James, Point taken, I hope you didn't take that as a personal message towards you. I just have the fun little habit of typing what immediately comes to mind and pushing 'send' too fast. I must say I enjoy your posts, James.
Oh and when you mentioned you were mixing MS Office products with 'anything' I cringed. I once had to populate a MS Excel spreadsheet with 1000's of products, descriptions, prices, images, image_thumbnails, it took weeks. Then we had to make a macro to kick it all out in a csv file so we could read it into a custom program to make it an acceptable format for x-cart. When you mentioned that I was right back in the thick of those long, horrifying spreadsheets. It went like this: data entry > Excel > Run Macro > products.csv > then open custom program import into Access. Then run a query over it to remove unrecognizable characters and other weirdness I vaguely recall. Finally, we imported it the x-cart admin area and it would fail because of one little thing like a trademark or something then it would be on the sight and then manage the changes to the product on the x-cart admin site. I quit that job before I went postal. -Mike Mike > > I'm a Civil Engineer and spend much of my day buried in AutoCAD drawings, > writing engineering reports in MS Word, analyzing projects using MS project, > We run macros and calculations in Excel and convert things back and of forth > between AutoCAD and MS Office products by importing and exporting things > through XML. I am also building the company intranet among other things. > > I will always have a CAD workstation running Windows, AutoCAD and MS office > and other higher end software on my desk at work. So I understand. I have > switched to Linux at home because I cannot afford to maintain all of the > computers in my home with Windows products. I am counting on Linux to fill > the need at home and to build a web development environment at home were I > do most of my intranet development. > > Although I have some experience professionally doing IT with some of the > companies I have worked for, it has never been my primary job. When I turn > on my computer it is to develop web pages and dynamic content. My family > will use their systems to surf the web, right home work reports, do basic > accounting, listen to or watch media content and doodle. > > With this perspective on my use and needs I hope that it becomes a little > more understandable that I don't plan on trying to know how to tweak Linux > to run on 30,000 blade servers in a data center, or to build and maintain > high end load balanced virtual servers or an enterprise level LAN or WAN. I > want to know enough about Linux to configure a moderately basic LAN at home > with decent security for it. That is the first real milestone. After 3 > months of pouring through books and researching the net I still cannot tell > you if my file permission is really talking to Samba correctly or if I have > set up the file mount points with the right settings. (Drupal was having > file access issues on a test install just the other night). > > What is my point? I am not your average computer user but the average ones > would have been scared off by know. And they aren't going to go pay to go > school to learn an OS unless they are planning to go into IT. Because > frankly they aren't in to computers to learn OS's. Case in point: AutoCAD > (basic) has more than 4,000 commands Civil3D has double that and runs on > top of a GIS graphical engine tied to a database structure the rivals > an Oracle database engine. To be competent in Civil Engineering and to > build engineering models with that one application will take 6 years minimum > (that does not include the engineering degree or becoming licensed) That is > a total of ten years of a person's life devoted to learning a highly > technical field and use one program. > Because although you are technically correct about Linux vs Windows vs OSX, > human beings hate change, and it is our nature to judge negatively the > things we don't understand, regardless of the accuracy of our assessment.> > > On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 10:34 PM, Mike Hoy <mho...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >> I'm very grateful for PLUG. Dennis and Der.Hans and Preston (ASULug) are > the ones that really got me going on it. I actually make my living with > Linux 100% now. PLUG has gotten me over that initial phase and that 'initial > phase' what I wanted to point out. > >> I think there is harm anytime we make a big deal out of things or when > we make a novelty out of them. Not everything is that important. It's just > code that runs hardware afterall. You really want access to the disk and > other resources right? Well both OS's can do that much so one can't be that > much worse than the other. > >> When I use Windows I use Windows and when I run Linux I use Linux. I no > longer get excited when I boot into debian or whatever and depressed when I > feel like I am forced to use Windows. It's just how my computer rolls. > >> Let some time pass, absorb what you can and incorporate it into your > life. You won't escape Windows most likely, so why try? Just use what you > want. The right tool for the right job. I will go so far as to say this: I > prefer to use Linux for everything except gaming. And I don't give credit to > windows or blame for that. Not everything needs to be 'good' or 'bad'. I > think we tend to get a little too excited about the divide between the two > camps. > >> But then again a lot of what I'm talking about is just who I am as a > person. > >> Just wanted to pass on my experience over the last years. > >> On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Phillip Waclawski < > waclaw...@mesacc.edu> wrote: > >>> > >>> I can understand that all too well, I remember when I started out with > Linux, and especially vi, I spent an hour trying to remove all the "~" that > vi had put in there ;) > >>> > >>> Course, in addition to the PLUG, which is a great source of information > (wish I could make more of the meetings, but I teach until 10pm at night > M-Th), there are classes out there that cover that material. At Mesa > Community College (and others ;) we teach CIS126DL which is intro to the > Linux OS, and covers much of that material. I teach it at MCC, along with > Der Hans, Dennis Kibbe as well. Let me know if you have any additional > questions, > >>> Phil Waclawski > >>> > >>> ________________________________ > >>> From: "James Dugger" <james.dug...@gmail.com> > >>> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > > >>> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 6:21:41 PM > >>> Subject: Re: Looking for October presenters for PLUGdev > >>> > >>> I am new to the group and to linux and thought I would give a newbie's > opinion here. I am not concerned right now about kernel issues (directly) I > am trying to resolve basic fundamental issues. Things like file and > directory permissions, configuring your system for network connection (i.e. > network addressing, setting up your domain, hostnames, nameserver resoltuon) > >>> > >>> While I know that any one of these can get very very complex, even just > the first few steps have been pretty huge. But I want to learn. There is > only so much you can learn in a linux forum depending almost entirely on the > disposition of would-be experts and how they can communicate. > >>> > >>> My perspective is that even though I have worked in a highly technical > field as a power user in Windows it is obvious pretty quickly when making > decisions to configure even the smallest of home network systems that I have > relied heavily on Microsoft to help me configure things. > >>> > >>> Consider that most homes in the US have more than 1 computer and many > have more than 2. While just about anyone can download Ubuntu or (other > distro) follow instructions and have a system up and running in 1/2 hour the > minute they have to network 2 or more computers life just got way more > complicated. In today's world were every home may have some sort of > network, the amount of things I have had to learn and do to network my home > systems would make Linux a deal breaker for many people. > >>> > >>> The frustration is that there is no place to go to get a general > overview of what needs to be configured, and how to do it. I know there is > no one answer, but there are best practices and they are going to differ > depending on the need. > >>> > >>> I have been "mapping net work drives" in Windows for 15 years and never > new until 3 months ago what SMB/CIFS was or Samba, or NFS, Having to > understand Samba alone just to get Linux/Unix to talk to Windows or MAC can > cause many to run screaming back to $MS with there wallets open. > >>> > >>> Maybe there needs to be a PLUG beginners group or a CONFIGFEST if this > is too braud to tackle in presentations. But after the last 3 months of > trial and error configuration problems in my network at home I would eagerly > sit through a 4 hour hands on well prepared discussion on file server > configurations with SMB/CIFS and understanding how to get smb.conf and fstab > and file permissions to work together. > >>> > >>> Sorry of the length. $MS is an addiction I am trying to beat everyday. > >>> > >>> James > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> --------------------------------------------------- > >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > >>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > >>> --------------------------------------------------- > >>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > >>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > >>> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Mike Hoy > >> > >> > >> > >> --------------------------------------------------- > >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > >> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > > > > > -- > > James > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > > -- > Mike Hoy > > >
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