simple principle of "if it's conceivable then it's possible" was adopted, no one questioned if it was ethically right at the time of it's conception, and up until recently this held true.
As the Internet has grown it has harbored the knowledge and human creativity of a billion users. Seen the waves of the tides of information lap upon it's impressionable surface and gently scour a landscape out of the freewill, cooperation or squabbling of it's users. There were no borders only land, no one claimed it for there own, they only made use of what was there. And there were no laws, no one to say :
"well that came from over there so that's not allowed here." Or "that might hurt this part of the landscape so I'm not going to let you do it."
If something is burned to a cinder in the web, it's not a bad thing, we can't understand that, the governments and systems can't understand that. To destroy, alter or distribute in the web is just to make a different texture and add depth to what's there. Because none of it's real and has no cultural or ethical base then no one in the material world should be able to make any decision to effect the behavior of it's dizidends or the availability of parts of it. In this community and indeed much of the Corporate feed world aswell we make one assumption, Knowledge is Power. This is true in our world but in the world of the Web this is incorrect, how many cases of severe stupidity and or paranoia have come about from this notion, the web isn't Power it's the actions which are power. So where am I going with this? Well the fact that the old systems are trying to impression themselves upon the web along with the political ethical religious legislative laws and baggage which go along with them, is like saying let's create borders and laws where there is no metaphysic system to support them. And because of the time frame which they are trying to do it it's like they are erecting them with a 1000 kilo tonne hydrogen bomb.
So would the legislation that the corporations would push to create a better firewall, (and that's all it would be, to make sure there corporate Sky towers are protected a little more), create a nuclear winter? Because of the sudden introduction of a paradigm which was never meant to be. Or would it all collapse under it's own hypocrisy in a world which does not stand for rules?
Because the corporations understand that there is not right and wrong, just like the rest of us who chose to plug ourselves into this culture, it's quite possible that the holocaust will come to be, then on the other hand it's possible that the nature of internet will not stand it.
So what of the internet being sentient? And enough with the parodies. If the human race wishes to live in a comfort blanket where bad things never happen Iike it has tried to do for so long, and we all discard the lesson of positive entropy, then the internet is defiantly clamping down. And as far as the internet being sentient, just look at search engines, and tell me with a straight face that they must not have some sort of consciousness. =-)
Ænertia
Aenertia@hotmail.com