Its the key to problem solving, and many in IT do not posess trouble shooting skills. Its almost always an issue before managemant to make sure folks are doing tasks that they are best suited for and help employees feel productive. When you are the only 'fast flyer' in the group, it can be a burdon, but also an opportunity. Others in the group are probably better finishers than you are. Help give them the framework they need to be successful.

You may discover someone in your group who can do nothing without referring to his/her notes, or looking on-line. Treasure those people instead of deriding them. Let them watch and document your problem solving, and you will never have to do the same problem twice. Your co-worker will jump at the chance to takle that problem next time.

Synergy is NOT about like minds, but about diverse minds acting for a single purpose/goal, and its worth striving for.

57 here, and still curious and interested!

I have been looking at Gnome 3 on Fedora for a few weeks now.

I have made a concerted effort to 'use' it instead of just berate it. Learn the keystrokes, re-learn desktops up and down instead of right or left, etc.

Here are the things that I just cannot seem to come to grips with, yet:

1. Lack of configuration choices.

A. I hate tools bars! If they are really necessary, PLEASE allow me to hide it/them.

B. I had to use gconf-edit to set focus on mouse instead of click to focus. Ridiculous!

C. Adding an extra click to launch an application is NOT intuitive. Its like START/REALLY START?

D. Automatically compressing desktop spaces when the last application in that space closes is very frustrating. Start 20 or so apps in various desktops and get everything just how you like them. Then add an extension to Firefox and you need to restart it. And watch your carefully laid out desktops contract. :( Now you get to start Firefox in the bottom desktop instead of desktop two, where it belongs! What are you supposed to do, start all 20 apps again and get them all the way you want, every time you need to restart Firefox or Thunderbird? REALLY?

E. It is obvious and understandable that GNOME 3 is getting a lot of development right now. But it is VERY frustrating to users when significant changes are made to the GNOME configuration data bases and config files. You may carefully set up back ground and theme choices to have your entire desktop fail to load because of an incompatibility with an updated GNOME preference. Lets please settle on configuration choices before final release, pretty please?

2. Assumptions -- you know what they say about assumptions ...

A. All users may really not want the exact same things showing on the top tool bar. On a smart phone we have limited space, but even there users have choices. On GNOME # desktops everyone has a long, boring, and almost empty tool bar. (and it won't hise! Oh wait, I already said that) Why?

B. You cannot, and MUST not assume that all users will read a howto web site, or take a class on Gnome 3 before trying to shut down their personal system. That is the only way to learn how to do it properly. (Hold the ATL key down while in your personal menu to see Logout change to Shutdown, and press Shutdown to see Reboot ...) Sad ... Other things like running and app from the desktop/window manager, need training before it can even be guessed at. (ALT F2) Just a bit arbitrary, don't you think? "Hey we need to allow a command input somehow. Lets just stick it on ALT F2, that's not used yet is it?"

3. New features, or features that have not been done before or better

... Maybe I just don't get it.

I have managed UNIX desktops and servers for about 26 years. It really does 'depend'. Here are the salient factors:

1. Does the administrator have complete control?

2. Can the servers/desktops run effectively as diskless or thin clients?

3. Are all servers installed from the same base image/jumpstart/kickstart?

4. Are patches tested and maintained across all platforms on a regular interval?

In a perfect world, all 4 are true. Under those conditions it is possible to manage 200 UNIX/Linux server systems per admin. Given thin or diskless clients, the number of desktops supportable per admin is very high.

The worst case scenario is when all systems are different and carelessly maintained. The number can drop to 25 per admin on busy/active systems.

Intial cost of the vehicle is one thing, replacing batteries is another.

The battery pack for the Tesla Roadster, for instance, is about $30,000.00.

Lithium Ion batteries, like in your laptop. do NOT last forever.

In the old days we used DEV VT220 style keyboards. These had the CONTROL key just left of the left shift key.

On dumb terminals with software handshaking (which most were) a CONTROL-S is stop trasmission. A CONTROL-Q is start transmission.

Many professional office staff in those days had young, female secretaries with long nails. Guess how many time a day support staff would get a call like this: "My computer is frozen!"

When my dad got his first computer, he called and asked me: "What's a cursor?" I suggested that he invite the 13 year neighbor of their's over for lunch!

My first CompSci class was computer math. The teacher insisted that twos compliment (used exclusively by IBM) was binary!

In 1984 I tried selling a PC with the best available video card and monitor to an engineering firm. They laughed me out of the building and bought TekTronix.

My first portable computer weighed about 35 pounds. I did a presentation of our software to a law firm in Dallas. During the presentation, I wrote on their new whiteboard with permanent marker. To make matters worse, when I lifted my computer off the very elegant leather table-top, two large divots came up with my computer! We did, however, get the contract!

Enough for now!

It was MS Word incompatibility that caused it to become the de facto standard when MS convinced PC manufacturers to pre-load Windows. There were many UNIX based and proprietary OS based word and document processing, and plublishing tools that were (only a few still exist) far superior to Word.

Prior to those days, MS used to rant about compatibility until it became a power buzzword.

It is a sad truth that the world of IT and computing in general would be better off tomorrow if MS disappeared from the face of the earth.

The dearth of computing platforms is already frightening. No one should be pushing future business towards the existing 'standards' of MS compatibility.

Linus is oft quoted as saying that he has no wish to make Linux compete with MS.

He is wise.

He is not alone. Thankfully, there are companies like Apache, and projects like perl and php, that defy the corporate doctrine of market share, in favor of innovation and common sense.