| Monday
August 13, 2001
It seems the 'Aunt Minnie' secretaries at City Hall
are a bit more adept than Mr. Robert Brown (your mail page for August 10,
2001)
It's amazing how fast you'll post stories about
people's difficulties with GNU/Linux, but refuse to even acknowlege any
desktop success for the Aunt Minnie users: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239&mode=thread
Darren Remington [darrenr114@yahoo.com]
__________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send
instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/
Actually, I tend mostly to post
letters from people I perceive as friendly or at least polite. But have it
your way which makes me wonder why you bother reading things here.
If I seem a bit irritated the day
started with a long session with Microsoft on problems with XP. But I
think those got fixed.
There is also this from Roland:
Subject: Secretaries using Linux
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239
Which is encouraging. I got the same
story again
While I agree that Linux may not be ready for Aunt
Minnie (or Esther in my case, although I personally think my 80+ year old
aunt would actually love it, but then, she's the curious sort), but I
expect corporations and other organizations with professional support
staff are ready for it. As shown by this story:
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/1441239
Granted, this organization has a lot of background
in this type of thing, but the cost savings are significant enough (both
in windows licenses and hardware costs) that most organizations can not
afford to NOT look at it seriously. If I lived in Largo and paid taxes
there, I'd be *extremely* happy with this and I'd make sure the elected
officials know it.
Pete
which was already in the To be
Posted folder when I got both Roland's message and Mr. Remington's.
The truth is that no one buys a
computer to run an operating system. It's the applications that are
important.
Dr. P.
I don't know if you can stand one more "Is
Linux ready for the desktop" letter, but here goes anyway ;-)
Perhaps 3/4 of the comments saying Linux isn't ready
for the average user are about installation issues. I agree, installing
Linux isn't for the faint of heart. Recent releases get _almost_
everything right, but to a newbie user trying do that first-ever install
any problem at all translates to "This OS doesn't work; I'm going
back to Windows."
The remaining 1/4 of the complaints (the Linux user
interface isn't intuitive) are, imho, _partly_ valid, and efforts are
underway to find and fix the parts of Gnome and KDE where you need to be a
nerd to find your way. Some of the user interface complaints are because
the Linux box doesn't act exactly like a Windows box or a Mac. I feel
that's just a matter of training -- if being "non-standard"
makes your interface more self-consistant, so be it. After all, how
"intuitive" is the Mac convention of dragging a disk to the
trash to eject it?
So... your average Uncle Bob and Aunt Minnie aren't
going to be using Linux just yet, UNLESS your nerdy cousin Terry is
willing to set everything up and act as the system administrator.
One place where I think Linux could make its big
breakthrough onto the desktop is in the mid-small office environment. I'm
talking about businesses of 40 to 150 here... large enough to have a real
computer department but small enough so the person-who-signs-the-checks
and the person-who-makes-the-computers-run might sit down and have lunch
together. When those two get together and decide Linux applications can
handle all the critical business needs Well Enough and save hundreds or
thousands per Worker Bee, the whole company could suddenly switch over to
Linux.
The Killer App that will, imho, make this possible
is an automated way to convert the latest Microsoft file formats to some
other (open, published) file format. When Worker Bee Mary gets an email
with a PowerPoint 2003 attachment, she can forward the file to an 'Oracle'
computer sitting in the wiring closet. The Oracle fires up a real licensed
copy of PowerPoint 2003, opens the file, spits it out in some recognized
format, and automagically emails it back to Mary. The company needs to buy
_one_ copy of Microsoft's latest to be able to work with other, Microsoft-adicted,
companies.
Microsoft recognizes, of course, this is a
Microsoft-killer App... they will go to great lengths to break the Oracle.
And so the battle goes on...
--- Rich Brown --- FreeMars.org --- (with Linux at
home, Win 95, 98, NT, 2000, Mac OS-9, OS-X, Linux at work)
We do seem to live in interesting
times. Interesting for all kinds of people...
Subject: Astonishingly good sense from the New York
Time
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/13/technology/ebusiness/13NECO.html?0813inside
Roland Dobbins
So we have many miracles today.
On the current game of the month
Jerry:
I can't agree with you more, I love Diablo II
Expansion Set Lord of Destruction. My only problem is getting my kids off
the computer so that I can play. Good to know that I am not the only
person over twenty-five on BattleNet. I think Act V is the best yet, and
the expansion characters are great. Anyway, good call.
Jim Young
And an interesting question:
dear jerry
i've been reading your columns since it was on
paper and now i read it on the net. concerning the possibility of filling
those big hard disks you mentioned in column 250, well i would suggest to
leave it to Bill's company to fulFILL that with the release of their
newest OS!
more seriously, i wonder if someone has worked out
the amount of storage needed to store someone's lifetime experience. what
i mean is that you have a hard disk on your head (so to speak) and record
everything you see, hear, feel (most of the senses). then you could with
some intelligent software have Computer Aided Recall Experiences (CARE).
so what would be the amount of storage needed to store images and sound
for say, 50 years?
hope to hear from you cyberly naushad-from Mauritius
This is different from Freeman
Dyson's version of eternal life by downloading yourself to electronic
hardware, and in fact complete recall of visual and auditory experience
ought to be possible fairly soon. Or perhaps not. I have not done even a
first cut at the math. I am sure someone will do so in hours.
And on space:
Subj: Space: improved engine cooling From: monty@sprintmail.com
You and your readers may find this item interesting:
http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Sept00/MFS31477.html
Apparently Orbital Technologies have figured out how
to control the circulation of gases within the combustion chamber, to keep
the hottest areas away from the chamber walls.
So some progress is being made towards better
engines suitable for reusable launchers.
Rod Montgomery
And on DSL in Korea
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
Sir:
Much like the United States, getting DSL here seems
easy, but the actual practice is unreasonably complicated.
The process began smoothly, signing up for DSL at
the same time as signing up for a phone. The technician was promised to be
at my apartment two weeks after the phone was installed, between 1 and 4
in the afternoon (sounds familiar, I know).
On the appointed day, I took the afternoon off work,
and waited. And waited. At 4:30, the tech called and promised to be at my
place by 5:00. At 5:55, he arrived. The language barrier was an immediate
problem. My korean is limited to hello, with much pointing and gesturing,
and his english, while good, was notably deficient in technical language.
After determining what phone was the "main", he eventually had
the line set. He installed an ADSL "modem" card in my computer,
replacing my T-10/100 ethernet card. I attempted to obtain the mail
settings for my email, and the news server settings for USENET. Neither
concept is possible to explain by pantomine. As he was leaving, he assured
me the service would be working the next day at 6:00. Despite the 2+ week
advance time, the main office had not initiated the service.
The next day, 6:00, the system was online. However,
unlike ADSL in the states, I am not "always on". I must first
log on to the system. The interesting feature is the connection icon in
the system tray. By hovering the mouse over the icon, I get the connection
speed, even when I'm not actually logged on. As this speed varies
drastically, I appreciate the information. On DSL in the states, my speed
varied, but was unknown, generally. My speed here ranges from very fast
(640 up, 4,500,000 down) to abysmally slow (340 up, 1,200,000 up).
I have yet to discover my news server settings. I
have puzzled out the mail settings. The ISP home page is exclusively in
korean, so no joy there. Otherwise, I am overjoyed to be online, and able
to surf at home again.
Bryan B. LTC, US Army
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Thanks.
And some advice to a previous letter
writer:
Jerry,
Dimitrios
Stathopoulos writes "It seems that I am always operating with a 2
month gap in security releases. I suppose the ultimate blame is mine for
not properly cataloging any updates I download post SP-2"
If he looks in Start --> Settings --> Control
Panel --> Add/Remove Programs, the installed hot fixes will be listed,
along with the related Microsoft Knowledge Base article number.
Information about whether the patch is pre-SP1, pre-SP2, or pre-SP3 is
also given. This is very useful for trying to figure out what patches have
already been installed.
I've never noticed a delay with the
WindowsUpdate.com site, but if this is a problem, I suggest he
subscribe to the NT Bug Traq mailing list at http://www.ntbugtraq.com
, which gives me more information than I can keep up with.
Robert Racansky
And for a foreign view of the US legal
system
Dear Jerry, I've been reading you for most of my
adult life (both in BYTE and SF). For many years you were one of the few
hard-boiled authors out there,and it's nice to see people like David Weber
continue to work in the genre. I'd still like a few more Falkenberg books,
though ;-).
Was moseying (spelling?) around the linux sites and
noted that not only has Dimitry Skylarov been arrested for decrypting
e-books (http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html)
but that the same bunch of big media are suing Matthew Pavolich, the co-ordinator
of the livid project (an open source attet to get DVDs to run in linux,
see http://linuxvideo.org) The case report is at http://www.eff.org/Cases/DVDCCA_case/20010807_pavlovich_appelate_ruling.html.)
What is scary is that the pavolvich case is field in california, a state
where Pavlovich has not worked. The lawyers argued that as the internet
connects Texas (where palovich lives) to california, this is legitimate. I
am unure if they would try that in another country... but they did arrest
the 16 year old norwegian kid who wrote DeCSS.
Now sometimes it is important and legitimate to get
at the raw data. For instance, I am working or a project where i have to
rewrite a topic every 8 months. (See http:www.clinicalevidence.org if you
are interested). I usually take the last pdf file and rum pdftotext to get
a nice plain text file I can then edit (in emacs), and end both back to my
editors.
I could go on and discuss other issues, but they all
seem to relate to the digital millenium copyright act. Well, in my
slightly stupid way of thinking, If I buy one of your books I can give it
away: I can even donate it to a lbrary, or use quotes from it when I
lecture: I can write criticisms of it and then copyight those. If we did
not have these personal use and research outlets, we English as an
academic discipline would be limited to works over 150 years old. (i'm
aware that that may be a good thing... see CS Lewis (Suprise for Joy ch 2)
for an argument on that topic).
I get the impression that the US legal profession
believes that US law does not stop at state or even federal boundaries. If
this is the case, is the US then functioning as an empire? That might
explian why I immediately quted that famous Revolutionary saying
"don't tread on me" when I aw this. It may also explain in art
why there are riots at large international meetings: the majority of the
world cannot vote or influence the US (which is the 800 lb gorilla of the
world at least) and thus take to the streets.
I'm afraid that your pessimistic view of the
codominium is coming true.
Best wishes and my sympathy about Poul Anderson.
Chris Gale kiwidoc@internet.co.nz
For more on this matter see below.
And that ought to do for a Monday.
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