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Comment Re:Here's how it goes: (Score 3, Interesting) 98

There's a lot of people on the Internet - billions, literally. The vast majority of them are not technically inclined; most have no idea how the Internet works or what cookies actually are.

And sometimes, you actually want cookies. For example, on a news site such as the BBC, you may want to be able to log in and post a comment... and then log out again and not have the site continue tracking you. How do you do that? Short of constantly disabling and re-enabling cookies on a per-site basis, there's no way. Expecting users to do that is idiotic and only shows that a serious disconnect from reality on your part.

Did you know you can still track people you without cookies? You can use a combination of user-agent/IP/browser/language to track you with considerable accuracy.
So your solution for is to ask people that don't know/want to know what are cookies, if they want cookies? How kind of question box you suggest?
Something like this perhaps?


Do you accept cookies? If you press YES this site will work
properlly, and we can track you if we want to.
If you press NO this site won't work properly, but we can't
track you trough cookies. We can still track you by other means
if we want to but not with cookies!

| YES | | NO |

Comment Re:Mod Parent FUD. (Score 2) 434

On a Windows machine I can expect my relatives to install the software if I sent them the link to the download page. You'd think that installing simple stable software would be possible before you can talk about Linux usability?

You are actually saying that the windows system of installing apps is better than linux. The windows system(i mean the lack of one) is one of the main reasons Windows users get infected in the first place. Downloading software from unknown sources from the internet. All Linux distros have a central repository of trusted software with 2 or 3 clicks to install software.

I can't count the number of times I gave up on software install in Linux. Either it has to be compiled or it has a 100-item long list of dependencies

This is a lie, pure and simple, unless you are talking about LFS, all linux distros have a package-manager that resolve dependencies. There are the rare cases when you can't find a certain package on the package-manager and you have to install it manually. In this cases it's the software provider obligation to make it simple for your distro. All commercial software for linux have a simple way to install their app in the most popular distros.
Look at http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/index.aspx for example. It has rpm's and debs. The install is simple and with one click in most systems.

I don't know where to start to list the things that just don't work in Linux. I really don't. I can typically resolve any problem that anyone in my Windows

That's because you are not a very bright person. OR/AND you are on the wrong line of business.You are possibly in a stage that can't learn anything different, so you reject everything that is different even if it's better.
GP is totally right. For a person who never used a computer, it find it easier to learn Linux desktop(of today, not 10 years ago) than windows. I find this true in my experiences because for all my relatives that I do free support.They all have Linux installed. Believe it or not the bothering ratio dropped enormously once I installed Linux, once they find out they could install apps with 1 or 2 clicks. I also recently migrated a small company to Linux(all desktops and servers) and there aren't any major adaptation problems.

Comment Re:Seconded (Score 2) 265

It’s not a matter of waking in the morning and say "Today, I'm going to screw over the little guy!"
It's a matter of waking in the morning and saying: "today, if I don't screw the little guy I'm screwed, because everybody does it, and I can't compete if I don't!!!"
It's the hole system that is broken.

Comment Re:If import is imperfect, wouldn't export also be (Score 1) 328

I am aware of this. But just as OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice import of Word .doc/.docx is imperfect, I imagine that its export of the same formats is also imperfect.

At least at this point in this particulary company, this is a non issue, since I still give support to them, and this problem never happen. To be truthful they used MSOffice at a very basic level without any of the very advanced features(as I believe most office users do), so I really don't know the the perfection of saving advanced doc features in OOffice as a MS Office document. There is an issue with background images when they (wrongly) are embebed in MS Word document, with no margins.
That's why I've kept the MSOffice Box. But like I said in my original post, and becouse of the lack of problems they had on this transition, I belive the people adaptation problems are a myth or exaggerated.

Comment Re:Check a document in Word before sending it (Score 1) 328

Say a user of OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice wants to send a docx to a user of Microsoft Word, and he wants to give it a once-over in Microsoft Office so that it won't be unreadable in the recipient's software. Are the Office file viewers run in Wine reliable enough for this task?

OpenOffice.org writter can save in (word 95/97/2000/Xp).doc, word(6.0) .doc, and the latest version of Libre Office supports Microsoft Word 2007 xml (.docx.), so this is not really a problem.
OpenOffice.org Calc can save in Microsoft Excel (97/2000/Xp) .xls
OpenOffice.org Impress can save in Microsoft PowerPoint (97/2000/Xp) .pot

What do you think I was trying to imply?

At the company, how long are the lines at this machine?

If I responded 'not long', 'long', or 'very long', witch are the possible answers to your question, it still assumes there are lines of people to access this computer witch is not true. The reality is that, this computer is rarely used.

Comment Re:Adaption... (Score 1) 328

At the company, how long are the lines at this machine?

The same as before, since they already had OO installed on their XP boxes.
MSOffice is only used in the rare cases they receive a docx that can't be opened by OO, or documents with images as background with no margins. They don't display the same in OO, so a conversion needs to be done.
Also Open Office(currently Libre Office) is used by many companies in my country, so the cases when this happens are rare.
Also I believe you are trolling, because of what your question implies.

Comment Re:Adaption... (Score 2) 328

3 months ago I've made a linux migration of desktops with XP, on a small business with 25 employes. I've chosen Ubuntu desktop for Desktop, and Centos for the file and printer server, and kept 1 windows box, with Microsoft Office installed.
I have to say that the previous experience of this workers with Oo.org helped, but a lot of myths about people adaptation difficulty are, if not untrue, at least deeply exaggerated. I confessed I've expected a lot of more problems.
The end result was this: the company didn't have to upgrade windows, and didn't have to upgrade hardware also.

Comment Re:Surprising (Score 1) 468

That's pretty surprising, I only manged to use it for 10 minutes before I ditched it and moved to Kubuntu.

In my case this week and after trying the preview of 11.4 on my main desktop,I went a little further than you from switching to kubuntu, and went back to Gentoo, since the only kde distros I've liked were Gento and Arch.
The only think I missed is ubuntu-one, that was the real reason that I've used ubuntu in the first place, to sync with my laptops, but I'm on the other hand I'm happy to use kde again.
I've had to go back to my old ssh/cron/rsync system to sync my computers but that's ok. For reference I use something like this as my Ubuntu-one alternative:

rsync -avz "/home/username/ubuntu_one" -e 'ssh -p [portnumber]' username@mydyndns:/home/username/ubuntu_one

Comment Re:Technically true (Score 1) 204

It's quite ludicrous that, as it stands, we have a law that pretty much everyone in the UK has violated.

Not really. Helps nail someone who you can't get for any other crime.

If you had refrained yourself from saying "not really" to GP's phrase "It's quite ludicrous that,...", I'll will totally agreed with your insightful score.
Since you didn't, then I'm inclined to conclude that you somehow agree with laws that arbitrary incriminate anyone.
If that's the case, then I believe it's one of the most dumbest things I've read, not to mention the strange feeling I get on my stomach.

Comment Re:Sequels not that bad (Score 1) 640

Yea! One of the things I loved about the first movie was that it was flawless about the logic. There was an absolutely logic explanation to why we see people jumping between impossible building gaps, and disappear in phone bots.
That was completely ruined at the end of the second movie with the telekinetic stuff, so unless they justify that with some-kind of a multilevel depth of matrixes, the next movies can't be nothing more than entertainment to me .

Comment Re:Repeat after me (Score 1) 371

so i suppose saying "correlation is not causation" is of value if the average slashdot reader is a 12 year old. but otherwise,

It is when you continue try to make a relation between who uses that phrase and the dumbness of who uses that phrase out of context. Since you are continually making a "correlation with causation", I'm pointing the irony of your comments. See that I'm not saying you are ironic, I'm pointing the irony of your comments.

To reach the value of an argument you can't attack the people who uses that argument as a way of reaching the real value of the argument. That's not being honest. You have to discuss the argument itself.

other than conveniently labelling yourself for everyone else's sake as the idiot in the room

Based on your last phrase, perhaps it's too much to ask for you to discuss arguments rather than attacking people who use them.

Comment Re:Repeat after me (Score 1, Insightful) 371

"Correlation is not equal to causation" is what an unintelligent person says when they wish to sound intelligent. it's something they once heard they thought was clever, and they think that by aping this simpleminded thought they are adding something to the conversation, when they are just generating useless noise

an intelligent person would actually be looking at the merits or lack thereof of the correlation, and talking about if causation is implied or not

Perhaps, but even considering true that most people who use that phrase are unintelligent wishing to sound intelligent, It doesn't mean that all people using that phrase are unintelligent and using the phrase out of context. To support what I'm saying: "correlation is not causation"

Comment Re:How much was he paid (Score 1) 120

I would take it a step further. You are inherently installing malware when using jailbreak/rooting tools. The fact that you are intentionally using and benefiting from the malware doesn't mean it isn't malware.

I believe you are wrong. The mere fact that you are intentionally using ( inherently informed consent), disqualifies jailbreak/rooting as malware.

From wikipedia: "Malware (also: scumware), short for malicious software, is software designed to secretly access a computer system without the owner's informed consent. "

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