WillWybrow.com

I don’t really fancy doing another Linux post. It’s boring and annoying and it attracts readers from Google who know lots more about these things than I do. But when I realised my comment-response on COASM was getting a bit too long, I snipped it short and brought my ideas over here for a re-write.

It should be noted that I’m not actually going to go through everything that was wrong with that post (it was a lot), I’m doing my own thing here.

Linux and Typical Home Users: Why Switching Should Be Possible

From dealing with typical, non-technical users of PCs (be it in a work or home environment), there are really two diverse subsets of user which, I think, are distinct in how they look at, see and interact with computers. By ‘typical,’ here, I mean those who’ve used Windows their whole computing life (probably buying a computer with it pre-installed) and don’t know about alternatives to it (i.e., GNU/Linux). I can easily think in terms of these subsets because my sister belongs to one and my dad belongs to the other.

My Sister

The first set of users I’ve observed are the ones who sort of understand what’s going on. They know that when you double-click an icon, the program “loads up,” they understand that a browser and an image-editing software are distinct entities from each other and from the desktop. They learn by being shown how to do things, but also by their interactions with the computers.

My Dad

My dad doesn’t really “get” what’s happening with the computer. I figure this is the category where PC-using grandparents reside, though I do appreciate that some of them belong to the “sister” category above. This user doesn’t understand the difference between a browser and the desktop. Telling them that one “has a list of shortcut icons” and the other “displays web pages” would probably only confuse them. These users learn by being shown how to accomplish a task (printing a picture, for example) and then repeating those steps each time. Showing off how there are two or three ways to do something (copying and pasting, for example, can be done with the Edit menu, right clicking or keyboard shortcuts) hinders more than it helps. To them, the computer is like a toaster or a microwave. It’s got buttons to press to do certain things - why would there be any other way of doing it? You wouldn’t put three different buttons on a toaster to start it — buttons that are completely different from each other and not always obvious — would you?

What the fuck are you talking about, Will?

Hopefully my explanations were sufficient for you to see things as I roughly see them (even if they’re not strictly accurate — it’s incredibly simplified). Now on to better matters: why making the switch to GNU/Linux shouldn’t be a problem for either.

Just because Microsoft Windows is on everyone’s computer, it doesn’t automatically make it more difficult to learn how to use a GNU free desktop environment (I’m going to use KDE3.5 for my examples here because it defaults to one taskbar at the bottom, applications menu in the bottom left and system tray in the bottom right, like a certain Windows shell does). If you’re in the “my sister” subset of users, all an instructor really has to do is point out the parallels to that which they’re already familiar with and point out the things that are different for them. “Sister” users are going to stumble a bit at first, but they will learn the differences just as they learned how to use Windows in the first place. Yes there’s a learning curve, yes it will take some time, yes it is very worth it in terms of spreading the word about Linux and keeping your users’ systems malware free and generally stable.

“Dad” users, on the other hand, are going to be in the position they were in before they started using Windows. They’re going to need the same toaster buttons pointed out and explained to them. They can scrap their mental lists of steps of how to get things done (it’s easier to start over than to explain the similarities and differences, trust me) and replace them with new ones. If they can work Windows Explorer, they can work KDE3.5 for sure.

Windows Changes Too

If you’re really sceptical about whether your non-technical friends and family could manage using Linux instead of Windows, just take a look at some of Windows’ own changes. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know about the differences between Windows 3.1/3.11/WFW and the next releases, 95 and NT4. That look and feel stuck around for a few years until — suddenly — BAM, Windows XP.

The shift from 98/ME to XP is probably one of the most common ones you’ll have seen amongst home users. I claim that the differences a user sees between Windows 98 and Windows XP are no smaller than the differences between XP and KDE. Then if we’re talking Vista, well… the user is really fucked in that case; the shift from XP to Vista is huge in terms of user interface differences. If your users aren’t going to survive a Windows to Linux shift, they’re not going to survive an XP to Vista/W7 shift.

Ugh… effort

I know it’s hassle to teach your fellows how to use all this different stuff, but in my house, when new Internet Explorer toolbars appear on a weekly basis (don’t give me any FagFox crap - IE is so heavily anchored in Windows that it’s not possible to avoid it) and worthless daemons from Adobe and printer software and all that kind of shit install themselves without any warning, and Windows Live Messenger is packed with bloat, and malware is rampantly crawling up inside stuff and argh fuckggnkrls

Linux is nicer, it can run much better (if you configure it right) and it’s safer against user idiocy. It’ll take getting used to, but the important thing to take away from reading this is that taking some getting used to is not synonymous with impossible to adapt to or not worth the effort switching to.

Unless you ever want to play games.

02/02

Hello, internet. I wanted to ask you something quickly.

Is £1100 too much to spend on one thing? I got this idea for a computer, right, and this is how I am going to start things off. This includes everything - I’m not recycling any part of the inside of my current computer, and the only peripherals I am keeping a hold of are the mouse (because I’ve grown accustomed to this one) and speakers (because I’m not a musicfag who gives a shit about how stuff sounds). New hard drives, new optical drives, a new monitor and a new keyboard.

This being the case, I’ve looked to get all my things from one source - this minimises any postage overheads and ensures that all my stuff arrives at the same time, which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, a good thing. Looking around at comparable items or the same items in different online stores, £1100 is a standard guide for what I’m looking for.

Because I’m not recycling anything, money has to be spent on a monitor and case and PSU and those kinds of things. Now, a big monitor is nice but expensive. It takes funds out of the ‘performance’ pile and puts them into the ‘looks’ pile. It’s a shame, but hopefully a 24-inch monitor will last long enough for it to be worthwhile.

I’ll publish confirmed specs soon.

I’m sorry to spring this on all of you so suddenly, but I’ve decided to move away. I have arranged the purchase of two Hawaiian islands and contractors are already building my grand palace there, Fort Will.

It’s going to be filled with loads of computers and furniture and a helipad on top and a dock out the back. Also, loads of swimming pools and pool tables and air hockey and an original Pac-Man arcade game. On the other island I’m building a supercasino and strip club for my new rich friends. Maybe if I remember you guys still, I’ll invite you over to chill with me, but it’s unlikely that I’ll have the time between banging super-hot chicks and buying loads of expensive shit to make me happy.

I know you’re stunned and confused. How did all of this happen so fast? Well, I’ll tell you; I just received an urgent e-mail from a Mr. Williams Baron. I’ve posted the transcript for you all to bask in:

IMMEDIATE PAYMENT TO BENEFICIARY

We wish to notify you that you have been listed as a beneficiary to the total sum of $10,000,000.00 (Ten Million United State Dollars) From the records of outstanding beneficiaries due for payment. According to information gathered from our bank’s security computer we were notified that you have met all statutory requirements in respect of receiving this payment but because of too much taxes imposed by banks, the Financial crime enforcement agency and the I.R.S the said payment has now been arranged in a safe Security-proof box ready for delivery to your address.

This office yesterday has already met with the diplomatic Security courier company that would be responsible for the delivery of security-proof box to you, therefore shipment will commence as soon as we have your final go ahead order. The diplomat who will be bringing in this Consignment (Box) to your address is an expert and has been in this line of work for many years now so you have noting to worry about.

Urgently provide us with the information stated below it would be used for the safe delivery of the security-proof box.

(1) Your Full Name:
(2) Home Address:
(3) Phone, Fax and Mobile Number:
(4) Company Name/Occupation:

Please you need to maintain topmost secrecy as it may cause problem if found out that we are using this media to help you. You are not to inform anyone about this arrangement until you received your money. You may call me on telephone number: 00447035909633 immediately you receive this message to discuss more. Thank you and God bless

Best Regards,
Williams Baron

See you around, peasants.

You guys know about my server, right? Well, since the start of Christmas and now I have bought for it: a motherboard, a hard drive and a gig and a half of RAM. These are all to go with the processor I bought some time back that was too new for the motherboard that was in it at the time. Well, before I purchased the latest of these upgrades (the RAM), I was running on what I thought was 384MB. But it was running really awfully - the graphical installer wouldn’t load for a start; that was the first signal flag. Then the BIOS was giving me a load of issues. Turns out that I must have had a broken one in there, because replacing my 256MB and 128MB with three 512MB really did the trick.

Now the things that didn’t work before (graphical anaconda front-end, and yum, FFS), are working fine. Time to get some media on this thing and get streaming.

I am reading the .pdf of Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind - incredibly interesting and, as Dawkins loves to put it, consciousness raising, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.

He discusses many things, but while I was reading, I picked up particularly on the part where he mentions the techniques of a successful teacher in creating a good point out of a bad one from a student without necessarily telling the student that he or she is an idiot and fucked up. The general gist was to use language that made it seem as though the right answer followed on from the student’s submission, in the following style:

Teacher: [Ask for contributions]
Student: [Bad point]
Teacher: Yes, I see what you mean about [bad point] and also [correct point].

Ok, I see the advantages to this, the student feels like he or she has made a valid contribution and the teacher is also not interrupted in her flow. But as I was reading this, I remembered something.

My goddamn GCSE English teacher used to do this to me!!

I just thought at the time that I hadn’t made myself clear, and that her different point was something she’d picked up from my minced words, but my GCSE English teacher (Miss Louise Roe, married a Mr. Spiers in my final year of GCSEs) was doing it on purpose! It must be a fucking technique they learn at teacher school. All those INSET days are finally explained and it burns me to remember them.

It must have been an absolute barrel of laughs for my desk-neighbour, a lovely girl named Natalie (my first crush (don’t say anything, please)) who sat next to me and offered infinite patience with my rigid, timid and altogether useless mind. (Leave your vote as a comment as to whether or not I ought to tag her in the Facebook-note import.)

Recovering from bittersweet memories of being a friendless loser in school and back on track: my damned English teacher must have been doing this on purpose. What pisses me off is that I eventually gained a little bit of confidence in my English lessons despite the Common Sense portion of my brain protesting as loudly as it could. It’s a shame I dismissed Common Sense as plain old cowardice back then (it wasn’t), because I must have made a massive fool of myself. Argh, I’m so angry at her. Here’s another thing I hated about her - she made me go first (out of everyone in the class) when delivering my spoken piece of coursework (a fucking rant about how smokers are fucking jerkwad sons of bitch whores), a day before I’d consider myself “ready.” I had this picture of blackened tarred-up lungs that I was gonna print onto an overhead projector transparency to show everyone what it’s like when you continually blowjob little tobacco penises. But, I didn’t have time, she made me go first (shitfuck I was shaking like a fat chick’s vibrator). One of her good points was that I had pretty awesome cue-cards (they were so awesome, just short bullet points to prompt me on what was a really well-rehearsed rant, you could say the birth of the Wybrow rant), but we weren’t graded on our damn cue-cards. She said I’d have gone up a grade if I’d used a visual aid. Oh, you mean if you’d given me one more day like you gave everyone else? Arrrghhh!!! I was shitty enough at that subject without being raped into premature ejacu-rant-tion.

Did I take anything worthwhile from that English teacher? I’m going to go all out here and say ‘no’; though we were one of the only classes to study Lord of the Flies for one of our exams, a truly remarkable book (I am going to see a performance with Fran soon). But she herself didn’t give me anything useful. Just some shitty years next to a pretty girl and a hatred for poetry.

Argh, I am so fucking pissed off right now with my stupid dickless housemates. Pilbrow and Lupo invited their French friend around to study with, and between the three of them they decided to cook eggs for dinner. Well, I lived with them last year, and I know that if Arnaud Develle decides to cook something, whatever gets in the way will get wrecked. Last year… well, he seemed to have a policy of “if it doesn’t belong to me, I can use it without having to clean it afterwards,” and that appears to hold true still. Only this time it’s more along the lines of “if it’s not mine, I can ruin it and nobody will care.”

This is just one more example of how I’ve been dicked over by fucking Eurofags. Astonishingly enough, it’s damage to about the same monetary value as the last time. Maybe they’re trying to out-do each other? Either way, there’s no chance I’m going to let this slide as easily as I let the last one go.

Some of my friends keep their own blog. I know I love mine more than anything else in the world. It’s a memory, a possession, a creative outlet, a home and a refuge, all in one place. There’s courage to be found in the rigid face of the upstanding green-flecked columns, wisdom to be sought from the words therein and solace to be found within the back-end and the archives that can’t be rivalled.

I don’t know if any of my friends feel like that about their blogs (I suspect they do not), but I know that everyone likes to know that they are being read.

I don’t use newsfeed software. I never really got into that whole system. But that’s not to say I don’t appreciate it when it’s convenient. That’s why, thanks to my iGoogle page, I have been able to add a “Blogs” tab, where I’ve put boxes from all the blogs that I read regularly, check occasionally (because they don’t get updated very often) and used to check (because they no longer are updated, but I have to be there in case someone starts up again). I’ve managed to put them in approximate order of activity, trying to take into account recency and volume of activity, using “Wybrow’s Algorithm” (I just guessed, and it “feels about right”), and I am definitely going to keep on top of it (unlike what I tried to get going with my feed list page on this website) with new additions from friends, reading everything as it’s published. I check my iGoogle page nearly every day (since there are some tech-oriented newsfeeds on there where I can read about Steve fucking Ballmer whenever I feel like it), so I will always be informed.

I would like to share it with everyone, though… to let others know the other folk who live online nearby. Maybe I will make a “planet” feed aggregator on a new site. Planet Will - incorporating both my and my friends’ posts. Maybe.

Until then; get fucking updating, everyone!

Just look at the date on this post. Look at it. Fuck me. It took two spoofed e-mails, a Superpoke exposé, one failed relationship, two broken friendships, endless secrecy, pages of angry ranting, a fevered phone theft, a slew of cryptic hints and a lifetime of trouble and enmity-building BUT we finally have something to show for it. Am I right? Fucking hell.

IS THIS THE END FOR
SPARTA MAN?

Wii

I’m sure you all know what a Wii is, but in case you don’t, here’s Amazon’s.

Camcorder

A handheld, portable, weatherproof camcorder that takes SD cards for ease of use. I might even throw in a blank 1GB memory card for good measure.

Portable DVD Player

LG portable DVD player, complete with carry case, car mount and car lighter power cord. Also plays DivX files if you are a nasty movie pirate.

Moneys

Since they’re all BRAND NEW, UNOPENED and come with free BUBBLE WRAP, I’d be willing to let them go at ~90% of their retail price (except, watch out for that first listed price on the Wii… it’s more like £170 in shops) if you catch me in a good mood. Buy my stuff.