Big Laugh! Any IT guy that tries to pull that in real life gets immediately demoted to "user".
Posted on 07/17/2007 11:30:34 AM PDT by N3WBI3
I agree wholeheartedly.
There's no reason why the basic needs of 95% of computer users shouldn't be met with free software. As a bonus, it will force commercial software to improve sufficiently that it provides a value above that of the free variety.
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Big Laugh! Any IT guy that tries to pull that in real life gets immediately demoted to "user".
The article inadvertently points out the biggest drawback to trying to use open source.
They reference Scribus, which sounds like something I’d like to play with. So I hit the Scribus page.
http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=2
It says first I need to download Ghostscript. They specify that you have to use gswin32c.exe, not gswin32.exe. I hit the link they provide. I bunch of releases of 32.exe, but no 32e.exe on the page.
Dead end.
Then I searched Sourceforge for the specified program. “
No results were found to match your current search criteria.”
Google it. Find a promising link to UWisc. Nope, just the 32.exe again, not the 32c.
Give up.
A little open source ping to brighten your day, while your days are bright.
Klutz is living the life for now, and then the teachers and administrators show up in a few weeks.
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
scribus-template scribus-doc python-imaging-tk
The following NEW packages will be installed:
scribus
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 5494kB of archives.
After unpacking 16.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
After unpacking 16.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main scribus 1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3 [5494kB]
Fetched 2802kB in 32s (86.0kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package scribus.
(Reading database ...
Unpacking scribus (from .../scribus_1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
Setting up scribus (1.2.5.dfsg-5ubuntu3) ...
Done.
No problems here. Sounds like problems with your operating system to me. Perhaps you should upgrade to something with a less primitive software management system.
But rather than curse your dark Windows(TM), let me shed some light.
Try downloading gs850w32.exe
Nope, went to the link. No ...32c.exe there either. It appears that the Scribus folks don't want windows users. I wish they'd just said that rather than listing a non-existant required program. I presume it is some sort of anti-Windows user joke.
Open Office is an excellent cost cutting measure that makes for a viable alternative to the $300+ MS Office suite about 75% of the time, and maybe even more than that in an educational environment. We did this at my children’s small, privately funded Christian school where the two choices we had were Open Office or nothing. I am right now in the midst of putting together our elementary computer lab, and the donated machines that don’t have a Windows license are getting PC Linux 2007 and Open Office put on them.
Speaking from the Educational IT world, open source is not going to catch on any time soon.
Every license we own for Office 2000 ( 1500+ ) is transportable under our SLA, which means that if we retire an old computer, we uninstall office, and load it on the new machine. A new license for 2003 costs us $76 per computer. All of our licenses allow for the user to load a “second copy” on their home computer without penalty. The only caveat is, their husband or wife can’t be at home, with Office open, while they’re at work at school, with Office open. But since this is impossible for Microsoft to track, I’m not too worried about it. We just get the users to sign an acknowledgement that only 1 copy can be open at a time.
With that sort of pricing structure, and “re-use” of licenses, it’s impossible to convince those that sign the checks, that a major shift over to open source is going to be “cost effective”. I agree with them. We might save about $7,000 per year in new licensing fees, but we can afford the 7K. What we cannot afford, is taking users out of the classroom for several days, and hiring substitute teachers at $100 per day, so they can learn the Open Source solution, and the follow up time of technicians to troubleshoot “why this doesn’t work, but it works in office....”
Bottom line. MS Office 2003 license = $76 Loading Open Office or Star Office, and two days training = $200.
If we were starting from scratch, and every user in the new school had never been exposed to a PC, then I’d go Open Source, but that’s a luxury, we’ll never see.
Throw in the final monkey wrench, and that is, neither open office, nor Star office integrates with Groupwise, but MS Office does, and you’re trying to piss up a rope.
Did you know, that for educational entities, Microsoft offers free licenses for 98, 2000, and XP for donated computers.
You merely have to apply, send a letter letting Microsoft know where the computers came from, and they will send you a volume licensing agreement, and for $10... the install CD.
I’ve got nothing against Linux, but when you average 1 technician for ever 1000 users, which is par for the course for education, you go, with what you know. And Linux, is not that foolproof, and is not user friendly for novice users.
Give me a clean load of 98SE on a PII 400 mhz with 128mb of ram, and I’ll show you a machine that zips through web browsing, and word processing programs, faster than any open source kludge patched to the hilt to “fit into the system”.
That’s like my Grandma.
She’ll drive 100 miles to save 3 cents a gallon on gas.
And before I leave, my NUMBER 1 PET PEEVE ABOUT OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.... and those who “tout” it to the novices....
It advertises itself as free. Yes it is. But 99.99% of your users out there, DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, between Open Source software, Freeware, Shareware, and “FREE DOWNLOAD” software.
OMG... I got a “fish” screensaver, along with 7 different toolbars for my browser, a PC health checker, and a program that is going to help me shop, and automatically alert me, anytime a Nigerian has trouble withdrawing money from his bank...
So... all the novices hear is “free”... and as we all know, everything offered on the Internet is “free”.... except when I have to charge them about $50 to un-upgefuchkt their personal computers when they’ve clicked on all this “free” stuff.
Work wise... I’m the most hated man in Mississippi. Every damn thing is blocked, except what is specifically allowed. I love watching people bring in personal laptops from home, and have them FREEZE for 30 minutes on boot-up, while the 27 toolbars, and all the other spyware programs choke, because their “ET phone home” requests are sent into a DNS blackhole....
“Damn. This computer was working just fine, this morning...”
hehehehehe..... not in my universe, it ain’t.
“Work wise... I’m the most hated man in Mississippi. Every damn thing is blocked, except what is specifically allowed. “
Me too - you can’t even launch an executable unless it is on the permissable list. A user complained “We didn’t have things this locked down even when I worked for the governement.” It made my day.
Inside that is a directory called bin.
Inside that is gswin32c.exe
It's not the Scribus' folks problem that Windows has an archaic way of installing software.
Hidden cost: 45 hours of lost productivity while your workers figure out the differences with the new version of Office. Or $200 for two days of training.
More hidden cost: The next version of Office won't be free either.
Thanks. I may give it a try.
Version differences have never been a problem. What is a problem, is when you have a few users, engrossed in the glory of open source, sending attachments that can only be opened by themselves...
But you are right about one thing, Office 2007 is wildly different, but for those who just want to type a letter, or create a spreadsheet, it only takes them about 45 minutes, not 45 hrs to figure out the major differences. Mildly aggravating, I had to create a vb script to force 2007 to save in 2003 format by default.
btw... just purchased 500 copies of 2007 for $28 each as an upgrade. $28 is well worth it, to remain compatible with the other 95% of the world. The 2% that are too cheap to purchase value for their money, cause about 75% of my trouble tickets.
Programs that create self-extracting installers have been around, for at least a few months or so.... :-), $100, a few minutes worth of work, and the novices that can't find a bin directory, merely have to double click on an executable, and with one hidden switch, that durn thing will even launch the installer automatically.
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