Hi FSCK, I don't know if any of you guys are still interested in FSCK, but it is apparent that the interest for free software last semester was rather low, while we are having a very good momentum for it.
Now we have people who are aware of alternative choices, such as Mac and Android instead of just Windows and MS Office. For example, I've seen students who are proud to talk to me that they can use Pages on their Mac instead of MS Word for word processing, and save some tens of dollars. The funny thing about that is we used to *think* that people don't like free software because it has different UI, and it's not compatible with existing files that they had. Now actually OpenOffice is better than Pages in terms of familiarity and compatibility, and many students want to save money. It's funny that they just aren't aware of the existence of oOo, and when they know about it, it's just too little too late, they already bought and used Pages. We also have people who are willing to try things like Linux or oOo but don't know where to get help, and is afraid of not being able to get help. Last semester I personally helped some-five students to know and start using Linux (including non-CS majors), but it's really bad that none of them know about FSCK, and even when I told them about that, they still prefer to ask me personally than asking on the mailing list. Composing mail is inconvenient when one wants to fix the WiFi connection, and it's just not good that they feel they are among very very few people having to deal with the problem if there is any. I wonder if we can 'polish' FSCK a little bit and have a more friendly approach for general audiences, or at least MathCS students. I believe that many students, professors, and staff members on the list do have a whole bunch of topics ranging from interesting to jaw-dropping to share. For example, we can host some tech-talk or presentation weekly or bi-weekly in the nerdery (and ask professors such as Dr Bindner, Dr Beck or Dr Matthews to talk). It will not only be very beneficial to members but also is a very cultural thing of Truman MathCS. It's like how Apple make people to be happy using Macs. That way people are more aware of things and feel good to be well supported by others. So it's just my sketchy and unorganized ideas, if anyone is still interested, please speak up and hopefully we can figure out something...? - H. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To get off this list, send email to [email protected] with Subject: unsubscribe -----------------------------------------------------------------
