[ale] using ipod touch or iphone with linux (yeah, OSeX!)

[Stephen R. Blevins]

Hence, the OSPREX efforts of ALE.

Stephen R. Blevins
srblevi at worldnet.att.net



Jerald Sheets wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 10:47 AM, Jeff Lightner <jlightner at water.com 
> <mailto:jlightner at water.com>> wrote:
>
>     This puts me in mind of the early days of AOL where technosnobs would
>     blast anyone who posted on a list if he had @aol.com
>     <http://aol.com> email address.
>     Sure newbies can be a pain but at one point we were all newbies in
>     something.
>
>
> I wholeheartedly agree.  Were it not for the aid of some very patient 
> and understanding people in the early days, I'd not have gotten into 
> the business.
>
>  
>
>
>     Although I will say I do also wonder at the many people I see on this
>     list willing to use Apple proprietary stuff just so they can say
>     they've
>     dumped M$.  
>
>
> This is an assumption.  Do you have 100% knowledge of this being the 
> reason people have switched?  In my case, I have two proprietary to my 
> "other pursuit" pieces of software that run on "Windows or Mac" and 
> that's it.  There are no analogues to these products anywhere in the 
> world that performs these functions in computerdom.  It's these tools 
> or pencil & paper.  I'll choose the computer.
>  
>
>     If you're an open source advocate it seems you'd want to use
>     open source tools and avoid proprietary stuff as much as possible.
>
>
> Ok, so tell me...  On my Mac, I use Gimp, nmap, vim, the entirety of 
> DarwinPorts (analog to BSD's ports collection) as needed, MySQL, X11, 
> Apache, PHP, perl...  In effect, the *only* thing I don't use on my 
> Mac that I do on the Linux boxes on my desktop is the Linux Kernel and 
> Gnome.  In a "work" context, absolutely everything I'm using is FOSS.  
> In a "personal" context, I'm using some vertical market software not 
> available anywhere else.  So , in essence, I'm doing precisely what 
> you're suggesting:  "avoid proprietary stuff as much as possible".
>
> To Jim's point: 
>
> Much in the same way it was "back in the day", I think it falls to us 
> the community to educate the "unwashed masses" and "technotards" et. al.
>
> For instance, our user group in  Baton Rouge, the "Cajun Clickers 
> Computer Club", had the regular monthly meeting with some song & dance 
> from a vendor, an instructional talk at the very simplest levels for 
> the uninitiate, a mid-level talk regarding any ongoing topic, and then 
> after the break, another talk for the advanced user. 
>
> There were "SIGs" covering all the various things user-types would be 
> interested in, whether photography, video, networking, MCSE training, 
> Linux, etc.
>
> CCCC didn't see itself as a specific sort of OS-club, but a "Computer 
> Club".  They charged $25/yr for monthly meetings, and for any mid-week 
> stuff for various SIGs, they managed their own meetings.  From meeting 
> at Shoney's to some guy's house, everyone still learned, and CCCC saw 
> itself as responsible to help educate people as responsible computing 
> citizens and on BBS membership & contribution (later, the Internet).
>
> <soapbox>
>
> I think it's incumbent upon us, the community, to educate and further 
> the knowledge of the computing masses as we come into contact with 
> them regarding the intricacies of their machines.  Obviously, we'll 
> never have contact with them all, but if we take the initiative as 
> those responsible for helping "collective education" along, then the 
> ratio of technotards goes way down.
>
> Sometimes the answer is indeed to move people to Linux.  Sometimes it 
> is to get them to another OS or hardware platform altogether.  For my 
> mom it was OSX, for my dad, Windows.  For my kids, they like Linux as 
> well as OSX. 
>
> If we stop thinking about platforms and start thinking more about 
> general "computing" education of users, we'll get a lot more traction 
> and have a much more educated "unwashed masses" out there.  I think 
> that OS selection, and general community usefulness will naturally follow.
>
> Or maybe that's just the teacher in me.  :)
>
>
> --j
>
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