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Comment Re:Microsoft removed the biggest anti-Linux argume (Score 1) 1010

by cyberthanasis12 (#43419891) Attached to: Windows 8 Killing PC Sales

Seriously? And what happens when people look at the competition? They see nice enough systems that don't run the fucking programs people want and need.

No matter how many times people here want to say it, it just isn't true: You can't take a mainstream user from Windows to "Linux/Android/whatever" without a LOT of pain, hand holding, etc., unless that person is such a lightweight user that s/he lives in a browser.

I've tried numerous times over the years to escape from MS Hell, having been a user of their crapware since MS DOS 1.0, and it's always the same story: Linux has a long list of great attributes and one hideous flaw, the lack of application (and sometimes driver) support.

Until that situation changes, MS still has its customers by the short hairs, and they aren't letting go.

Seriously? Where I work the single program that keeps us from all day linux is autocad. We have 50 licenses of autocad 2005 running in xp machines. We do not plan to upgrade as autocad newer versions has nothing more that would justify 4500 Euros for each license. Windows vista doesn't run it. Windows 7 doesn't run it (linux/wine does run a version of it). About drivers, I do have an hp photosmart 7350. Windows 7 does not have a driver and even HP says there is no driver for Windows 7. Linux does have a full feature driver and it has had it since ages. Linux has more drivers than Windows and MacOS, and it has them right from the start when you install it. This is my experience, but then again I am not a gamer.

Comment Re:Netware 3 (Score 5, Interesting) 187

The thing that I liked most with netware 3.1* was the fantastic undelete it had. It never really erased anything unless it was out of storage. Once I remember I undeleted a file I had erased one month before. And the undelete was no hassle at all. You just looked at a list of the "erased" files and chose whichever you wanted. It's the only thing I (still) miss since I migrated to Linux in 1999.

Comment Re:Wait, what now? (Score 1) 462

by cyberthanasis12 (#40118343) Attached to: Free Desktop Software Development Dead In Windows 8
Have you used anything else? IMHO MSVS is horrible. It is just like MSWord (and possibly others - I have been running Linux for a decade:)). Someone is used to it, and they don't know the trouble they are into. If/when someone tries something-anything- else, and persist for more than a month, then the weakness of MSVS, MSWord is evident.
And yes, I have seen this many times happening to my students (it is however extremely difficult to persuade a student to try something else than what they are used to, and mostly I have given up trying).

Comment Re:Oh really? (Score 1) 184

by cyberthanasis12 (#38977971) Attached to: Former Google Exec: Traditional Search Market Shrinking

I think this is a major factor - people know where to find information now without having to ask Google. They know about Amazon, they know about Wikipedia, they know about their favorite news sites.

Google has its use, but people aren't having to use Google to find everything the way they used to.

This is simply not so. The search mechanism that Amazon and Wikipedia have, is far far far .. (n times) behind Google. It is much much (n times) better to use Google to search either Amazon or Wikipedia. In other words Google searhes Google and Wikipedia better than themselves.

Comment PCBSD (Score 4, Informative) 65

by cyberthanasis12 (#38809707) Attached to: VirtualBSD 9.0 Released
I downloaded PCBSD (a FreeBSD distribution) last weekend. I installed it in an old PC. Everything went fine and it did detect the wireless NIC. I downloaded gcc, g++, gfortran, python and compiled all my programs (console based and graphics based). No surprises. I was either lucky, or FreeBSD/PCBSD is mature enough to be used as desktop OS.
It was a nice experience to use something else than Linux, and be productive as well :)

Submission + - How to Ditch the Grid With a Woodstove and a $100 (motherboard.tv) 3

Submitted by HansonMB
HansonMB writes: Given one of my more immediate life goals is to be living in a somewhat self-contained cabin somewhere far away from all of this — yet still have a way to keep my deer meat frozen and my laptop charged — the Volo Stirling engine is very relevant to my interests. Basically, it’s a lot like an internal combustion engine, except instead of the heat coming from inside the engine via exploding gasoline, the heat comes from outside the engine, like from a woodstove. It’s an old concept, dating back to 1812, that got shoved to the side with the advent of the grid and the internal combustion engine. Detroiter Tim Sefton and his Volo Designs are aiming to bring it back, with plans to have a consumer-ready Stirling engine capable of generating a household’s worth of electricity ready by spring 2012, for less than $100.

Comment I like unity (Score 1) 798

by cyberthanasis12 (#37904586) Attached to: Are Power Users Too Cool For Ubuntu Unity?
I am a power user. I use CL continuously. I have also been using KDE since last century. AND I LIKE unity. Its different, it works (in 11.10), my programs (graphics and text based) run equally well as in KDE (SuSE), and CL is a only click away for power users. Thanks Ubuntu; we have yet another Desktop choice in Linux.

Comment Re:How do I make money in a free software world? (Score 1) 107

by cyberthanasis12 (#37446962) Attached to: Celebrate Software Freedom Today
Oh come on. RMS has said that since ages. Look, how do we make a road? The state pays civil engineers to design and manufacture it, and then it is free for all. Of course it needs maintenance, and again the state pays people to the job.
Thus, if we need structural analysis software, developers get paid to do it and maintain it by tax money, and everyone has it for free.
Things change. Noone has a god-given right to earn money, if they do something that people don't care. To see how ridiculous is the assertion of the gggg-grand father, I will para-phrase it, A LITTLE :
I need to feed my family. I write SNOBOL code for a living. How do I get paid for doing this in a world where all software is in C++/Java/Python?

Comment Re:Don't Be Evil? That's just a lie (Score 1) 417

by cyberthanasis12 (#37236774) Attached to: Schmidt: G+ 'Identity Service,' Not Social Network
I don't believe Google is doing this. You have to concentrate on the (hard) facts:
1. Google search is free and efficient. If MS and (in fact most of America) drives Google out of business, forget search engines for free. And forget good results; MS has already shown that it gives you the results which MS wants to give.
2. Google maps. The same.
3. Google earth. The money that you need to get satellite photos is insane. Yet Google gives it for free. It has helped me and my colleagues enormously.
4. Google translate. A very essential tool for me and almost everyone I know. For free.
5. Google mail.
6. Google Lunar prize. If this does not convince you, then nothing can.
7. VP8 codec, which Google bought and set it free.
And if they make a buck with advertisements, then good.

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I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.

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