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Operating Systems

Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users? 766

Posted by Soulskill from the first-one's-free dept.
obarthelemy writes "Having at last gotten Linux to run satisfactorily on my own PCs, I'd now like to start transitioning friends and family from XP to Linux instead of Windows 7. The catch is that these guys don't understand or care much about computers, so the transition has to be as seamless and painless as possible. Actually, they won't care for new things; even the upcoming upgrade to Windows 7 would be a pain and a bother, which is a great opportunity for Linux. I'm not too concerned about software (most of them only need browser, IM, VLC, mail and a Powerpoint viewer for all those fascinating attachments). What I'm concerned about is OS look-and-feel and interface — system bar on the bottom with clock, trash, info on the right, menu on the left, menu items similar to those of Windows. Is it better to shoot for a very targeted distro? Which would you recommend? Are there themes/skins for mainstream distributions instead? I've been looking around the web, and it's hard to gauge which distros are well-done and reasonably active."

Comment Re:Isn't this unauthorised access? (Score 1) 156

by harmlessdrudge (#28420527) Attached to: Researchers Find Gaps In Iranian Filtering
> where a third party doesn't want them to have access The biggest constraint on proliferation of Internet technology in Iran in the last 10 years has been the US with its embargo on the so-called axis of evil. Imagine if the Internet were a lot more accessible than it is now. It might actually be useful. Same story in Syria. Thank heavens the US now has an intelligent president and the neocon idealogues are on the sidelines. Hopefully America will stop trying to prevent Internet access by citizens of repressive regimes.
Media

Submission + - Crackpot scandal in mathematics (utexas.edu)

Submitted by
ocean_soul
ocean_soul writes: "It is well known among scientists that the impact factor of a scientific journal is not always a good indicator of the quality of the papers in the journal. An extreme example of this was recently uncovered in mathematics, thanks mainly to Zoran Skoda (and also to John Baez, known from the This Week's Finds blog). The scandal is about one El Naschie, editor in chief of the "scientific" journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier. This is one of the highest impact factor journals in mathematics but the quality of the papers in it is extremely poor. The journal has also published 322 papers with El Naschie as (co-)author, five of which in the latest issue. Like many crackpots El Nashie has a kind of cult around him, with another journal devoted to the praising of his greatness. There was also a discussion about the Wikipedia entry for El Naschie which was supposedly written by one of his followers. When it was deleted by Wikipedia they even threatened with legal actions (which never materialized)."

Comment Re:Why don't anyone from UK protest this? (Score 1) 388

by harmlessdrudge (#25432933) Attached to: Passport Required To Buy Mobile Phones In the UK

The entire tone of your post is 100% consistent with the attitude of the people responsible for the problem: the whole SOMETHING MUST BE DONE panic.

First, this isn't going to happen. It is deeply opposed by many, many influential civil servants. It just is not going to fly. Period. It is a stupid kneejerk overreaction. It would be easily circumvented / rendered pointless and therefore a colossal waste of money.

There is a precedent of sorts already for this kind of surveillance. If you use the London underground you have choice: use an anonymous Oyster (RFID) card (with electronic cash balance) or use a registered one. If you use a registered one you can lose it and then have your balance transfered to a new one. But the price you pay is that all your journeys can be traced. Naturally, anyone with anything to hide will not use a card with a registered name and address.

On average over 3,000 data points are logged for each UK citizen every day. Supermarket purchases. Tube journeys. Credit card purchases. etc. etc. (today's Sunday Times)

Networking

Internet Filtering Lobby Forms 140

Posted by Soulskill from the do-not-want dept.
mbone writes "Wired's David Kravets reports on a new lobbying effort to support the filtering of internet traffic called Arts & Labs. Coverage is available at PC World as well. The lobby's members include AT&T, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America. Their web site says, 'network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file-trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers.' Does it seem that this is an attempt to categorize P2P with spam and malware, or is it just me?"

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