[LINK] Microsoft is dead

[Craig Sanders]

On Sun, Apr 08, 2007 at 11:17:01AM +0930, Brenda Aynsley wrote:
> Craig Sanders wrote:
> >total time to get it working under Linux: < 10 minutes. plus an hour
> >or so transferring music from the ipod to the computer (and from the
> >computer to the ipod) and organising it, and editing the metadata/tags
> >to get rid of spelling mistakes etc.
> 
> congratulations craig, all this proves is you're very comfortable 
> working in the linux environment and know a lot about the various tools 
> and utilities to get the job done.  If I'd written that story it would 
> have been the reverse.  Linux would have defeated me cos I dont know 

no, it proves a lot more than that. it proves that Windows is far more
of a PITA to get working for basic things than linux is.

i've got a fair amount of experience setting up and using windows. i've
also got a LOT of experience setting up and using computers of all
sorts.

if i had difficulty getting it to do even basic things, then what hope
does the average user have - who doesn't have the experience OR the
problem-solving methodology that i have? who doesn't know how to search
for stuff on google quickly or efficiently? who doesn't even know WHAT
to search for because they don't have the language to describe it or the
mental model of how it works?


i wrote that post because i was actually surprised at how hard it was to
do in windows. i had assumed that it would be easy, that it would (from
the user's POV) "Just Work", with little fuss or hassle.....and that, by
contrast, Linux would be much more difficult to get going.

i was dead wrong on that.

it's obvious, in retrospect, part of the reason why that is. for
Microsoft, and Windows in general, controlling the "user experience"
is a primary goal.  MS don't want to make it easy to find or install
alternatives, they want to own you and your computer. that motivation is
lacking in the open source world, there's nothing to be gained by it.
instead, tools and indexes are available to make it EASY to find the
software you need.



> enough about it, whereas windows has a whole raft of utilities to 
> achieve what you wanted to achieve, only you didnt know about them, 
> whereas i do or would have found them.

and how is the average user supposed to know about or find them? how are
they supposed to sort out the good and useful third-party utilities from
the pointless time-wasting crap (or worse, the trojans pretending to be
useful - spyware, adware, spammer viruses, keystroke loggers, etc).

at least with linux, everything you need is part of the distribution,
easily found with package search tools (i prefer the command-line
"apt-cache search", but there are GUI tools as well), that can search
the package descriptions.  

want a music player?  "apt-cache search audio player"

want an mp3 player with ipod support? "apt-cache search audio player ipod".

want to know more about one of the packages listed by that last search, e.g.
amarok?  "apt-cache show amarok" - that gives you info like this:

[ package version, location, dependancy, etc details deleted for brevity ]

Description: versatile and easy to use audio player for KDE
 Amarok tries to be a little different, providing a simple drag and drop
 interface that really makes playlist handling easy.
 .
 Features include:
   - rapid playlist creation, with drag and drop from a directory view
   - nice playlist browser for your existing playlists (PLS or M3U formats)
   - collection-indexing support, for smart browsing and playlist creation
   - possibility of accessing media via kioslaves, allowing you to play
     via smb:// or fish:// (normal streams are of course supported)
   - inline ID3 tag editing, capable of retrieving tags via MusicBrainz
   - album cover support: automatically displays album covers from the
     filesystem, or downloaded on the fly
   - miscellaneous audio effects, including crossfading
   - easy bindable global shortcuts, rich DCOP interface
   - On-Screen Display (OSD), on track change or at keypress
   - iPod and iRiver support
   - Last.fm stream playing support (if ruby is installed)
 .
 Support for XMMS and libvisual visualization plugins is also compiled in (you
 need to have xmms or libvisual-0.4-plugins installed to be able to use it).
 .
  Homepage: http://amarok.kde.org



try doing a google search for "windows audio player" - millions of
matches ("Results 1 - 10 of about 114,000,000 for windows audio
player. (0.12 seconds)". have fun sorting through that lot to find the
gems, and hope that none of the URLs you visit from that search are run
by scumbags wanting to install a trojan on your system.




> ps it would not have included using windows media player :)

and the average windows user is supposed to know that the pretty WMP
that comes with Windows (and that thay paid for) is crap and they should
download something else? what else? where do they get it from? how much
will it cost? will they spend half an hour downloading and installing it
only to find that it is crippleware, and they need to pay $US20 or $50
or whatever to make it do more than just advertise itself? most
importantly, how are they supposed to find out about it?

btw, I did try WinAmp. it worked perfectly for Administrator, at least
for playing individual tracks. crappy/minimal playlist support. no ipod
support. worst of all, it wouldn't run for a normal user account without
Administrator privs. that really sucks. giving all normal user accounts
Admin priviledges is NOT an acceptable workaround.



craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop
out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques.
		-- Art Linkletter