On Mon, 21 May 2001, Ben Hood wrote:
> To Arachne List and SurvPC List:
>
I haven't used Arachne in
> months (Although I should try out linux versions one of these days)
I can sympathize with this. For all its laudable virtues, Arachne
has not been able to, or has chosen not to be able to keep up with
the the trendy upgrades, and bells and whistles that major and
commercial websites are now virtually dripping with - javascript,
jave, tons of cgi scripts, dynamically created webpages, Xml various
other enhanced (?) ``ML's'' real audio, falso audio, windows
registry required -- an on and on. My favorite is putting important
text WITHIN gif images so you an not read the text withtout a fast
DSL connection and a recent/fast OS/computer.
Happily I find my DOS (!) (and Unix) port of the text browser, Lynx,
can still render almost all the sites I care about decently. It even
has SSL encryption with forms, if you want to buy a cheezeburger over
the internet.
> It all started late last year with my first tax return, with which I
> bought a brand new Duron with plenty of RAM and HDD space.
> And also a new group of friends who are all into 3D games and
> such. (So I also have a Geforce2mx :)
>
> Anyway, I'll be leaving the list (properly), possibly forever.
We are sorry you are going but you hinted at, but did not really
come right out and say why. Do you want/need access to the 3D games
and other new do-dads? Or, has ordinary practical functionality become
just too hard without the latest version of MS office, etc?
Personally, I find the every more devious DE-modular-ization of
new software somewhat of an appalling money grab similar to the
current California energy. I have my own thriving busness going,
fixing the PCs of friends and friends with businesses that have
windows for free. About every few months the things become so clogged
with registry gunk and other plumbing problems that a windows reinstall
is less painful than trying to discover where the latest, non-updated
driver is hiding this time.
Hopefully, Linux will not go the same way, but there are troublsome
signs here, as businesses want and get professional hardware/software
``support'' for their linux systems. The open standards are starting
to close, and installing/porting a program meant for RedHat is getting
increasingly harder, if you installed another version -- not to mention
the cottage industry of winblows look-alike guis for Linux being
built on top of X windows.
End of rant - consumers of the world unite!
__________________________
Howard Schwartz
theo "at" ncal.verio.com
