User talk:Caesar Schinas/Archive 2

Happy to have you with us! (Loved the grunt)Nancy Sculerati MD 22:26, 22 January 2007 (CST)

A belated welcome

Glad to be interacting; I just hadn't run across your work before.

Apropos of your userpage, is Mac OS really an attitude, or a world view? I tend to think of *NIX as an obedient slave, MS as a rebellious teenager always testing limits, and the Mac, to mix metaphors, marching really well to a very different drummer while on Really Good Drugs. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the "belated welcome"!

I tend to contribute to projects like Citizendium and Wikipedia in (very) short spurts, with long gaps in between.

I first contributed to CZ when it was first set up, but as there were so few articles online then I soon lost interest as it was no good for reading articles, only writing them. And I'm not a writer...

I only came back again today, so that'll be why you haven't come across me before!

Interesting comments regarding OSes... Two points :

• OS X is Unix-based; I suppose that means it's an obedient slave too...?
• Why, if Microsoft is always testing limits, did they let their browser stagnate for so many years??? Just think where the web could be now without a 7-year-old browser still around!

I switched to OS X from Windows XP a few years ago, and never looked back. Quite apart from the fact that the Mac just runs smoother and has (IMO) a nicer interface; it has a really strong developer community and a lot of great apps which Windows just doesn't have. Apple also provide all the software for developing OS X applications for free, and make it very easy to get started, which suited me as an aspiring programmer.

With the release of Windows Vista a lot changed. Despite all the bad press surrounding it, I personally consider Vista to be Microsoft's first decent operating system. They are all set to continue this new trend with Windows 7.

I'm not a Mac fanboy (oh, how I hate that word). No OS is better than any another for all people. I respect other people's choices of OS. But for me, the Mac is best - at least for the moment.

Nor do I particularly like Apple as a company. Or hate Microsoft. I used to; but recently Microsoft seems to have become more customer-orientated - whilst Apple has become less so. Things change. Pity.

So what is your OS of choice (and why)?

--Caesar Schinas 17:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Of all time? OS/360, not because it was the greatest code, but that I knew what it was doing and had the source. To answer your question, the UNIX involved is obedient to Apple, not the customers of its master. :-)

For client compatibility reasons, and with the caveat I'm not primarily doing development but architecture, I have to use Windows. In the fairly short term, I want to have Ubuntu and Windows XP on my desktop, without reference to where the main services run. I prefer a LINUX when I have to do any data analysis.

My desktop, which I inherited, is an HP/Compaq business machine. For at least a month, I have been rebuilding since I learned, after the fact, HP's implementation is incompatible with XP Pro SP3. It frustrates me no end that MS keeps suggesting I upgrade to SP3 through its update advisories -- all I want to hear about are necessary performance and security. If they get to use WGA to validate my update rights, you'd think a rational update server would recognize the OS has an HP OEM key, that they'd have talked to HP, and not keep trying to install SP3.

I have gotten MS reseller status, but I know I'm never again getting OEM versions of MS software -- the HP experience has shown me what a value-subtracted reseller can do. If MS itself can't provide better truly technical support, LINUX becomes the answer. While I used to have a primarily Mac environment a few years ago, I became utterly frustrated with trying to get technical-level support answers from Apple.

While I lost my slide rule, I still have an abacus. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, Linux. I've tried lots of distros. I still have an Ubuntu VM for testing purposes; the others got trashed.

My biggest gripe? It's too hard to install software. Sure, I can manage, but... drag and drop, anyone?

Oh, and I'm a sucker for pretty interfaces. No Linux distro I've come across has one. (Though Ubuntu is getting there gradually.)

It's nice that it's Free (yes, yes, in both senses of the word), and that it's not tied to an evil company (mostly). But I haven't come across anything I can do on Linux which I can't do on OS X, or any Linux-only apps which I've actually wanted. And one more thing : Coda. My life would be misery without it.

I won't get started on WGA. I'd almost forgotten it, but you've just reminded me of a very good reason (for me) not to switch back to Windows. Having said that; I can see it coming for OS X too... :‘(

Perhaps you're right about Linux being the way!

Fortunately, I've never had to deal with Apple's support, but I've heard that it's terrible. MS ditto.

Oh, and I use the Unix shell in OS X the whole time! It seems obedient enough... :-)

--Caesar Schinas 18:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for the edits to CZ:Myths and Facts. --Larry Sanger 17:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure! --Caesar Schinas 17:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

sandbox

Hi Caesar, first personal sandboxes are the way to go. We don't have a global sandbox that I know of. Second, I just answered your post on the forum. Do you know much about the licenses with respect to fair use? The upload wizard is a work in progress, so there is a lot that needs work in that area. I would do it if I knew anything about the suboect but it's is better coming from someone that understands the license issues. Stephen Ewen created all the image copyright templates and is still around, but pretty busy, so we can still ask him if needed since he did a ton of research on this topic. Third, welcome back. :) Chris Day 18:43, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Chris.

Yes, I thnk user sandboxes are good. But I didn't think of creating one until I'd looked for a global one and searched for info on the wiki. Perhaps the concept should be mentioned on some of the pages for new users?

Regarding Fair Use - No, I'm not particularly knowledgable on the subject, but I believe use of a company or product logo or a screenshot is fine on pages abput that company or product, and probably nowhere else.

I've responded on the forum again, but one point is not related to the fair use discussion so I'll repeat it here :

I can't upload the file I'm trying to upload anyway. It's in SVG format, and I get an error saying that SVG isn't allowed each time I try. But there are other SVG images on CZ - so how do I do it? Obviously I could just convert it to PNG, but that seems a bit silly.

--Caesar Schinas 19:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I've had the same problem and end up using PNG. I don't know why we don't support SVG. I vaguely recollect this coming up before. We really need to sort that out. Chris Day 19:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)