January 2007 - openSUSE UX - openSUSE Mailing Lists

[opensuse-usability] Re. The SuSE desktop advantage
by Keith Wilkinson 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

> A Live DVD whose System and Application menus could be easily > switched between multiple languages ( like English, German, Japanese, > Korean, Spanish, Fillipino ) without affecting the locale setting > would really blow peoples' minds ;-) Spoke too soon. The F4 key allows the language to be selected from 11 languages at boot time. Superb! (But not 100% obvious unless you notice the F4 key label). Would be even nicer to be able to switch on the fly. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0

[opensuse-usability] Re. The SuSE desktop advantage
by Keith Wilkinson 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

A Live DVD whose System and Application menus could be easily switched between multiple languages ( like English, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Fillipino ) without affecting the locale setting would really blow peoples' minds ;-) This is something that Windows will probably never be able to do. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0

[opensuse-usability] Turnkey applications based on SuSE LINUX
by Keith Wilkinson 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

If the definition of usability extends to "making application software bundles which a dumb user can install" then maybe the following suggestion applies to usability: There are lots of expensive LINUX-based black boxes for handling applications like firewalling and spam filtering in large companies. Surely either (1) offering a LINUX-based software package that would make it easy for a user to set up such a system or (2) partnering with hardware vendors like IBM and HP to offer such a package as a turnkey hardware-software bundle including support, could be quite profitable. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0

[opensuse-usability] Re. The SuSE desktop advantage
by Keith Wilkinson 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

Correction: the phone call was not "today" but rather a week or so back. I said: > It probably wouldn't take very much to make it possible to switch both > system and application language (independent of the "locale" setting) > among major languages like English French German Japanese Korean Chinese*. but probably Spanish (for the US market) and maybe Filipino and Hindi support would also be valuable... A massive switch from Windows to LINUX desktops in developing countries, combined with large numbers of people developing Open Source software in those countries, could provide a huge boost to LINUX. Vista, with its requirement for 1-2GB of RAM and fast CPUs, is going to prove too expensive for developing countries to afford. PS: Itseems that many users -- even existing Novell users -- in the US have no idea what Open Enterprise LINUX can do. Maybe Novell needs to plan some road shows in markets like the US, making sure that the road shows are widely advertised in advance. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0

[opensuse-usability] The SuSE desktop advantage
by Keith Wilkinson 28 Jan '07

28 Jan '07

Attended a Novell Japan seminar some months back, and had a phone call today from someone seeking my suggestions. I suggested: (1) "make it easier to switch system and application language" (discussed below). After the discussion ended and I hung up, I had another idea: (2) "Personalizable kiosk" (like "roaming profiles" in Windows) (also discussed below). (1) I installed OpenSuSE 10.0 in Japanese then wanted to demonstrate it in English to a user group. After a lot of fiddling, I was able to switch both the system language and application menu language to English, but this irretrievably broke the date ( the date would take a random value every time the system was booted up ). It probably wouldn't take very much to make it possible to switch both system and application language (independent of the "locale" setting) among major languages like English French German Japanese Korean Chinese*. ( *Maybe the Chinese market is a low priority because of difficulty getting people to pay licensing/support fees... ;-) With Windows and other distros I don't think it's possible to switch both system menu language and application menu language. Only very large multinationals can purchase a multilingual version of Office from Microsoft -- however the system language still can't be switched. So this is potentially a huge advantage for an SuSE desktop over Windows. (2) When I visited a major city in another country I found a huge Internet Cafe with about 200 seats. They were running Windows 2000. When you paid in some money and set up an account, you got a customizable roaming desktop. You could sit down at any computer and log on to your desktop. I think that the reason that they were running Windows 2000 was to get around MS Office licensing issues. Incidentally, Skype was one of the applications being run. However -- thinking about it -- this is a similar situation to that in many big companies: some computers must be shared, and ideally the user interface ( both system and application interface ) should be customizable ( users should be able to switch system and application menus to their own language, and the system should remember user desktop preferences (and save any files that the user leaves on the system) and switch to the user's dektop when the user logs on ). So requirement (2) is a personalizable kiosk application like "roaming profiles" in Windows. I feel that these are potentially huge desktop markets which maybe only Novell is capable of filling... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0

[opensuse-usability] Welcome to opensuse-usability
by Henne Vogelsang 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

Hey Peepz, welcome to opensuse-usability. This list ist meant to discuss usability in the openSUSE distribution and tools. Have a lot of fun... Henne -- Henne Vogelsang, Teamlead Core Services "Rules change. The Game remains the same." - Omar (The Wire) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-usability+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-usability+help(a)opensuse.org

1 0