When anybody asks me "why won't you use X linuz flavour as your desktop" my answer is : why should I? I am perfectly happy with my Windows desktop, and (with some reserves) my MacOS desktop, so for me there is absolutly no reasons to use Linuzz as a desktop. Unfortunatly, I have to handle with Mandriva at work, and both KDE and Gnome are a parody to a desktop system: irresponsible at times, irregular and non-standard controls, the so called #control panel" is just a mess where everybody and his cat added their settings there without the minimal planning and logic...
I always laugh at Linuz folks and their desire that "everybody should use Linuzz" and "This MUST be the year where Linuzzz becomes mainstream".... The question is WHY? Use it, but let the others use whatever they want? I don't care if you use "The Bat!" as an email program or "Cobian Backup" as a backup solution. I don't care if they become mainstream eather.... here it is. My weekly tuesday rant.
I don't thing there is one single movie (not documentary, of course) that gots the computers 100%. That would be the most boring movie EVER and an inmediate disaster in the box office. I mean, to handle a computer is not "fun". 90% of the time you are just sitting there reading tiny screen information and entering boring input(if you are not playing, of course).
A movie is just a movie and you most compromise and use computers to "help" the handling of the film. Computer folks are always bitching about how computers are shown in movies, but you need to realize that films simplify not only computer but medical services (my wife being a doctor is always horrified of how movies use X-Ray and Scanning techniques), mechanics (how cars can defy gravity and be fixed with simple tricks). A chemical professor would just ROTFL seeing how the prepared a formula for the invisible man, mixing the water BEFORE the acid sunbstance (a big NO-NO in real life) and so on...
I play 2-3 hours every day and here in Europe, the mantainence day is wednesdays. While it's not a big deal a 2-3 hours pause in the servers, very often those breaks are 8-10 hours breaks (dunno the reason, some technical problems with the patches, I guess). So practically every wednesday is a lost day for WoW players. I'm not a compulsive WoW player, but WoW is a service and if you have the habit of playing some time at evening like I do, it is an annoyment to suffer those breaks.
I don't see the advantage of having a transparent display. What's next, invisible ink? Cold fire? Inaudible music? Those may have very narrow fields of applications, but com on, for general use, give me functionality!
superheroe movies/comics are just an expression about crisis times. SH comics and movies went extremely popular during the Great Depression and post WWII times. It's not a surprise that today they are more popular than ever. 9/11 made Americans (and not only americans, may I add) feel like victims . Super hero movies, allow the viewer to identify with a powerful white male defending the status quo from evil-doers. They spend the whole movie trying to prevent a war from happening. And no, that's not comunistic bullshit I'm talking about even if you may think so.
So in other words, if I understand you well: Linux users are the elite of the humanity. The creme de la creme of the intelectuality. Oh, OK then. Next patient!
I think some people may begin to make their own conclusions about that discovery and some will try to find a place for the creature in the evolution scale. But this is dangerous. There are freaks in any species. There have been 2 headed humans as well. Imagine if life in the Earth ends, and some ET, after millions of years, happens to find on Earth the rests of such a missformed human been and makes the conclussion that there was a variety of life in the Earth which lived with 2 heads....
Once every2-3 years it seems like "the new big thing" is hyped. Call it Java, ASP, php, Ajax... The enterprise world is then ready to show you that the curent hype is the Holy Grail and the best thing since a cold beer.
Ajax is getting hyped to the point where it isn't funny anymore. I bet it will go the way of XML - simple and interesting at first, then the "Enterprise" folk run away with it and within 2 years we have W3C AJAX standards that span 1000 pages. Wanna bet?
The main problem with OO id that it feels so long back away from MS Office that it's not funny. This very good article was rejected by./ editors (maybe because it' shows Linux and OO difficulties in catching up MS). http://www.wired.com/news/technology/computers/0,7 2246-0.html
From the article:
An user contacted by Wired News who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that while he was optimistic about the prospects of the Linux operating system and noted how his unit had a capable IT support staff, he was not too happy with OpenOffice. He said he missed MS Office, even though it is designed by a company run by people he considers to be "thieves." "(OpenOffice) is complicated. It is atrocious," the Gendarme said. "We save money but the advantages of its use are not terribly clear."
MS goes even further. They will SEND you a CD completly without cost (excepting shipping cost) for any security fixes in any Windows system or MS product. They have been doing so since 1987 (with floppies, of course) untill today.
There is very little we can do about this. The current society an America and many european contries (yes, here too) are overcrowded with neo-moralists for whom every single bit published on the media must be analyzed and critisized and eventiually censured. Even nudity in many places in Europe has evolved from being an "avan-gard" form of art in the 70s to the highest form of puritanistic panic.
The worst thing is that this applies to almost any party in those coontries. Not to talk about the new phantom menace (the new Soviet Union) of our times: terrorism. Everything is then allowed. And I mean, everything. Sad.
I would say that it's early to say that the sales are collapsing. They will eventually go down because the novellity of the service is past at this moment. That was was a cool thing (download 3-5 songs) is now not so cool. People are begining to realize that owning some bits it's not the same that owning the full work of art that a physical album is, with cover art, and full disc information included. Yes, eventually the iTune sales will go down, but nothing happens over a night.
Moreover it is considerably harder if not impossible to have a browser install software without user intervention under Linux. Furthermore I have so far never seen, and would find it difficult to see how an application could be installed under Linux that is as persistent as it is under Windows.
Never understimate the bad guys. Hell , people even break strong encryption methods, do you think they won't find a way to install spyware/virii into Uni* clones? If they only have enough motivation they could break the OS in pieces.
But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can.
Today the bottleneck of the whole system lies in the hard drive. This is the only mechanical part (fans excluded) of a computer. It's about time to find a solution for large storage that doesn't depends on an arm swinging and moving back and forward through a fragmented file system....
Aqua is not a perfect UI even if some rabid mac fans would say so. The Mac Os has always had a very elegant UI and UI components. This is the strong point of the system, but the usability of it left much to be desired. MacOS is a pointer oriented system , even if you can use shortcuts for almost everything, it doesn't feel "native".
The single main menu at the top is a thing that you love or hate, but it can feel very strange to change the focus of the application to just access a menu. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that it's "easier" to just point "right" this way, but it is more complicated and "verbose" as well.
Hell even the single fact that when you are presented the logon screen, the pointer is on 10,10 and not at screencenter as on Windows, KDE or Gnome is an inconvenient. A little one but just a little thing here and a little thing there does a lot.
Well, here went my karma again, just like always when a post doesn't screm how perfect Apple is
[Sarcasm mode on] Oh my God, I've seen the light! Now I'm in love with the Mac! I'll start a cult too! This is why the mac is SOOOO good! Gotta love it! [Sarcasm mode off]
Apple is known to be a very closed company. In fact, everything surrounding Apple has always had this aura of "officiality" to it. To this day i would say that Apple is one of the companies that has the more conservative image to them, despite the fact that they are playing "hip" and "cool" with their products. The image projected by the company per se is not at all modern, but the one of a corporation surrounded by lawyers. Not that other companies are not the same, but Google or MS for example give a more informal image to the world.
It's a bad thing... the day when a goverment (or any company or person for that matters) prefers a software piece over another just becuase it's Open Source or Commercial. The criteria to select a software must be: quality, usefullness (is that a word?) and , why not price, but NEVER political and isiological (idiotogical) reasons.
What to use Linuz? Or Windows? Use them, but please let the politics out. Think for your self. And think logically. And technically.
Actually many analists say that if performance per watt is to remain constant over the next few years, power costs could easily overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin.
3 larger universities in Sweden (the one I work for is one of them) are about to add theyselve to MS Live Search book program. They are in the talking at this moment. This will give the project access to 30000+ volumes of books/researchs in scientific and humanitary fields.
A personal firewall is of course better than nothing, but it's much worse than a real hardware based firewall. I see the popularity of software based firewalls as a problem as it gives a false sense of security to the users.
The worse case is , for example that it is still possible that in some systems, a personal firewall will reduce security due to security holes in the firewall. Such situations are known.
Slashdot Mirror
I always laugh at Linuz folks and their desire that "everybody should use Linuzz" and "This MUST be the year where Linuzzz becomes mainstream".... The question is WHY? Use it, but let the others use whatever they want? I don't care if you use "The Bat!" as an email program or "Cobian Backup" as a backup solution. I don't care if they become mainstream eather.... here it is. My weekly tuesday rant.
A movie is just a movie and you most compromise and use computers to "help" the handling of the film. Computer folks are always bitching about how computers are shown in movies, but you need to realize that films simplify not only computer but medical services (my wife being a doctor is always horrified of how movies use X-Ray and Scanning techniques), mechanics (how cars can defy gravity and be fixed with simple tricks). A chemical professor would just ROTFL seeing how the prepared a formula for the invisible man, mixing the water BEFORE the acid sunbstance (a big NO-NO in real life) and so on...
I play 2-3 hours every day and here in Europe, the mantainence day is wednesdays. While it's not a big deal a 2-3 hours pause in the servers, very often those breaks are 8-10 hours breaks (dunno the reason, some technical problems with the patches, I guess). So practically every wednesday is a lost day for WoW players. I'm not a compulsive WoW player, but WoW is a service and if you have the habit of playing some time at evening like I do, it is an annoyment to suffer those breaks.
I don't see the advantage of having a transparent display. What's next, invisible ink? Cold fire? Inaudible music? Those may have very narrow fields of applications, but com on, for general use, give me functionality!
superheroe movies/comics are just an expression about crisis times. SH comics and movies went extremely popular during the Great Depression and post WWII times. It's not a surprise that today they are more popular than ever. 9/11 made Americans (and not only americans, may I add) feel like victims . Super hero movies, allow the viewer to identify with a powerful white male defending the status quo from evil-doers. They spend the whole movie trying to prevent a war from happening. And no, that's not comunistic bullshit I'm talking about even if you may think so.
So in other words, if I understand you well: Linux users are the elite of the humanity. The creme de la creme of the intelectuality. Oh, OK then. Next patient!
Ajax is getting hyped to the point where it isn't funny anymore. I bet it will go the way of XML - simple and interesting at first, then the "Enterprise" folk run away with it and within 2 years we have W3C AJAX standards that span 1000 pages. Wanna bet?
From the article:
An user contacted by Wired News who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that while he was optimistic about the prospects of the Linux operating system and noted how his unit had a capable IT support staff, he was not too happy with OpenOffice. He said he missed MS Office, even though it is designed by a company run by people he considers to be "thieves." "(OpenOffice) is complicated. It is atrocious," the Gendarme said. "We save money but the advantages of its use are not terribly clear."
MS goes even further. They will SEND you a CD completly without cost (excepting shipping cost) for any security fixes in any Windows system or MS product. They have been doing so since 1987 (with floppies, of course) untill today.
2) The probability that an unpatched PC behind a firewall will get "hacked" in the moment while you are downloading it is what... 0,2?
3) What else will we whine about now... the versatility of Macintosh hardware?
The worst thing is that this applies to almost any party in those coontries. Not to talk about the new phantom menace (the new Soviet Union) of our times: terrorism. Everything is then allowed. And I mean, everything. Sad.
I would say that it's early to say that the sales are collapsing. They will eventually go down because the novellity of the service is past at this moment. That was was a cool thing (download 3-5 songs) is now not so cool. People are begining to realize that owning some bits it's not the same that owning the full work of art that a physical album is, with cover art, and full disc information included. Yes, eventually the iTune sales will go down, but nothing happens over a night.
But pray that not many users will follow your advice or you will get the attention of the spammers and the situation will be the same with your "perfectly secure OS". So enjoy your minority while you can.
Today the bottleneck of the whole system lies in the hard drive. This is the only mechanical part (fans excluded) of a computer. It's about time to find a solution for large storage that doesn't depends on an arm swinging and moving back and forward through a fragmented file system....
The single main menu at the top is a thing that you love or hate, but it can feel very strange to change the focus of the application to just access a menu. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that it's "easier" to just point "right" this way, but it is more complicated and "verbose" as well.
Hell even the single fact that when you are presented the logon screen, the pointer is on 10,10 and not at screencenter as on Windows, KDE or Gnome is an inconvenient. A little one but just a little thing here and a little thing there does a lot.
Well, here went my karma again, just like always when a post doesn't screm how perfect Apple is
Here goes my karma.
Hmm.. I would have moderated this as funny.... Oh well...
Apple is known to be a very closed company. In fact, everything surrounding Apple has always had this aura of "officiality" to it. To this day i would say that Apple is one of the companies that has the more conservative image to them, despite the fact that they are playing "hip" and "cool" with their products. The image projected by the company per se is not at all modern, but the one of a corporation surrounded by lawyers. Not that other companies are not the same, but Google or MS for example give a more informal image to the world.
What to use Linuz? Or Windows? Use them, but please let the politics out. Think for your self. And think logically. And technically.
Actually many analists say that if performance per watt is to remain constant over the next few years, power costs could easily overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin.
3 larger universities in Sweden (the one I work for is one of them) are about to add theyselve to MS Live Search book program. They are in the talking at this moment. This will give the project access to 30000+ volumes of books/researchs in scientific and humanitary fields.
And you mean that Linux (an Unix CLONE!!!!!) is better in originality? For crying out loud :-)
The worse case is , for example that it is still possible that in some systems, a personal firewall will reduce security due to security holes in the firewall. Such situations are known.