Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
Yes, it was. The Windows versions always had Help for 123 users in the Help menu, and there was always Microsoft Multiplan... There are other quite good exceptions to the rule, including Microsoft Visual Basic which was a bit of a revelation at the time. 2009/10/27 Fearghas McKay fm-li...@st-kilda.org On 27 Oct 2009, at 18:32, Brian Butterworth wrote: totally copy the leading product in the market and then when people buy it from you, improve and lock em in (as Excel did to 123, u as I remember back in the day, which was a while ago, Excel was initially a MacOS application... How does that affect your model? f - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 13:31, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote: http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html I noticed this line in the dot.life article But when I tried to install a free open-source audio editing program, Audacity, it appeared more complex to get hold of an Ubuntu version than the one I've used on a Mac. What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager. I'm starting to think that the first thing a fresh Ubuntu install should do (especially if it's straight from the factory) is show a video highlighting the features of Ubuntu and one of the first things shown should be how to install software. In general, installing software a much better experience then what you get with WIndows and Macs but it's also very different, so you end up with people claiming installing software is dificult.
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
Thanks for this Tim One thing this story illustrates is that new users react to the desktop or graphical user interface, not the underlying GNU/Linux distribution. This concept of alternate desktops is foreign to Windows and Mac users, since those OSes come with only one desktop. Gnome and KDE, the two predominant desktops used in GNU/Linux distros, are not marketed as separate products; as such they are invisible and to newcomers, the desktop is assumed to be part of the system, whether Ubuntu or Fedora or openSuSE or Mandriva or $yourfavedistrohere. As new users assume that desktop=distro, a lousy experience through e.g. not knowing what a package manager is or does becomes I tried Linux and couldn't do X. Never mind that Microsoft has very carefully and diligently worked on making Windows play nasty with other systems... I contribute to a children's education project with a kid-friendly desktop based on GNU/Linux which has over a million users in thirty countries. We may be nonprofit, but we are not hobbyists. Mr Cellan-Jones knows about this project, having reported on it in Rwanda two years ago and again recently. He might be surprised to learn that he could use Ubuntu (or indeed most distros) with the Gnome desktop, the KDE desktop, the Xfce desktop... or Sugar, the same desktop he saw on One Laptop per Child hardware in Africa. It's interesting to note that Windows, like all traditional office-desktop paradigm GUIs, is confusing to young children and kid-friendly alternate desktops for Windows are perhaps the only exceptions to the vanilla interface approach. (An excellent alternate desktop for grownups from Xerox called TabWorks actually came standard on Compaq hardware in the mid-1990s, but fizzled.) In his comment on Popey's blog, Mr Cellan-Jones repeated a tried and true adage of broadcast journalism: Never work with children, animals or technology. My co-contributors and myself manage to do 2 out of 3, and only the openness, security, reliability, flexibility, standards compatibility, networking, and low cost of GNU/Linux makes it possible. It's tempting to condemn the BBC for Mr Cellan-Jones' statements; after all, Microsoft's illegal efforts to impose and sustain its desktop PC monopoly are a matter of public record. And GNU/Linux's tiny PC market share (servers and supercomputers are another story) hides a multitude of vibrant projects. However, the BBC does get the story right, too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8117064.stm Sean. On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote: http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html I have a feeling Popey is on this list... :) Read, comment, try not to hurt each other etc... :) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk: What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager. The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu. However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of adding or removing applications to the system. Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications? The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove Programs doesn't it? Andy -- $ fortune bug, n: A son of a glitch. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Andy stude.l...@googlemail.com wrote: 2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk: What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager. The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu. However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of adding or removing applications to the system. Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications? The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove Programs doesn't it? Andy -- $ fortune bug, n: A son of a glitch. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ It has been renamed(Or more accurately, replaced) for the next release. It is now known as Ubuntu Software Center. Matt. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 20:04, Andy stude.l...@googlemail.com wrote: 2009/10/23 Scot McSweeney-Roberts bbc_backst...@mcsweeney-roberts.co.uk: What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager. The is an Add/Remove entry on the applications menu. However some people may think this adds entries to the menu instead of adding or removing applications to the system. Maybe it should be renamed it to Install/Uninstall Applications? The odd thing is Windows refers to the same thing as Add or Remove Programs doesn't it? Andy I think there are 2 problems 1) At the moment it's labelled Add/Remove but it's not immediately obvious what's being added/removed. I could swear it was called something more obvious in previous versions, but I can't remember what (I tend to use synaptic over add/remove, so it could change and I'd not notice). 2) In WIndows, Add/Remove is never really used to add software and it doesn't have a software catalogue inside it. Someone coming from Windows will probably not expect it to be as useful as it is. At least people are getting used to concept of app stores, so if it's explained as an app store for Ubuntu where everything's free new users might work out what it does sooner. Every time I hear the line software is hard to install on Linux I cringe. Maybe what's really needed is for Microsoft to start shipping an app store for Windows that has a least a vague similarity to way things work on modern Linux distros. Scot
Re: [backstage] dot.life, windows 7 ubuntu
Scot McSweeney-Roberts wrote: On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 13:31, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net mailto:li...@tdobson.net wrote: http://popey.com/blog/2009/10/21/bbc-breakfast-talk-up-windows-7-dismiss-rivals/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html I noticed this line in the dot.life article But when I tried to install a free open-source audio editing program, Audacity, it appeared more complex to get hold of an Ubuntu version than the one I've used on a Mac. What's really sad about this statement is he could have had audacity installed in seconds - I guess he didn't know about the package manager. I had assumed he had and just was confused. It would be interesting to make contact with him and find out. I'm starting to think that the first thing a fresh Ubuntu install should do (especially if it's straight from the factory) is show a video highlighting the features of Ubuntu and one of the first things shown should be how to install software. In general, installing software a much better experience then what you get with WIndows and Macs but it's also very different, so you end up with people claiming installing software is dificult. That's a good idea. I seem to remember Linspire 5.0 did this or something. Then I realise Linspire for what it is (great heaps of fail with added corporation-friendly buzzwords). I think it could be implemented crudely fairly with firefox 3.5 and html5. If you create like a simple portal with like 5 things down the side (welcome, using the gnome menu, installing software, where to find help, how to do xyz) it would be trivial to get it set as a homepage or something. this isn't idea as it assumes connectivity and various other stuff but still, for a very quick hack it's quite cool. There's already a massive repository of screencasts but doing new ones wouldn't be too difficult. Tim - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
