Which OS is more User Friendly and Intuitive?
,----[ Quote ]
| The widely accepted majority opinion about operating systems is that for some
| unspeakable reason Windows is the pinnacle and a shining beacon of usability.
| Every single time someone brings up making Linux available for the masses
| (for example when discussing the Wallmart Linux laptops, or Dell’s Ubuntu
| line) some munchkin .NET developer and self proclaimed usability expert
| invariable pops up and starts counting the ways in which the discussed OS is
| different than windows. Not that I have anything against, .NET developers
| themselves - most are good people but you can hardly expect people who are
| professionally tied to windows platform to have an objective and well
| researched position on Linux. And trust me, it’s always some .NET developer,
| or someone who works exclusively on Windows and has only a second hand Linux
| experience. By second hand I of course mean that he reads Linux related
| threads on Digg and Slashdot but never actually used it himself.
|
| Most of the time this attack is not done on objective analysis, usability
| experiments or statistical data but on “gut hunches” people have about what
| is accessible to the general public. And the bad part is that most of us
| share these hunches, and will at least in part agree with them. One such
| point that is usually touted around is that GUI is better than CLI. I can
| throw that one in the open, and most people will nod in agreement and
| say “yeah, for a novice user a GUI is way better”. How do you know though?
`----
http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2008/01/14/which-os-is-more-user-friendly-and-intuitive/
http://tinyurl.com/2p6uoc
Related:
,----[ Quote ]
| The Scary World of Linux Computers.
|
| Dunkelberger likely wasn't intending to suggest that the iPhone was
| running Linux, but instead that it is a full computing environment
| with multiple vectors for potential exploits to attack. It is
| interesting that he brought up Linux however, because it is a scary
| subject for IT staff beholden to Microsoft.
|
| The majority of Microsoft oriented corporate IT staff I've worked with
| have a sort of reverential fear of Linux. They like to talk about it
| in a respectful sort of way, but they are often afraid to actually use
| it. Deploying a Linux server without an outside support agreement is a
| very scary task to users who have felt safe for years in their
| codependent relationship with Microsoft.
|
| After investing tens of thousands of dollars into their troubled
| relationship, after spending sleepless nights nursing NT servers back
| to health after they fall off the wagon to binge on worms and the
| other malware they have a genetic propensity to be addicted to, after
| growing dependent upon calling up the Redmond Father's TechNet for
| advice on how to deal with the regular schizoid mania and subsequent
| crashing of Windows, it's difficult to start over with something
| entirely new.
|
| IT managers are a whipped bunch. Linux is an allure associated with
| danger, like a pretty girl on the bus who smiles at the haggard,
| middle aged family man. She's just being friendly, not inviting him
| into a blissful world. He knows he has to think about his commitments
| to Microsoft, all of the fighting that would have been for nothing,
| all of the holding back of hair that he's already dealt with and wants
| to use as credit toward an established relationship. It's too much
| starting over, too late in the game.
|
| Today's adherents of Microsoft are like the COBOL programmers in the
| 90s: too old to learn new tricks, and too tired to even want to try.
| They are dinosaurs, dependent upon resisting change to maintain their
| proprietary world.
|
| Change isn't resisted successfully for long, but holdout adherents can
| oppose progress and tenaciously hold things up for longer periods of
| time than one might imagine possible.
|
| Is Linux Really a Problem?
| Of course, there are lots of phones that run Linux already--far more
| than run Windows Mobile--and they are not plagued by security
| problems.
|
| There are also tens of millions of embedded routers and phone systems
| running Linux or its BSD cousin, and none have suffered a scourge of
| security rashes anything remotely like Microsoft's Windows. Perhaps
| security isn't just a product of being powerful or having market
| share.
|
| Why would the iPhone's closed BSD environment be a special security
| risk? Hackers working on the iPhone have to build and install their
| own shell before they can even control it in ideal settings in a lab.
|
| If iPhone enthusiasts can't hack their own phones without first
| manually installing their own root access and shell environment, why
| are pundits distributing scary stories about the potential for iPhones
| to turn on their human masters and form a rebellion mechanical army of
| robot terrorists?
|
| Why didn't these flacks ever tell us about their brainstorming efforts
| to imagine security problems for Windows Mobile devices?
`----
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/8E67109A-41FD-4CB1-B92A-4B038428FAA2.html
Macs on the network: Time to panic?
,----[ Quote ]
| The facts reveal a coming resurgence. Apple sold 36% more Macs in the second
| quarter than the same quarter last year.
|
| [...]
|
| or the most part, connecting a Mac to a corporate LAN doesn't have a
| world-shattering effect on performance or support. According to William
| Green, director of networking at the University of Texas in Austin, the Mac
| has had a minimal impact on the school's infrastructure.
| "All OSs behave differently; if you have a multivendor environment, you have
| to deal with the differences," said Green. "There have not been any special
| problems related to Macs."
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9035318&intsrc=hm_ts_head
|
|
