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Well, it has been an exciting week here at ISTE. This is such a huge event that there is really no way to condense it all here. One of the coolest areas I enjoyed was the ‘Bloggers Corner’ which was a little area off to the side where bloggers would crowd in and blog like mad. It was set up with an interactive whiteboard to boot, and a constant stream of quasi-presenters would be presenting their projects. So you could watch projects while at the same time blog away on your current work.
Here in this shot, I am looking over the days itenerary while enjoying a wonderful breakfast. The meal pretty much cost the same as at the convention center however this croissant (as opposed to the bland mass of burrito at the convention hall) tasted absolutely delicious! Black Forest ham smothered with a couple of large scrambled eggs, black pepper and the lightest flakiest bread I have ever had. I wish I could take this place with me!
The rest of the day went pretty much like the others. Strolling from booth to booth, looking over the many many offerings and being constantly amazed at how expensive things have gotten. Apparently I have been hiding out in my own little part of the world far too long, and as nice as this city is, I am looking forward to getting back to my garden and my agrarian activities. I attended quite a few open source sessions, most of my readers know that I am a huge fan of open source but there is still something holding back the open source communities from being mainstream. Every Linux session I attended was packed to the door with several hundred IT geeks like me, but they are still waiting for something. Everyone knows that open source is superior to proprietary softwares for the most part, it is scalable, sustainable, and implementable. Especially where Ubuntu and Suse are concerned but I think we are still waiting for something. We are waiting for someone to give us a good reason to go against the flow of Microsoft conventionalism.
How do I know Linux and open source are ready for the real world? Becuase the real world uses open source NOT microsoft. You can go to literally any country in the world, even 1st world nations and you will see Linux implemented as the primary operating system. Hell, in Finland you can’t even GIVE MS away over there. They literally hate it. Brazils government gave MS a price point to hit, but Gates said he couldn’t, so the entire government infrastructure is totally Linux. Anybody who says Linux isn’t ready is simply being a weenie. It’s not that Linux isn’t ready for the United States, it’s more like the United States isn’t ready to think outside the box and move to Linux. It is amazing to me that the country that has distinguished itself as a leader of progressive thought, is so easily entrenched in commercialism and so concnrete minded that they won’t even TRY something for free.
But enough of my soap box for now. San Antonio is a beautiful place. Interesting thing about this part of the country is the overwhelming use of Limestone. These guys use it in ALL of their architecture. Limestone is one of those great stone materials that is seemingly easy to work with and is absolutely beautiful when the southern sun strikes it. Most of the time when it is being used it is used with a rough exterior. I think this is because if the rock had a smooth finish it would be literally BLINDING when in full sun. I have always dreamed of having a swimming pool with finished limestone which would make the water literally invisible. You could see something like that from space with the refractive sunlight bouncing BACK into the stratosphere.
When you come to down town San Antonio you absolutely MUST see my friends over at ‘SIP’. Located on the corner of N. St. Mary’s street and E. Houston this little place rocks. The coffee is robust and seriously beats the hell out of Starbucks. The espresso is rich and you can feel its effects down to your toes. The breakfast croissant (see photo above) is absolutely, positively delicious. Come by have an espresso, take in the young life here and remember what it was like in those 20-somethings years. The people here are decorated with body art and bring a lively conversation to your heart. Very much similar to the conversation that you have at the academic level. The young folks are concerned about current events, but are light heartedly in their own world where they bring a kind of joy. Remember this you high school teachers. But no matter where you go, what state you are in, what coffee shop you enjoy, be sure to join the human population, be sure to join the world of humanity, be sure to join the conversation.
Quote: Anybody who says Linux isn’t ready is simply being a weenie.
Well, I guess I’ll be a weenie then.
Before you write me off, I’ve installed Ubuntu Linux, XP and Vista in a triple boot, so I do have some credibility. Linux may (and probably is) much better than any proprietary system, but here’s where it fails (at least in my experience): with Microsoft stuff, you go buy the software, stick in the disk, and follow the instructions. Then you stick in all your other disks, and follow their instructions. Everything (at least on XP) works as expected.
With Linux, you go download the disk, follow the burning instructions (or order a disk from the website) and then go to install it. First off, Linux wants several partitions–which since I already have three partitions used, and you can’t have more than four and still use more than one operating system, as windows was nice enough to tell me). It actually installed–then by the time I went to use it next, crashed. I ended up digging up an old hard drive to use.
Next, Ubuntu never recognized my el-cheapo wireless card so I bought some cat6 cable. I could finally get on the internet–though it wasn’t even half as fast as it was in Microsoft stuff.
Trying to install Flash and Java was another story: it took a trip to the Ubuntu forums to get an installer, but Java still didn’t install. I did some terminal boot loader restructuring (GRUB allows for hibernating between OS’s, which I though was worth the extra boot time), and then headed back to Vista.
Here’s my opinion: Linux is tech/geek friendly, but would never work for my grandmother.
I was reading about some code one-liners that could destroy an entire system–Just a copy and paste away. Plus, compatibility is nil. Yes, It works great with other open source software, but I own a lot of stuff that wouldn’t consider running on Linux. You ether need a dual booted copy of Microsoft, or a emulator. It doesn’t matter which you do–both rely on proprietary software.
Now if Linux was the default operating system around the world, I could see there being a good compatibility base. So my verdict: open source may be ready for the world, but the world isn’t ready for open source. At least make a program that limits the harm you can do to a system for my grandma!
Quote: so the entire government infrastructure is totally Linux.
And last time I checked, the entire US government runs Dos or OS/2 junk. If you look at what quality governments do their primary stuff (take care of it’s people, etc.), Do we really want to let them lead us in operating system choice? Tell me what businesses in Finland run (I really don’t think many corporations run out of Brazil, do you?): Microsoft (I don’t care if it’s 2000 or something:))or Linux? Not to go off on a rabbit trail, but Finland is almost completely atheistic, so I really don’t trust their decisions ether.
I’ve just had enough problems with Linux that I don’t think it’s ready for the consumer.
Anyway, I hope you have a good time in San Antonio, and make it back to your wildcraft safe and sound. I’ve got to go get some more soap.
Jonathan
@Jonathan:
Incidentally Brazil is an emerging economy and there are some really great things happening down there in the public and private sectors. Granted they have a long way to go as a first world order however, their lack of Microsoft doesn’t mean they are doomed to stay third world as Microsoft definitely did not have any impact on their emerging market status any more than Linux does.
I really appreciate your synopsis here, and am glad you took my rant light-heartedly. I tend to rant from time to time, and I have been informed by my wife that there are times I need to keep my fat mouth shut.
You post some very real issues and concerns here and they are real challenges to say the least. In my personal opinion I don’t think they throw Linux into the ‘not ready for the real world category’ however. As I stated before the rest of the world uses Linux, and despite the religious proclivities of a nation I believe that the tools they use have real value. I wouldn’t necessarily discount Finlands use of a ‘hoe’ in a garden simply because they are/were pagans.
I have installed just about every form of Linux however my experience is more based on the Ubuntu and Suse platforms and I have installed those on just about every kind of machine possible without much problem at all. The only real problem I had with Ubuntu was installing it on a very new laptop and there were some video driver issues, but they were resolved easily enough. In comparison to Microsoft at the school I currently work, a fresh XP install means I still have to go out and find network drivers, video drivers, sound card drivers and some firm ware stuff. Side by side there is really no difference in the work I have to do to get a machine up and running for our less-than technical teacher group. No matter what OS used, there is the potential for driver problems, so I am considering that pretty much a ‘wash’ as far as one being more effect than another.
You did a triple-boot install?! I definitely have to give you MASSIVE kudos for attempting that. I must say I am reasonably impressed that you tried that, I can only add that I don’t know of a single basic computer user ever trying that, and hopefully avoiding the trouble you had. If computers came pre-installed (Something that Dell is actually doing now) with the Linux OS there would be much less problems just like Microsoft.
A year ago I tried an experiment and installed Ubuntu on my wifes system. She is pretty much a non-tech savvy person and didn’t even know what I was doing. She was on Linux for over a year and never had a single incident. No blue screens, no re-starts, no crashes. I just did the basic install, and she used the computer normally. I also find it interesting that MS word 2003 will not recognize the new MS Word 2007 format HOWEVER the open source product ‘Open Office Write’ program actually will recognize the new *.docx format and MS’s own stuff will not.
I also did a test to see how much of the stuff that I do with MS I could also do with Linux. I was on Linux during this test for over a year and found that I could pretty much do ANYTHING on Linux that I was doing with MS. I am also an Adobe fan, and I can do anything with open source solutions that I can do with Adobe. In fact I consider GIMP a superior product to Adobes Photoshop CS2 product, however the open source equivalent to Adobes InDesign is a bit inferior admittedly. But most users don’t really use Adobe as its price points are seriously cost-prohibitive.
Vista is a different story altogether. It is unwieldy and requires MASSIVE CPU cycle time and huge repositories of RAM. If you try to run the CPU hogging Adobe applications AND the Vista together you are in for trouble. Incidentally, I have installed Vista on a number of systems and havn’t come across an installation yet that wasn’t messed up for some reason or another, most problems emanating from the active desktop problematics.
I would also offer that MS only SEEMS easy because of the familiarity people have with it, and whenever there is the least little hiccup with Linux people tend to magnify the problem by saying something to the effect of ‘See! I knew it wouldn’t work right’. As a professional in the academic field of public school I would never trust our users to install Linux on their own, and neither would I trust them to install XP for that matter. As a support agent in charge of their e-needs it is up to me to deploy the solution and then support the solution as I would any other product.
Now that I have pretty much threw all that out there please allow me the following disclaimers.
1. I would never expect the general user to download an iso and burn a bootable copy of Linux. So you are completely validated with your statements regarding a general use INSTALL. But I disagree with the idea that people are not ready for general use USAGE.
2. My comment regarding ‘weenies’ was more a direct assault to the IT professionals who are paid to search for cost-effective computing solutions in the public school arenas and definitely DO NOT apply to you as a power user and obvious computer minded individual. As IT professionals, my colleagues and I don’t have the luxury of saying ‘we can’t do it.’. Incidentally I consider myself somewhat a weenie because I really havn’t pushed for this solution in the place I personally work as well, so I stand guilty of my own accusation as well. I use XP at home, and I used XP at work as well, but there definitely has to be some changes in our field in the public school world.
3. If you have made it this far in my reply I m doubly impressed with your tenacity.
Thank you so much for reading my dribble, and thank you immeasurably for reading the WildCraft site. With regard to technology I try not to depend on any of it too much, whether it be Linux, MS, or Mac oriented. I want to re-iterate that you have voiced legitimate concerns and I know the move from MS to Linux can not only be a trying venture, but a frustrating one as well. That isn’t your fault, but it is ours the IT pros in the U.S.A. If we havn’t kept pushing Windows on everyone our OS landscape would definitely look a lot different, if not, brighter. I know a weenie when I see one, and you sir are NO weenie. 
God speed and God bless.
Quote: “A year ago I tried an experiment and installed Ubuntu on my wife’s system. She is pretty much a non-tech savvy person and didn’t even know what I was doing.”
Maybe that’s my problem then–I know just enough to be dangerous.
Most of the problems I had were during the install.
As I think about it, some of those problems were actually related to the triple boot. However, I never had any trouble with ether of the MS products.
Quote: “If you try to run the CPU hogging Adobe applications AND the Vista together you are in for trouble.”
I’ve never tried running Adobe stuff (other than reader, of course) on vista, mostly because I can’t afford it. I have GIMP installed, but haven’t really gotten into it. Mostly, I use Paint.NET, which does all I need to in a pretty standard interface (I’ve never really gotten used to the floating windows in GIMP :)).
While we’re on Adobe, have you ever come across a Open Source adobe reader replacement that has a Firefox plug in? I’ve tried Foxit,which, judging by the name, should be compatible with Firefox, but it only works with IE. That is a program I would just assume throw out the window. Unfortunately, some of my favorite sites don’t work properly in Firefox, and Vista kills the fox when I try to open them in IE tab. I’m still trying to figure out why I like vista so much, but I guess I’m addicted to the eye candy.
My other beef with Linux is that, for me, it is slower than even Vista. Now vista is (and is supposed to be) slow. But I thought Linux was supposed to be fast! Even download speeds are reduced. I have no idea why that is; it’s installed on an older hard drive (40GB IDE100), but I have a 2.66 E6750 and 4 Gigs of memory–not exactly an slow system.
I’d really like to use Linux more, and I don’t particularly love windows, but I’m probably not going to change over to something just because it’s Open Source.
Quote: MS word 2003 will not recognize the new MS Word 2007 format HOWEVER the open source product ‘Open Office Write’ program actually will recognize the new *.docx format and MS’s own stuff will not.
All word 03 takes is a downloaded compatibility pack–admittedly not a small download for a low speed connection, but available. My Word 03 era Open Office Writer won’t read .docx files without a download, ether. While we’re here, I gave Open Office a good try, but couldn’t cope without grammar check–it saves my editor (read mom) a lot of extra work. I’m not real good at catching grammatical errors (which doesn’t matter so much in blog posts and such, but really get a school paper marked down :)) I suppose few enough people need it that Open Source programmers haven’t taken the time/energy to write a checker.
I personally like Word 07 immensely. Microsoft cleaned up their interface and threw in a context checker, which by next year, I will probably rely on heavily as well.
Quote: I have installed Vista on a number of systems and haven’t come across an installation yet that wasn’t messed up for some reason or another, most problems emanating from the active desktop problematics.
Let me introduce you to my Vista installation: once I got my hardware in order (this was my first build) Vista went on with no problems, pretty much hassle free–even starting out with only 2 gigs of ram.
I immediately noticed a substantial speed increase from a entry level laptop and my mom’s five year old computer. After I started dual booting, I even noticed a speed increase from XP (probably because all of those wonderful utilities that I never used but that only worked in XP :)). In any case, I had no driver problems except for that el-cheapo wireless card which had a Vista driver online. That’s more than I can say for it under Ubuntu.
I would be really interested in your Ubuntu productivity experiment. What kind of effort did it take to get your Linux system to do everything windows did? Did you try any multimedia playback or creation (like video and or audio)? I am doing some video and audio data archival, so I’m really interested in stuff like editing and recording.
Quote: “With regard to technology I try not to depend on any of it too much”
That’s my problem. When our power goes out (like it did for about the last 18 hours :() I am practically pulling my hair out for something to do, dying to check my email (even though I don’t get that much), and generally annoying everyone else in the house. However, I find that the more I withdraw from technology, the more I depend on God. So I guess it’s a good thing we loose our power occasionally.
I have a hard time enjoying the outdoors as much as I would like to, due to some pretty stiff across the board allergies. And then it rains, and we grow a bumper crop of misquotes that makes life out of doors even more intolerable. One of these days, I’m going to figure out a way to enjoy it in spite of all that.
In regard to Finland, I just found it interesting that you referenced a country whom a prospective missionary I’m acquainted with plans to serve in; he says that there is only one Christian church in the whole country. To go there, you need to be Finnish, at least partly. I suppose you’re right about my connection; I hereby apologize to the Finnish people.
As for Brazil, that country still brings images to my mind of tropical jungles, early ruins and Spanish conquistadors. I guess I need to update my impressions.
Well, I’m enjoying this correspondence quite thoroughly; and while I’m sure your wife is entirely correct, I’ve found this to be quite an edifying rant.
One last question, this time from my mom: do Linux system administrators really get paid around half of what programmers do? She was wondering after seeing an add in the paper for both, with the admins getting $25,000 - $50,000 while the programmers get $50,000 - $90,000.
Grace and Peace,
Jonathan
Jonathan: I think I have finally found someone who types large book-like responses.
Most people don’t seem to have the commitment for these kinds of discussions so I definitely want to commend you for that.
Now, to be perfectly honest here, I use and rely on XP for many things. My hopeless addiction (and enormous investment) to Adobe is what keeps me running on a MS based OS. However my Open Source experiment was an attempt to replace mostly Adobe. I do a lot of design work so I need a design oriented system, and while I found I could replace very specific applications with open source alternatives, I was still tormented by the fact that I spent an enormous amount of my own personal money for the Adobe suite and I felt that I was somehow wasting my money by going the open source route. I tried several emulators but found that the Adobe software was far too sophisticated to be handled by things like ‘Wine’. A dual install is definitely a solution, but I don’t want to swap back and forth between OS’s. I was able to play all kinds of media with the Linux system, but I need to clarify this a bit. I use ‘WinAmp’ and there is some back end hacking so you can play certain extensions. This is where the ’support’ part of my job comes into play. I would not expect an average user to do this as it requires a certain level of application understanding.
Regarding Vista: Don’t take me wrong, I think Vista is one of the most beautiful interfaces I have ever seen. Second only to Apple. Apple pretty much runs the show in my opinion as far as aesthetics and reliability. The only problem with Apple is the sheer expense of the units, which they are working on. Apples are starting to really come into the correct price points for actual market penetration, and they need to do that if they want to be viable on a large scale, and not just for the Apple snobs. In addition I really like the new MS office 2007, not only is it beautiful but it is remarkably useful and functional as well. Now to clarify, I don’t have problems with drivers necessarily, just that I have to go looking for them, which is basically the same with Linux. A base Linux install will have the core components necessary to get up and running, however you will have to go looking for drivers the same as with a Windows installation. One difference I have noticed is that I have NEVER had to go looking for a network driver for a Linux install but about 90% of the Windows I install I have to go download it and install. I am basing this on the fact that I install Windows on a couple of hundred systems per year at the school district. True there are some systems that you will not have to go get drivers for a Windows system however when you work on several hundred you get a much better statistical look at how much work a Windows OS really is. You can read much of my Linux experiement in the earlier posts of this blog and see the trouble spots I hit during the trial. One thing I will mention however is that last year Ubuntu was in its ‘Feisty Fawn’ stage, it has now introduced a new iteration called ‘Hardy Heron’. I actually installed ‘Edgy Eft’, ‘Feisty Fawn’, ‘Gutsy Gus’ and ‘Hardy Heron’ iterations. The ‘HH’ iteration is extremely robust and the use of the package manager is seamless and extremely remarkable. Using their Synaptic pack manager searches repositories for just about ANY Open Source software you can name, and the installation is fast and seamless. You will not find that on ANY Windows system as most software written for Windows costs money and when you multiply those lisences on a public school scale Windows systems costs thousands per machine. This is something most users will not see as most use just a small handful of programs.
When migrating to the Linux world on a ‘user level’ the transition can be a bit on the difficult side simply because Linux is somewhat unfamiliar. However, people have found that migrating to a Apple OS is much more painful as the two OS’s don’t have anything in common in actuality. The GNOME interface on Linux is so similar to Windows most users don’t have a problem at all using it, once shown where everything is, such as Open Office stuff, and the Internet, which is where almost 100% of people spend about 100% of their time. Firefox is not only faster than Internet Explorer, but it is also much more stable, it is much more secure and it is much more safe. Firefox is the ultimate web browser where this is concerned, however again, most people are used to clicking on the big blue ‘E’. In addition, Internet Explorer does not support the web rules that the entire world has pretty much adopted as standard. The reason why is because MS wants to rule the world where the Internet is concerned and is pretty much refusing to adopt any standards written by anyone but themselves. It is this arrogance that inflames me the most with regard to MS and Apple, although Apples ‘Safari’ browser adopts more standards than MS and will even support CMYK images which is far superior to the ‘RGB’ standards on web-based images in quality and usability. Firefox has yet to support CMYK, but I presume it is on it’s way. MS barely supports CSS 2 let alone CSS 3 which is coming soon. However Firefox supports CSS 2 stylings plus a majority of the CSS 3 stuff.
With regard to Brazil, yes, it is still pretty much Jungle however its major cities are bigger than the major cities in the U.S. Here is the thing, the United States believes that they are superior in ALL aspects of life simply because the economy is so good, however what people in general fail to realize is that there are other aspects to life other than economy. Many nations who do not enjoy our economic status are superior in technological usage, overall health status, fulfillment in life, educational status and overall human capital. The United States lags behind a lot of the world in many, many issues. With regard to computer technology the Finish and the Irish pretty much rule the landscape, and the programmers there are much more sophisticated and write much more beautiful code that is much more elegant and sustainable. We don’t see alot of this because we are 1. Trapped in American idealism, and 2. Trapped inside a computer world ruled by Bill Gates. As soon as we begin to drop this infatuation with Microsoft we will start realizing a world much more broad.
Idealistically, I believe in a completely open internet society where no one person and his/her technology dictates the terms by which we live our electronic lives. There are tons of applications that are so superior to anything Windows can produce, but we will never see them, because we are not really looking for them. Most of the rest of the world refuses to use Microsoft if it is even given to them simply because Windows is the most non-secure operating system on the planet. Hackers and identify thieves love Windows users because it is so easy to get important information from a Windows unit. At the school district teachers often forget their passwords of their windows machines. In about 60 seconds I can insert a disk and break into their system without any effort at all on my part, and I am not even a hacker. The biggest problem with Windows is that it was NEVER designed or meant to run on a network which is why a Windows network is the most shoddy ever created. Windows constantly has to come out with fixes, to patch the humongous holes in their networks, and the thing never has much more than a 90% uptime. I would never run a Windows network on any organization that relys on protecting information such as a school district. Now to be clear, you can run a Windows machine on a non-Windows network which is what we do at our school district. The Novell network is the most superior network in my opinion in all the world, and it interfaces with Windows with no problems, but it interfaces with Linux machines seamlessly. Novell own the Suse Linux distribution and I will soon be migrating to Suse (although I don’t like it as much as Ubuntu) simply for this fact. In the past year we have not once had an issue with our Novell network and have pretty much maintained a 100% uptime provided the electricity stays on.
In addition, with GroupWise, and Zenworks and the very competitive pricing any organization that is NOT using Novell to manage their network either has sub-par admins, or the ‘weenie’ effect is in play. I can say this without any guilt or fear as I have run both types of networks.
Finally.
With regard to your mothers question, there are many, many, many levels of IT workers, so she may be getting some of the roles confused. A Novell network administrator should be remarkably competitive in todays market. If I took my current Novell skills to a large metropolitan area I could quite easily command a 100k plus salary. With my current Linux expertise I could pretty much command roughly the same salary. But in the Windows world, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Windows guy, so going by supply/demand principles I would be hard pressed to say that Windows admins get more capital, except for the idea that Windows admins work 24/7 simply because of the instability of the Windows network. That is not the way I want to live my life. I get paid only around 40k per year, but my weekends belong to me and when I leave the school district my time is mine, which is much more valuable to me than a six figured income. Again, I have personally made the choice that economics was not going to run my life and I was going to look at a FULL life rather than one dictated by the almighty but failing dollar.
One of the reasons why I started the WildCraft site is because I have begun breaking away from the norm and an economic ran lifestyle. I want fulfillment, and joy and I don’t see these things in the coorperate world of charletons and flim-flam sales representatives. The cost of our goods is enormously over priced so I am making small moves to get away from this for me and my family. This is plays somewhat into my dislike of Microsoft. If the rest of the world is not using Microsoft then why? Is it because they are so inferior and uneducated than Americans? I don’t believe so. It is also my personal opinion that in the not-to-distant future Americans will be migrating to Linux out of necessity rather than by choice. The public school systems are being hit very, very hard by economic woes at this time. A 40 pound bag of dehydrated milk has gone from $30 a bag to $110 a bag in less than a year. I see this as a sign of troubled times ahead and am looking for ways that my family can enjoy a rich full life, without the burden of an economically driven country. America doesn’t have better people, or necessarily a better national system we just have more money. Proof of this is the declining morality, increasing costs, and the overall dumbing down of our citizens. However that is a different rant for a different blog.
I appreciate the dialogue immensely and for what it is worth, your questions and comments have actually helped me galvanize my ideas. It is readers like you who are willing to ‘enter the conversation’ rather than being an observer only, that help us better this world. Keep asking the tough questions, keep making the tough comments and never apologize for your inquisitive nature and suspicion for the status quo. I believe together we can do much more than make a difference, we can stage a bloodless revolution of getting back to quality of life rather than the economic driven, fast-food oriented existence that is now called the United States of America.
Peace be with you, and yours.
Quote: And by the way, I want those capabilities without having to hack ANYTHING! I’m tired of this “Linux Elitism”. Make Linux easier or die!
That’s mostly been my impression of Linux. I suppose it would be easier if all you were doing was checking email and browsing the internet, or doing one of the several other ‘normal’ things on it, but for a power user… BTW, I’d have better known what I was getting into if I had read your backlog before I posted. Imagine dukeing it out with a self-described Ubuntu evangelist.
I’ll heartily agree with Internet Explorer’s basic ineptness at rendering basic websites. I do quite a bit of CSS and PHP web development (I’m apprenticed to a web developer who owns her own business, works full time as a web developer, and home schools her three kids. I’m not sure how she does it all) and routinely have trouble making things look right in IE. I actually have five browsers for testing installed on my computer.
I found some programing jems in the backlog–I’ve bookmarked a lot for later reference.
Let me guess…was it a Windows server that crashed your site? Too bad about that–there must have been a lot of good writing there.
As for the book like responses, I always have enjoyed learning new things–and having a lively discussion is even better!
Have you heard? Bill Gates actually retired!
Quote: “A dual install is definitely a solution, but I don’t want to swap back and forth between OS’s.”
Are you referring to keeping your files up to date on both systems? Or are you worried about switching back in the middle of the day? I’m not sure about XP and Ubuntu, but I can set quite a few applications to share files (like email databases in Thunderbird) between the Vista and XP. I also use a browser plug in called Foxmarks that synchronizes Firefox bookmarks. Also, GRUB allows you to hibernate your system and choose which OS to boot back up into; A process that gets quicker the in proportion to memory you have. Read: quicker with less memory. I’ve had some instability, but only on my first try; since, everything seems to have worked fine.
Speaking of apple, have you had much experience with macs? I know your dad got one. I would kind of like to get one, but the sticker shock is substantial. Do you know how much you actually have to spend to get a decent mac?
Do you need your network drivers for your Novell network, or a windows network, or a Linux network? I’m assuming it wasn’t for a windows network. I don’t know why Microsoft never really took the time to add any decent networking functionality into Windows. They have caused me so many headaches since we got a second computer, about two years ago. Vista seems to work a lot better in that area, but I’m still not convinced Microsoft got it right. I don’t even worry about security; all I need is something to keep the neighbors from stealing our wireless internet.
To run a Novell network, you have to have a server, correct?
I’m running HH Ubuntu: v8.04.
Quote: “You will not find that on ANY Windows system as most software written for Windows costs money”
And 90% of it drags on your computer, even when you’re not running the program!
Quote: “In about 60 seconds I can insert a disk and break into their system without any effort at all on my part, and I am not even a hacker.”
Microsoft’s policy: if the 3rd party is in physical possession of the computer, it’s not considered ‘breaking in’. Or some such thing.
Quote: “Americans will be migrating to Linux out of necessity rather than by choice.”
People have been wondering what Microsoft will do (other than fixing what they have already) when they finally create what Vista was supposed to be: the perfect operating system. Maybe they will go out of business.
Quote: “Idealistically, I believe in a completely open internet society where no one person and his/her technology dictates the terms by which we live our electronic lives.”
The truth (and and open standards) will set you free!
Quote: “we can stage a bloodless revolution of getting back to quality of life rather than the economic driven, fast-food oriented existence that is now called the United States of America.”
Now that’s something to pray for!
Struggling with all His energy, which [can] so powerfully work in [us].
Jonathan.
P.S. You’ve given my the determination to try Ubuntu again this weekend. We’ll see how it goes…
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