[lbo-talk] Ubuntu stuff

Matt lbo4 at beyondzero.net
Mon Aug 17 11:24:24 PDT 2009


Replying to Doug & Wojtek together...

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 09:32:09AM -0700, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> --- On Mon, 8/17/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > If I felt like playing with Unix on this gadget, I could.
> > It's one of the last things I'd like to do. But I could if I
> > felt differently.

The distinction I was trying to make is that I, and most geeks I know, don't just "play with UNIX" for UNIX's sake (well, at least not so much anymore), but want to make computers do things that are not easy to accomplish using Windows or a Mac. Some examples:

* search RSS feeds for media I want and automatically download it (easy with UNIX Regular Expressions....hard under Winders)

* Run a private Wiki so the household can share recipes/store lists/favorite wines/todo lists/vacation plans easily

* Have a wireless media-sharing network so basement bar/back porch/family room/bedrooms all have access to any content-providing device that joins

* Aggregate my work calendar, my personal calendar, the girlfriend's shared calendar together and sync with my cellphone

* etc.etc.

I will have to take you Mac fanboys at your word that they are easy to use - I last bought a Mac in 1995 - but most Windows users I know spend a *LOT* more time tinkering with their computers than I do. When people are at my house and they come across one of the "cool" things in my above list the reaction is is not usually "that looks like so much work, boo hiss!" but most often "wow that looked easy, is there a way I could do that?"


> > But for about 99% of humanity, they just want a machine
> > that's easy to use.

Yet they still use Windows. And I am not referring to the asthetic stuff, but the lack of helpful error messages, constant penetration of the machine with spyware/adware/viruses/trojans, OS reinstallations, data loss, and on....that does not look easy to me.

Maybe what they want is a machine that they perceive to be easy to use. At work, the reflexive answer as to why we had to run Windows for small-computing was [paraphrasing] "so when it malfunctions, there is someone to 1) blame and 2) call and yell at." The perception is that software that came with [a tiny bit of very shitty] support was easier to manage.


> With computers, however, a simple change of code can deny you any
> use of the machine or even access to what you created on it in the
> past. Many applications do not allow you to access any data file,
> even though that you created, if your license expires. And it is
> quite feasible that they can lock your machine altogether with one
> of those constant "updates" if they decide that you need to buy a
> different one or that the content stored on it is "inappropriate" in
> their opinion. It is not much different that Orwellian big brother
> controlling your memory if not thoughts.

Absolutely. The one piece of software I purchased from Microsoft was MS Money - which did a decent job of aggregating all of the downloadable data from all of my accounts, tracking my spending via categories, and reminding me when bills were due. I think I bought MS Money 2000 and thought it worth the $20.

Eventually it stopped working - I could still use it, but could no longer connect to my banks. It had "expired" - the software only came with a 3 year "online license", so that functionality was intentionally crippled even though I could still run the entire program. The solution? Download and install MS Money 2007, at another $20.

Fine, I thought - it is only $20. but the new version only ran on Windows XP, and I was running Windows 2000 Professional. So now, to work around *INTENTIONALLY CRIPPLED* software, I had to install a completely new version of the operating system, with newer features I neither needed nor wanted and which did nothing but slow down my old but in-perfect-working-order hardware.

Such a situation completely offends my geek sensibility, because if this was a bug in a linux program, I could have googled for the fix and been back to balancing my bank account in a matter of minutes.

Incidentally, MS has dicontinued the MS Money product.

Matt

-- GnuPG Key ID: 0xC33BD882 aim: beyondzero123 yahoo msg: beyondzero123

Trillian did a little research in the ship's copy of THHGTTG. It had some advice to offer on drunkenness. "Go to it", it said, "and good luck." It was cross-referenced to the entry concerning the size of the Universe and ways of coping with that.

-THHGTTG



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