On Wednesday 30 October 2002 08:50, kathee wrote:
Have to throw my scarf (sorry don't wear hats) into the ring.
I wonder how many people still use their computer as a glorified typewriter? I mean with all the apps and power of PC's it seems all the world is focused on Word and Excel. Just my opinion, but of course, that is all people seem to cry about.
Well, one of the most useful things that a computer can do for the general business user is to be a glorified typewriter. It's the "glorified" part that MS Word has done so well. Like it or not, for the hundreds of millions of office computer users, the everyday convenience and ease-of-use of Word is the standard that now must be met by any tool that would replace it. Most of us never use a fraction of the power of Word, but even the small subset that is commonly used by the majority of office users, seems to be a difficult target for Linux to achieve. I use Word when I have to, which means when I'm dealing with other people's documents. My own "glorified typewriter" is FrameMaker. I hope you can appreciate the slight-but-important difference that I recognize between (say) Notepad or Gedit and FrameMaker, and why I would not willingly spend a large part of my every working day using an actual typewriter or using an ordinary text editor. As with Word, I also do not make use of most of the functionality that is in FrameMaker. Yet, there seems to be no Linux solution that supports the basic things that I do in Frame every day. I've been trying to make OpenOffice 1.0.1 take over the task, but so far, I keep falling back to Windows and FrameMaker in order to get my projects out the door. I get a bit further toward my goal every time, but I waste a lot of time on each project, taking one step forward and two steps back.
So, if MS Office is your tool of choice, stick with it and stick with Windoze (or use CrossOver like I do if I really have to).
Are you saying that Linux and any/all Linux-based applications are unable to replicate the (perhaps) ten percent of MS Office/Windoze functionality that the average user... actually uses? I mean, every Linux geek that I've ever met (in person or in e-mail) likes to point out how bloated MS Word is. But how many people actually USE most of that bloat? Very, very few. There are super-users and specialty users who do make use of the fancy features, but mostly there is a core of functionality that is actually used by general office people. It's that core stuff that needs to "just work". For the vast majority of Windows/Office users, it does "just work". That means, they just fire it up, out of the box, and they start working, pleasing their bosses. For the people who have made OpenOffice (for example) into their everyday office application set... well, in the first place, there aren't that many of them. Most of the respondents in the OpenOffice [Users] list are dabblers, like me, who are still getting to know it. They still go back to MS products to do real work... you know, the kind of work that the legions of office drones get paid for?
But in all seriousness, I use my computer/laptop for so much more. I still watch users fumble with MS products. And then if they are using those they are playing games. Not my idea of the best use of a computer especially at work.
Well, aside from the games issue (and do you really think they'd avoid all the games in your average Linux distro? :-), what do you actually think is the "best use of a computer at work" for clerks and administrators, and people in Sales and people in Finance and people in HR and people in Production/Operations and people in Security and....?? My own CTO, here at the office does most of his work in his head, or in brainstorming sessions with other senior technical people, as they lay the groundwork for our next products. When he grabs a computer, it's to: a) record and organize his thoughts (word processor) b) make projections and "what-if" scenarios (spreadsheet) c) communicate with others (e-mail, scheduling, project manager, presentation) I could, of course, make similar breakdowns of what the other groups do in the company, but the descriptions would all include -- in order of greatest usage -- a) e-mail and scheduling b) word processing or spread-sheet c) web Specialists have specialist tools (programmers have their editors and compilers, configuration management has the CM and BoM tools, Product Verification has the test tools, and so on, but all of 'em occupy a great deal of their time writing or updating documents, reading and writing e-mails, looking up facts or filling forms, etc.
A funny thing -- my boss (CEO, as I am the CTO) told me about a week or so ago that he has to reboot 4-6 times a day because windoze just "freezes". My VP of Sales said she reboots about 6+ times a day since things just "stop responding". They have never really shared these comments before. I asked, "Why do you put up with it?" The replied, "I am used to it... yes, I sometimes lose files, but I have gotten in the habit of clicking 'save' about every 5 minutes so my losses are minimal."
Everybody in our company uses WinNT4 and Office 2000. When somebody actually gets a blue screen, these days, it's an event. Once a month, in the entire company? If somebody has their Windows desktop lock up, then everybody smiles because the rest of the company is safe for the rest of the month. It's that rare. And these are people who use their computers all day, every day. In other words, such failure is very, very rare, and that's for the old, shaky version of Windoze. Nobody reports frequent freezes or losses of work. That's all history, from five and ten years ago. The last time anybody reported a mess of problems, it turned out that they'd disabled the virus scanner one time too many... Yes, people do experience frustration and loss of work and loss of time, but that's usually because they are failing to make the best use of (say) Word. For example, they create a document (or worse, they modify somebody else's widely-used doc) with manual formatting and overrides everywhere, ignoring Styles. Then, they scream in frustration when Word behaves in what they think are stupid and arbitrary ways. Those who take some time to think through the design of a document (even a one-page form) and lay it out with a proper template and with proper Styles, well they almost never have problems. Strangely, if people make use of the Wizards, they usually arrive at trouble-free documents, and never suffer data loss. In 1998, I used to battle constantly with Word, and spent a significant proportion of my time re-doing stuff or trying to make the numbering features behave properly. Today, I still have a subconcious distaste for Word, but when I do have to use it, I never have trouble. Of course, I still avoid the "Master Document" feature, but that's what Frame is for... Excel is the standard for how spreadsheets should "just work". I have not seen a broken Excel document in three years. I have come back from power failures to find my Excel documents intact, right down to the last keystroke that I typed before the room went dark. I think that if your people are regularly experiencing the kinds of troubles that you describe, then you should: a) have a long talk with your IT manager/director, who is obviously not doing a proper job, and b) get those people some remedial training and c) hire a student/constultant for a few weeks of work repairing/replacing the documents and templates that most of these people use on a repetitive basis, and which give them so much trouble.
I was stunned. I still wonder why we accept this garbage that M$ produces.
You didn't write this in 1997, by any chance, did you? Maybe your IT people need to talk with my IT people. If the truth be known, the kinds of troubles you describe are what I've been experiencing with SuSE 8.0 and KDE 3.0.3 and OpenOffice.org 1.0.1. So what if I can (occasionally) kill a bunch of hung processes and maybe resume in X without rebooting? It still takes about as long as it would to reboot and deal with broken files or with retrieving backups and starting over from the last good version of my work. If your attitude is typical, then it would seem that we have an inkling of the problem. Linux and the "linux on the desktop" folks are aiming at the world of Windows in the mid-nineteen-nineties. There are good and sufficient reasons for dumping MODERN Windows OS and apps, but they have more to do with licensing costs and with spyware than they have to do with broken or unreliable software. Linux and KDE/GNOME and OpenOffice, etc. should be aiming to duplicate/exceed the working experience of TODAY's Windows users, not the dusty memories of last century. Remember, there may be hundreds, thousands, tens-of- thousands of computer users in any company, but there are a relative handful of IT people. The IT people may make the decisions about what goes into the server room, but they mostly *don't* get to decide what goes on all the desktops. As long as Linux is marketed mostly among mutually-self-congratulatory geeks, then it remains relegated to the back shop. You want to get it onto the legions of workaday desktops, then have it address the current experience and expectations of the workaday desktop users.
When was the last time you (sorry I forgot the name of the original poster on this thread) sent a scathing letter like you did to M$?? Probably never. Oh, and I am sure you will say, "but I never have problems with my Windoze install." That is fine and dandy. I have never had problems with ANY of my linux distros and I use all 3 of the major vendors just because I like variety.
My point is simple -- why not just go buy a stripped down PC, load windoze on it with the bloated MS Office and move on? Does screaming at a company really accomplish anything? Especially on a public list?
Linux is still underdog. Linux is still mostly geeks and hobbyists. The Linux powers-that-be need to be reminded that they are still not quite "getting it". Just be glad that he wrote such an articulate and well-organized letter, while seething in frustration. To a proper, attentive marketing team, that kind of stuff is GOLD! [...]
Perhaps in the M$ world it does, but I doubt they will ever listen. They simply want to control you, your PC and your software habits -- plain and simple.
And one way they are doing that is by addressing the perceived needs (and yes, often by shaping those perceptions) of the by-far largest mass of computer users... the everyday business desktop user. If Linux proponents want to break that strangle-hold, they can either hope for miracles in the courts, or they can address the needs and expectations of the hundreds of millions of people who have a job to do, and who don't want (or get paid) to spend a lot of time and effort figuring out how to make the most basic tools work.
Next time you don't like something, try a positive approach or simply move on. If you are so upset that things "dont't work for you", then "but another car"... This is not rocket science.
In closing, I will never understand the M$ world and why people accept such mediocrity. If my system just "froze" 6 or more times a day I would be on the phone, writing emails, or something to M$ to get it resolved. If my car simply "stopped working" 6 times a day, I would buy a new car. Why is it such a difficult thing to do? Don't we have enough problems in the world than to worry about how well a "glorified typewriter" is working on your desktop?
My glorified typewriter works when it's in Windows mode, and it doesn't quite work when it's in Linux (SuSE 8) mode. For example, here at the office, I still reboot into Windows every time I need to print. For whatever silly reason, I *want* it to work, at least as well as any other glorified typewriter, when it's in Linux mode. As well, when I'm in Linux mode (which is at least half of most days), I'm staring at a flickering 60Hz screen and getting a headache. Then I switch to Windows and get to look at higher resolution and 85Hz for a while, and my headache recedes a bit. I just want that same ease and function in Linux. Is that really so much to ask?
cheers
Indeed :-) /kevin