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Comment Liability (Score 2) 666

The only thing I can add is Liability. RedHat assumes some liability in the day to day operations of your company. Liability which if you sell to customers (aduh) they require for certain forms and certifications. Insurance is not enough. We're talking SOX, we're talking HIPAA etc. At the end of the day though, just remember that these are just tools. No different than someone saying "I want a stanley hammer" and you getting a black and decker.

I've written a few whitepapers on Support and Maintenance, and in my surveying of customers, liability or the ability to checkmark that their supplier/vendor has liability for the code they use to produce their goods has been a very GOOD thing in a few cases like government and lawfirms.

Yo Grark

Comment Re:Keep trying Linux, but just never quite there.. (Score 1) 455

Maybe that's my problem, always been using it on older hardware because I never wanted to give my good hardware to it until it was proven.

Although an athlon 2500 with a gig of ram I would have thought would be pretty detectable. And the wireless IS a usb, so more problems there, but it's no different from windows, "install driver" no problem.

Want to install this RPM? just chmod a few letters which mean nothing in a terminal you don't understand and you're there!

I just want to doubleclick the driver and have it work, not prompt me to extract it then have no idea how to run it.

But again, that's from a windows mentality, but its what people really do think when they try Linux for the first time!

Comment Keep trying Linux, but just never quite there.... (Score 1) 455

Forgive me if this is off topic, but I just wanted to get my views out there with this new release.

Unity or no, the real problem is that simple tasks are not that simple. In simple terms, that simple people can understand.

I booted a live cd of Ubuntu and had 2 hard drives, main drive and storage drive. I wanted to prepare (wipe) the storage drive and backup everything in the main drive.

However, I found that the secondary drive was readonly (I couldn't make a directory). Without knowing how to prep the drive or under what circumstance, it almost stopped me from continuing until I read some articles about how to unmount it, the fact that journaling was enabled, all enough to make my head spin.

So I went on a crusade (just for fun) to track down a GUI based tool to let me wipe my drive and control the properies (like RENAME FFS). Almost none exist. Sure I eventually got to GPARTED or whatever it's called, but the point is, there is no easy, straight forward way to do things which Windows users are used to doing.

About once a year I try to go LINUX ONLY on my desktop and I would consider myself a poweruser on windows, but I keep getting frustrated by the eventual lack of something working, something not working, or having no idea how to have an app start on startup without editing some seemingly random txt file in a some subset of folders (see what I did there?) which I don't understand.

Linux leaves me feeling stupid that I don't know how to do simple tasks. So I go back to Windows.

The only distro I tried which kind of tried to address this is Puppylinux, but even then, I got stopped when I tried to install an app which wasn't puppy approved or some nonsense. I'm sure it could have been done, just not easily.

So now, I've got a Kbuntu system at home I tried, came back, frozen screensaver. Common problem which the only resolution to is to install a new screensaver app and guess what? Edit more text files.

I used to get excited about the "year of the linux" but truth is, even within its own community it fights "GNOME vs KDE", "Debian vs Ubuntu". So now I just think it's a bunch of people doing really cool things, competing for a dwindling user base who finds they will not invest time and energy into learning/fixing new things via text files and who are longing for a real alternative to Microsoft, but linux always comes up short.

Well if anyone knows of good user-based distro's which speak and step people through the basics of its innerworkings, let me know, I'd love to try it and get my family, friends, and business associates off of Microsoft!

Yo Grark

Comment Re:Can that tag ... (Score 2) 357

I resemble that comment, and let me counter yours with real life things that happen at my company.

It starts off with a requirement. Now, whether this requirement is real or not, is depending on who's asking for it, and if it contributes to sustained profitability in its execution.

Then you start to dig into it and ask users what they want. See what happened? It went from a need to a want when you start asking users more details.

Who's fault is that? No-one's. It's human nature to take requirements further to get more work done. Are users idiots? Yes. Are developers oblivious to a users need? Yes, but that's the BA's fault for not translating the two.

So before everyone gets it into their heads this is a flame war between user and developer, here's when you can properly apply your logic.

User gets a new piece of software, it doesn't do what they want, developer is an idiot.
User gets input into a new piece of software and asks for things that less than 1 % of users want but take 80% of developers time, user is an idiot.

BA's are always idiots for getting it always wrong.

Now with that said, I should give props to the ACTUALLY good BA's out there. The ones that anticipate need, the ones that can head off compromise before the scope creep, the ones that keep users in the loop and continually garner true feedback on needs (because like everything, needs change) and can put their foot down on what's possible and what's needed vs what's wanted and what's a waste.

We're all idiots in another persons eyes, it's just a matter of who you talk to, and when.

Yo Grark

Comment Nas Drive, with offsite backup (Score 2) 499

I invested in a NAS Drive which has Raid 0 AND I back it up once a month offsite through the web through an FTP script.

It was cheap (under $500 including upgrading my whole infrastructure to gigibit) and it's the "set it and forget it" variety.

Best part, it's scalable to whatever drives come out....wait that's a lie, that was my original plan but I just learned yesterday it's limited to 2GB drives (SCREW YOU SPARC!). Go with the more expensive expandable 4 bay x86 ones and it might push up the costs but worth it in my opinion.

As a happy bonus, I now get my FAMILY to backup their videos and photos to it as well over the internet in the same "set it and forget it" way.

Lastly, Once a year, I give a set of DVD's (Dual Layer) to my lawyer to add to the Will. Overkill yes, but hey you never know.

Yo Grark

Comment Politics are bad mmmm'ka? (Score 4, Insightful) 199

I know politics can get evil at time but seriously, WTF?

That's as close to treason as I can see to the tech industry.

Media Levies? Fine, thank you for protecting us from RIAA type tatics.

But then to turn around and sell out the entire COUNTRY to further your agenda? That's plain evil and I wish someone had the gonads to actually put people in jail over this.

Yo Grark

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