Mags goes Open Source
Tomorrow, Maggie's getting a new computer. Well, it's not a new computer as such, rather a few bits I have here with a new operating system for her.
And she's getting Debian.
We talked about it, and she only needs a web browser and word processor. Firefox has that well and truly covered, and OpenOffice.org is a really great product (I know this because I've used it tonight for 5 minutes ;) The only other thing she needs to be able to do is print, which I am sure can't be too hard.
The good news about that is that if I give her a beasty machine (like my Celeron 1.7GHz or the Athlon 1.3GHz) then we can use it not only as her desktop, but as the backup server for Prime, and all the other cool stuff that comes with a Linux machine.
On the upside, I won't have to worry about viruses and worms infecting her machine, and intern my network.
I wonder how long it will be before she wants to become a Debian developer (as so many women are these days)? Not before me I hope!
Mels been running Mandrake, at home and at work, for nearly two years now and is perfectly happy with a command line. She probably spends more time in Linux than I do these days.
Freakin nerds.
We tried to save on software licensing costs by moving away from Microsoft Office and start using Open Office.
Lots of people started crying because Open Office has quite a few limitations.
So now we are back with Microsoft Office.
On another note, for security reasons we have Group Policies set to deny the use of Internet Explorer!
Go firefox :)
Try Opera, its more polished than Firefox but lacks a few option that help web developers (like View Selected Source).
I gave opera a go on debian/kde.. but firefox was better in my opinon… I even tried to keep using it based on your recommendation, but it didnt do it for me…. I dunno why, firefox is just so simplistic and does everything the way i want, it’s too hard not to use it :)
I use it on Windows, not Linux. But, to each their own :)
Opera is the worst browser for compatibility. Cookies, DHTML, forms all have unpredictable behaviour in Opera.
I’d stick to Mozilla or Firefox if you want a decent browsing experience. You will still find sites though that only work in IE…
I’ve not had any problems with versions of Opera newer than 7.5, except for the Nationals internet banking. I have found that its compatibility improves markedly if you choose the “Identify as MSIE 6.0″ option. This is deliberate behaviour too, check out info.karjeni.com.au in Opera identifying first as Opera and then IE. The ASP application driving the site serves up broken HTML for Opera’s consumption but behaves when it thinks its talking to IE.
Recently we’ve had issues with Opera 7.x not recognizing form elements unless you specify types first. I’m not sure why they implemented in this fashion as its not the standard AFAIK. I know that carguide.com.au or whatever doesn’t work properly in Mozilla for searching but that is a badly formed form and escapes me as to how a large website like that hasn’t tested under Netscape.
Opera on Mac is actually not a forgettable portion of visitors on our sites (Mac users being pron hounds and all :P..) so this issue has recently become a thorn in our sides. I think Mozilla accounts for about 10-15% of traffic if I remember correcectly, and everyone knows thats the smartest and most influential of users right there *cough cough* :P