Hi Lee and folks, ----- Original Message ----- From: Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 7:31 PM Subject: Re: [newbie] Any First Go success stories ?
> OK, I got it now. > > Anyone who has positive input to your thread is a "geek" or "power user" > -------------------------------------------- No, No! Anyone who has something positive to say will help give me heart to try it all yet again! But I need it to be someone who isn't an expert at it :-) Example: Many centuries ago, I hired a young kid to help me with a small problem I was having. I didn't know you couldn't do it so ........................... I was interfacing $5,000 Osborne Executive microcomputers (Transportable P.C.) to $55,000 Photoypesetting computers because they could do so much more. So, I was aiming for a $5000 really useful Terminal, instead of paying $23,000 for a "real" Terminal. The kid read machine code directly, like I read a Dunn's Report. ( Something most Software Engineers today have no idea of its even existence - but it is the "ones and zeros" end stuff.) He was very lonely. Nobody really understood anything he was talking about. I introduced him to some VHT (very high tec) people in the Big computer industry. He was mightily unimpressed. He worked 18 hours a day for a couple of weeks and then went away - found something more interesting somewhere else. But I had the first input system of its kind in the whole world - even the manufacturers couldn't work out how the kid did it. He did the analysis determined the technical job) programmed it, built the circuitboards, even devised a cable signal cleaner. Never even seen a Modem. I showed him how to use it and roughly what it did. He went and made up new ones for my branches that *really* worked - they were the first smart modems I ever knew of...... Could not type or spell to save his life. Could hardly read. You had to talk to him and show him what you wanted but once he understood................... Now, he was the True Geek. Like the guys who think writing advanced computer games is easy. So geekness is a many faceted thing. It isn't the kid who knows a bit more than the true Newbie and quotes what he has read /been told, it is a state of mind - AND a knack with the tin boxes. But at the other end are the simple users - people like me who never want to see a command line if there is no reason to - who simply want to plug it in and go. Even Doze 98SE can do that. It can be done. Mandrake can do it. All that is necessary is to stop trying to be all things to all people. Put out a RETAIL product for the "rest of us". We don't need Servers in a distro for God's sake! Or 5000 utilities that even the laws of statistics tell us will have a 50% no-go rate. We need an approved list of bits that work - like MS does, but on a smaller scale. We need small entrepreneurs who will put together setup boxes for people. OR help by installing it on existing systems - putting in Win4Lin (next version!) if necessary for already exposed users. But mainly putting in the equivalent, or literally, Wordperfect Office. 99% of all prospects out there only want/need to get on the net, write a letter, run simple accounts and have a source of help on line AT THEIR LEVEL. OK, I guess I AM an evangelist in a way................. but I have a dream........... well, a nightmare anyway - called Dot NET. Cheers, Him Again John Rigby
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