It’s good to connect with another Linux user.

My next area of exploration is syncing my PDA with it. I’ve got the connection going (with SynCE and MultiSync). Now I just have to learn how to set up a partnership between the PDA and Evolution, to port Contacts and Calendar between them. Which is to say the software’s all working; I just have to familiarize myself with the interface.

Are you familiar with Wine, for running Windows-based programs on any OS using an Intel chip? I’ve started experimenting with it, too, and the results so far are pretty exciting!

—Les

In a year the only problem I have had is that it won’t accept a Sprint wireless card. It does have its own internal wireless card, but when you are out of range it can be a problem. On and it has difficulties with the latest Microsoft Office documents. But so does Microsoft Office.

Steve,
Thanks for reminding me of John Hacker (aka Plateface). Remember the great success of your Luddites!

As for your oil-change metaphor, I recently spent an afternoon changing the oil and filter on my motorcycle, rather than $125 to have it done by a motorcycle mechanic. My point is that sometimes it makes perfect sense to do things yourself, if you have the skills.

Which takes me back to my recent tipping point. As a family man, I’ve had to learn frugality. Apple is not cheap. PC clones are cheaper, but I’m tired of the OS and hardware upgrades. Linux suits my needs nicely—I’ve put Eeebuntu on my netbook, walked around the interface, learned to install new programs (including WINE to drive some Windows software), and watched a streaming Hulu episode of the Simpsons.

So far, I’m very satisfied.

Outside of games, aka productivity killers, there’s nothing I want to run or do mandating Windows. As for games, my PS3 and Wii do the job better and I find WoW to be like playing D&D with a hundred John Hackers and Kevin Walshes, no thanks. In gaming, I will die a Luddite.

My dislike of PCs came long before I ever worked on or supported Apple.

During the frontier years of the Eighties, the majority of computers were based on the IBM-MS DOS set up since Windows 1 & 2 were awful. I had no love for Apple IIs neither, ProDOS? Ick! The Mac appeared to be a toy with its GUI; wow I can make a smiley face with MacPaint. Then I was required to take MSCS 050 at Marquette which dabbled in UNIX. Hitting myself in the face with a two by four was more enjoyable than Math 50! Never mind, a female grad student from South Asia who liked to smack the back of my head covered it.

All of these gave the impression of computers being glorified typewriters and calculators. Outside of checking my spelling, they were pricey, impractical gadgets.

Add the variable of my father being a systems analyst. His career was responsible for us moving around as often as a military family.

Do you think a 20-year old person would have much interest in computers? Especially in 1988?

A year later, I took JOUR 100 which spent the second half of the semester using Macs running QuarkXpress 1.0. I was amazed! Why? Because Apple finally found a true problem for computers to solve other than employing an IT cabal.

MS and UNIX’s cousins still have a mindset of making the user conform to the programmers’ attitude. I have to deal with UNIX-esque commands in Mac OS X occasionally, half make no sense: less? cat? numerous acronyms or the gem of them all, vi editing to modify DNS forwarders.

I also don’t buy the litany you’re repeating from the Linux/RonPaulumpas over alleged colonialism. Apple is under 10 percent of the overall market for computers. People switching back remains a continual threat to keep Apple in check. (If I had a buck for every time I heard that threat, I could retire.) Hence, Apple complies more often than MS to fit in: SMB, dovecot, Apache, Python, Ruby, L2TP, Kerberos, SSL, CalDAV, CardDAV, SquirrelMail, NFS and MySQL.

Open-source software is a pointless pipe dream when there’s a lack of quality control and standards. Often when a customer is complaining about a security hole in Apache it has to wait until the Apache people “get around to it.” Then installing it is another nightmare for it can unravel a dozen other pieces of software in the mix. What savings and freedom you get there.

The truth is Lester, computing is similar to changing your oil. Jiffy Lube doing it for the majority will not threaten your desire to do yourself if you want to spend an afternoon doing something I can pay $30 to have done in 30 minutes or less.

People want their tools to function to do their work (or fun), they’re not interested in learning how to compile, what the inside jokes are (tim is infamous) or who Wayne Babbage was.

I’ll suffer with the pox of convenience over the “open sores” movement which is a different type of enslavement.

Thanks for the 15 percent discount offer on Apple stuff. (Get thee behind me, Satan.) It has been tempting at times (I seriously considered a Mini), but the fact remains that I couldn’t have bought any Mac as cheaply, even with the discount.

You’re a model Apple spokesperson, my friend, devoted through and through, and knowledgeable about Mac. Why so disdainful of Vista and Windows 7, though? From my experience, Vista’s quite good; and reviews of 7 are positive, as well. Methinks your prejudice is showing.

My own proclivity is for an open-source future in all things, and a pox upon the corporate colonialism that gave rise to “citizens” becoming “consumers.”

As for the current upgrade for Mac OS X, you need to do your homework before rolling out the old, tired chestnut about price a la the “Laptop Hunters.” Snow Leopard is $29, not the standard $129. Almost 20% of what MS charges. The downside is it’s Intel only yet once you have an Intel-driven Mac with this installed, it’s impressive and I have had to support Macs for over a decade; it takes more to impress me.

Good luck with the “free” OS which tends to be the realm of the Libertarian, gut-toting RonPaulumpa crowd. As the saying goes, “Linux! Because bugs were meant to be free!” I always find those OSes to be such a Catch-22 when it comes to support: you either need to a uber-nerd teenager on retainer for assistance or you have to do the needle-in-a-haystack method of searching message boards, which is a sisyphean chore; if the computer is down, how do you get on the Internet? Oh yeah, you have to reboot from your Windows or Mac partition to run Firefox.

You could’ve bought a used Intel-based Mac portable, partitioned with Boot Camp and other “free” tools and have a triple-boot computer like my friend with his own software business does!

After 20 years, my conclusion is that most Mac bigotry isn’t over price, it’s over the fact that these damned computers actually work and they let people use them as the tools they’re meant to be, a means not an ends for employee thousands of consultants and people carrying MCSE papers.

You’re always free to ask me for a 15% discount.