Posts by Don Christie
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very cost-effective price.
Well getting closer to the original topic, that price maybe around $200 per school PC for a three year licence, whether or not they use MSOffice. The Min of Ed so only 40% of these school PCs actually use MS Office.
Not such a great deal for the tax payer in those terms and no great advantage to the pupil either. At the moment the Ministry of Ed is doing the heavy lifting for the schools so the latter think it is cheap.
However, I the figure $100 million ever three years spent on MS licences would pay for about 600 teachers in the same period and leave some over to train them in this horribly new fangled software.
BTW the $100 million figure is one plucked from the Nine to Noon National Radio segment yesterday.
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Regards the car thing. My tires keep leaking air. Every few weeks I have to check them and pump them up. My grandfather reported this bug over 60 years ago and it has still not been fixed. Who should I call?
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Totally unrelated...
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Ben - to answer a previous question - we put together customised debian distro's to suit the clients' needs. Mind you, desktop support is hardly our core business. The fact we are able to do it at all speaks volumes for the stability and ease of use of the platform.
First role outs a couple of years ago, obviously updates keep flowing. These days we would probably just use Ubuntu with whatever extras are required.
By the way, plenty Mac people around at work running Linux and OS X. Macs are cute but in my mind you pay a premium for that cuteness if you happen to live outside of the USA.
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argh, the typo and grammar gods.
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So let me just wade into the software debate again, because unlike most of the threads I comment on I do have some direct experience in the field.
I have spent the last 20 years jumping through hoops to win contracts by proving that I and my colleagues can develop or supply "enterprise", reliable, scalable software solutions. It has not always been a lot of fun.
For the last 10 years I and my companions have migrated 100% to using open source tools to supply these solutions, mainly to big corporates, government in NZ and overseas. Every now and then we get asked to support none-OSS systems and we do that as well.
As a result, our job has become much easier. It is easier to produce the sort of solutions we are required to, it is less costly and we make far fewer design and architectural compromises due to stupid and bizarre licensing rules. In short we invariably end up with a better end result than we did in a previous life. Technically it is satisfying and it is gratifying to be able to make a difference to someone's business without compromises.
So, I kind of get pissed off when Danyl and others glibly dismiss this sort of technology based on old or worse, incorrect, perceptions. Danyl to put it in your terms, it's like arguing with intelligent designers. Tiring and irrelevant but you feel it has to be done by someone.
Finally, I haven't had the chance to write a line of code for a long long time. I know no perl but I have run various flavours of Linux on my desktop for a number of years now. I don't go below the GUI to run stuff, including DVDs and so on. Of course, the lovely OS X is based on OSS as well.
Most of my clients use MS products and I have no difficulty in communicating with them electronically whatsoever.
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Quick true story. Last year my (then) 6 year old got to type up a story in a school computer. I prodded a little bit and discovered that despite the fact they have a dozen or so PCs she had used the teacher's laptop. I engaged in some trouble shooting.
"Why?"
"Because the big computers were not working."
"What wasn't working?"
"The bit with the green field and clouds..."So much for "enterprise readiness".
I would like to respond to a few other comments above, in particular Danyl's as we are at the coal face of supporting Linux desktops and servers in corporate environments.
The short version of my response is...your information is outdated.
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Cheers Russell.
NI, give the NZOSS some funds (or better still a hand) an I am sure they can do a better presentation. Fact is Peter took the time to come down to Wellington in person, front up to the select committee and put together this video!
But you are right, the important thing here is the content and that is spot on.
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For all his faults, even Garth George can string a few paragraphs together.
Does he? Last time I looked he seemed to be regurgitating press releases for Families First. Would the Herald have paid for that "work" or does it count as an "Advertising Feature"? I suppose that approach is standard MO for some jornos but for an op-ed who is supposed to provide an insightful, if biased, view on something...
That being said, I try not to look that often.
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Saw dust would otherwise be used in the garden product industry where it will emit its carbon at a reduced rate.
Dunno about that. I used to develop and install software in plants that cut up panels of wood for furniture. All the sawdust was burnt off on site. Usually the heat produced was used for...nothing. I expect a lot of that still goes on.
Still, I can die happy in the knowledge that we helped preserve native forests by getting the very best fitting cuts out of those panels :-)