Dave Mohyla is the president and founder of dtidata.com, a hard drive recovery facility based in Tampa, Florida.
TM: Where are you based? What does your company do?
DTI Data recovery is based in South Pasadena, Florida which is a suburb of Tampa. We have been here for over 10 years. We operate a bio-metrically secured class 100 clean room where we perform hard drive recovery on all types of hard disks, from laptop hard drives to multi drive RAID systems.
Since the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first Certification Authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine.
I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
If you’ve ever spent hours at work doing mailings, cursed your printer for printing outside the lines on your labels, or moaned “There has got to be a better way to do this,” here’s the solution you’ve been looking for. Working smarter, not harder! Worldlabel.com, a manufacture of labels offers Open Office / Libre Office labels templates for downloading in ODF format which will save you time, effort, and (if you want) make really cool-looking labels
A little while ago, while talking in the #drupal mailing list, I showed my latest creation to one of the core developers there. His reaction was "Wow, I am always surprised what people use Drupal for". His surprise is somehow justified: I did create a site for a bunch of entertainers in Perth, a company set to use Drupal to take over the world with Entertainers.Biz.
Update: since writing this article, I have updated the system so that the whole booking process happens online. I will update the article accordingly!
More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.
When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.
Sure, anybody can buy laptops, and just program. No need to get a full-on lab or spend thousands of dollars in equipment. But... is that the full story?
It dawned on me the other day, as I was shopping for the dozens of gifts it seems I have to buy every December, that Santa Claus is the most successful open source project in history. (Bridget @ Illiterarty would agree with that). Santa Claus is essentially a marketing development that is embodied by everyone who stuffs a sock, gives a gift, hosts a dinner or wishes Merry Christmas over the holiday season.
When I first started thinking about Free Software Magazine, I was feeling enthusiastic about the dream. I had Dave, Gianluca, and Alan willing to help me, I had established members of the free software community willing to help me out, I had writers volunteering their time and energy for free, and I had a generous offer from OpenHosting for servers, all before I'd proved myself. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could make this work.
Comments
So what would you do?
If a non-tech-savvy friend/relative wants to buy a new machine, what will you do? Do you think this Dell/Ubuntu option is the best way to go or should they go with a Mac or a Windows box. Let us know how you feel by voting and commenting.
Whatever you recommend you
Whatever you recommend you will be wrong at some point in the future. Dell is mediocre hardware, high price, non existent support and just plain trouble for us tech savvy sorts who end up doing all the customer support when our friends have problems. Apart from that I would never recommend any *buntu distro, just a personal choice but I find buntu weird to use. But by alls means let people know of the option.
Recommend they investigate
Recommend they investigate it. And with this recommendation I'll tell the following story. I started using computers when Macintosh bought out their first Apple Mac, which is probably older than most of your readers. I have gone through more computers, systems and programs than I care to count. Three crashes later, (the latest happening last week despite all the anti-virus programs, updates, sweeps, anti-spyware, defenders and malicious software removal tools etc. that I make use of), I am finally determined to stop this ridiculous buying into the Bill Gates world of subterfuge and self- regenerating profits. Hopefully my cautionary tale will encourage others to take a second look at what they are letting themselves in for if they stick with the omnipotent Gates.
definately get the mac
anyone who asks me this question will call me every ten minutes asking me dumb windows questions that I don't have a clue or desire to answer. any of my friends that know what ubuntu is wouldn't even bother asking (or buy a dell for that matter). Thus leaves me only one possible response. The mac response
ohh and a trip to their home to program the mac toll free tech support number on their speed dial :)
-a
Definitely
I'd never actually push it, but I'd recommend the Ubuntu machine. After all, it IS much easier to use than Windows for a non demanding person.
let them choose
For me it's always about choice. I would let them know the option exists and let them decide.
That said I have had too many late night call-outs to friends who have purchased Dell PCs and it's not working. Dell support is appalling IMHO and it is for this reason that I would not actually recommend buying Dell at all - let alone a GNU/Linux option.
Ryan
Recommend it
I'd definitely recommend it to them because it respects their freedom much more than Windows (even though it still contains a small amount of proprietary software). But I wouldn't push it that much, and if they listened to an explanation of GNU/Linux and software freedom (and maybe tried out gNewSense on my computer) but still wanted to buy a Windows computer, that's fair enough.
--
GNU - free as in freedom
Missing option
Another option is: Go get a bklank machine from a small retailer without any OS on it and I install Foesight in it for him. Anyway the real important thing is the option not to have to pay for an OS. Its ok if people pay for a supported Ubuntu and if Ubuntu also gets some money out of it, but I would not recommend that to a friend
Thilo
--
Thilo Pfennig
Blog: http://flinux.wordpress.com/
Gnu/Linux, Say WHAT?
If an O.S.U (ordinary simple user) asked me personally I would not recommend Gnu/linux.I would let them know that the option exists and try to explain what it is what you can do with it and what it's difficulties are.I'd recommend them to buy an Intel Mac.A person wanting to buy a computer that knows next to nothing about computers and operating systems in general wants to go with the flow - the flow still moves with windows (much to my own dissapointment), no hassle no difficulties all they want is that it just works,play their games their media.Gnu/linux will eventually get there. I think it confuses people to much now.
axels
support engineer Pc Mac Linux
Belgium
"Après nous le déluge"
No Mac
I often hear that people think Macs are nicer for new users. I can not agree with that. I think Apple is VERY successful in making people THINK that they are easier. i think that old Macs like from MacOs till MacOS 7 where really easy but then it got really messy. And then MacOS X is not really an elegant desktop. Also you have to decide what you want to use - Mac with MacOS means fewer free software or more trouble with free software. A Mac is ok for people who only want to use Photoshop. ok, Macs are now also kind of Unix but from my experience doing things that are simple on Linux just do not work on a Mac or you need to find out - or the OS stands in the way.
Apple had some nice in the past like the magnetic power plug and they are very courageous in doing things no other big company would do. But I still do not believe that Macs are simpler. (btw. I was a Mac user 1995-1998).
--
Thilo Pfennig
Blog: http://flinux.wordpress.com/
310 choices!!!
I have the UNIversal conVICTION of immediate response to the current threat. If this 'friend' is one of mine, she is already one of the hundreds of members of our Linux Users Group, and could tell me a thing or two!
If it is an acquaintance, one of the many thousands who witness my demos in Costco, Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, they have seen my demo of PCLinuxOS, Knoppix 5.1.1, and SimplyMepis.
Each sales person, er, CUSTOMER, gets their choice of one LiveCDrom, and the URL for the all of them, http://livecdlist.com
It's a hoot to see their enthusiasm! They are thrilled to see 20 Desktops, with upto 50X faster processing, immune to the "114,000 Microsoft Virus Definitions", impossible in Microsloth!
When they see the Linux LiveCDlist website with 310 marvelous offerings, they wonder aloud why anyone still tries to make Microshaft run on all these fast computers!
Anyone notice the $950 needed after purchase of a Dell just to turn off the Nag screens?
How many of you really believe Dell would give up their cut of that Microsnot and "trusted Partner' in the protection racket, blood money!?
Glad to see Toshiba has also tossed their hat in the ring, if only in the EU.
Would strongly recommend
At least to most of the people I come into contact with. They are people who use their computers for web, email, light office use, and light photo stuff. Now assuming Dell is going to be smart and verify the hardware will work out of the box, then there should be very few things that will prevent this person from making a smooth switch. Easy WiFi and full graphics support would be a must!
The "problem areas" in my opinion will be the Quicken/Quickbooks and MSMoney users that will refuse to switch to something like GNUcash and things like shockwave, which for some stupid reason is not available on Linux, but is on Windows and Mac. There are still some online games that run on shockwave, and asking people to install the Win32 Firefox under Wine and install shockwave that way is not a good workaround
So it is very important you point out these things before they place their order! It is important people understand these "shortcomings" are not the fault of Linux or Dell, but that the hardware and software manufacturers provide drivers and software that are cross-platform.
I hope with a major OEM such as Dell getting on board with a popular Linux distro such as Ubuntu, Linux on the desktop will be ready for Prime Time! We should see it in much more widespread use - then the rest will naturally fall into place. Who knows -- I know we wont see MSmoney for Linux in the foreseeable future, but Intuit might jump on board. Maybe Adobe will get the hint as well.