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"Google?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo!"

"GOOGLE?! AIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

"GOOOOOOGGGGGGAAAAALLLL! I'm going to fucking KILL those guys!"

"It is hereby forbidden effective immediately for employees and other on-site personnel to 'make googly eyes'."

"Just don't tell me that you're going to Goo... AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGH!" [throws chair]

I've tried TouchPads, trackballs, and various mice. After 20 years of computing, here are four things that I recommend to everyone:

1. Learn how to type by touch. It isn't difficult.

2. Reduce your clicks: use X-mouse focussing. (If you use Windows, install Microsoft's TweakUI Powertoy. If you use X, you have the setting somewhere.)

3. Keep your forearms flat on your desk. Adjust your chair's height if you must.

4. Use a REAL ergonomic keyboard, one with the split-key design. (Any keyboard that does not have the split-key design is ~not~ ergonomic.)

C
^^^
Favourable: concise; powerful low-level manipulation; very portable; makes programmers learn

Unfavourable: string manipulation is clumsy; no garbage collection; in general, it takes a good programmer to use C well; no OOP, although you can find workarounds, since an object is really just a struct

C++
^^^^
Favourable: like C, but with OOP capability; better string manipulation than C

Unfavourable: string manipulation is still clumsy; some OOP purists dislike multiple inheritance and other "imperfections" of the OOP implementation

Perl
^^^^^
Favourable: easy to get started with; versatile; near-perfect portability; excellent ability to manipulate file-contents

Unfavourable: poverty of data structures; syntax that worsens in proportion to the complexity of the implementation; weirdness with I/O;

Python
^^^^^^^
Favourable: object-oriented; can be compiled;

Unfavourable: some portability problems; clumsy REGEX implementation; white-space is significant to the logic;

Java
^^^^^
Favourable: garbage-collection; good implementation of OOP

Unfavourable: cannot be compiled;

The future of Linux depends on STOUshare.

STOUs are Simply Task-Orientated Users. STEVEs are Serious Techies, Engineers Vilipending Enslavement.

People stay with M-Windows because most people are STOUs not STEVEs.

STEVEs want an open road, the Mustang GT390 of hardware and the Jacqueline Bisset of algorithms... and, er, hardware.

STOUs want to "send a picture" and "read mail".

A STOU doesn't really buy much software. A STOU doesn't even buy the OS: it comes with the "mail reader" or "picture scanner", or they get it for free from someone. A STOU doesn't care about the implications of anything he needs to do his task. (SUVs are for STOUs.)

In the 90s, MonopoSoft was happy to let piracy go on because it captured STOUshare for them. MonospoSoft understands the economic importance of STOUshare. The first version of M-Windows for which MonopoSoft has seriously tried to control piracy is XP.

It's just much easier for everyone in the retail food-chain to steer and market to STOUs. Why have a variety of foods when this bag of chips -- the brand your neighbours are eating! -- will do just fine. Oh, by the way, you can't eat anything else.

Linux, the STEVE OS, has done most of the catching up that it can with STEVEs. In nations with low per-capita income and a mistrust of the US and MonopoSoft, Linux will probably gain STOUshare.

Until STOUs can talk about Linux without having to know what they are talking about, Linux will not gain STOUshare.

Until STOUs can call a Help Desk and talk to more STOUs about problems neither of them understands, Linux will not gain STOUshare.

Until Linux can do MORE than M-Windows can while supporting all that M-Windows supports and working flawlessly with everything that MonopoSoft controls, Linux can't direct where the market goes and cannot gain STOUshare in North America.

The outlook is bleak. But there is a trump card: any OS that makes Jacqueline Bisset want you is so STEVE that even all the STOUs will fight for it.