You have just entered room "cil102sidbury."
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borysboy: lol idk
drjamessidbury: my system froze up
drjamessidbury: luckily I had just done a save of this chat session
drjamessidbury: it looks like you guys are dropping like flies today
drjamessidbury: is it bad weather where you are?
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borysboy: yea idk what happened to everyone
amyo8x2 has entered the room.
rtzjm8: It's bright, sunny and 87 in Baltimore.
drjamessidbury: any questions about lab stuff?
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drjamessidbury: any questions about last week's stuff?
rtzjm8: I received the windows u sent and loaded it on Friday. Thanks!
drjamessidbury: any questions about anything else?
drjamessidbury: did you have any problems with the Windows?
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borysboy: when are all those labs due? the word, excel and powerpoint ones
rtzjm8: no, I did not. Works great! Thanks again!
drjamessidbury: there is no really formal due date but I'd prefer you to have them done by the middle of July
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drjamessidbury: the others should be done by the end of this month
drjamessidbury: speaking of which only about two of you have turned in lab 2
borysboy: I thought we weren't supposed to email you that
rtzjm8: We should post everything onto the website, right?
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drjamessidbury: I allowed you to turn in lab 2 by e-mailing me the paper with the values filled in since I wanted it done before you finished your Web site
borysboy: wait where is that form for lab 2? and the one for the security lab?
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drjamessidbury: they should be on the lab tab under the "when do I do the work" link
drjamessidbury: or whatever it's called
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drjamessidbury: But it's very easy to get behind here since there's no one pushing you
drjamessidbury: so don't fall into that trap
borysboy: yea I'm at that page, it just says to find 2 other people at UofS starting with Sid
drjamessidbury: it says a lot more than that.
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drjamessidbury: Modify the lab as follows: do not send any e[mail messages. For the form to be filled out, add the following information -- list the last names of the other two faculty/staff whose last names start with sid..
BB uu GG 22 44: Where do we get that information
borysboy: I don't see the form though, where's that?
drjamessidbury: that's part of the problem
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drjamessidbury: any questions from hardware from last Wednesday?
rtzjm8: nope
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drjamessidbury: go to the lab schedule link and you'll see two links for lab 2
drjamessidbury: one for the instructions and one for the answer sheet
borysboy: oh ok thanks
drjamessidbury: ROLL CALL
PaulinaM2012: Paulina Maida
borysboy: Jesse Borys
BB uu GG 22 44: Donald Belcher
rtzjm8: Molly Hritzo
PaulinaM2012: marianne cant get internet connection, it keeps breaking up
drjamessidbury: yes I'
drjamessidbury: m on IM with her so I know her problem
drjamessidbury: it's happened to me before
drjamessidbury: so I'm aware that she's trying
drjamessidbury: amy are you there or are you faking it?
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drjamessidbury: apparently she's faking it :-\
amyo8x2: no lol
amyo8x2: im here
drjamessidbury: then pay attention when I ask for ROLL CALL, please.
amyo8x2: oh im sorry
drjamessidbury: OK hearing no questions we'll continue with hardware
BB uu GG 22 44: ok
drjamessidbury: and go to storage
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borysboy: ok
drjamessidbury: storage is the placed where stuff is kept on a long term basis
drjamessidbury: hard disks
drjamessidbury: cd/dvd/burnable disks
drjamessidbury: flash memory sticks
drjamessidbury: unlike memory when the power is turned off the data remains
drjamessidbury: unless there's a malfunction
drjamessidbury: but malfunctions happen often enough that you should have a backup strategy
drjamessidbury: you should save all really important data to an external source on a very regular basis
BB uu GG 22 44: Microsoft Word does that all the time right
drjamessidbury: I keep copies of my grade sheets for example on a place on the Web
rtzjm8: carbonite?
drjamessidbury: Word does that every few minutes depending on how it's configured but that does no good if your hard disk crashes
drjamessidbury: carbonite???
rtzjm8: it is an online back up site
drjamessidbury: oh I didn't know that
drjamessidbury: I use two places
drjamessidbury: one of them is called dropbox
drjamessidbury: if you're interested I can give you an invitation.
drjamessidbury: it's free for two gigs of storage
drjamessidbury: and reasonable for much more
drjamessidbury: but two gigs is typically enough for me to keep my grade sheet and my class notes for the semester
amyo8x2: thats a good idea
amyo8x2: id like to save work like that
drjamessidbury: the other advantage of that is that I can access that stuff from any computer anywhere
drjamessidbury: so I can look up your grades from my office
rtzjm8: sounds optimum
drjamessidbury: or from my house
drjamessidbury: or from somewhere else
BB uu GG 22 44: Can you store music or anything like that on it
drjamessidbury: I think if I recruit others they give me some extra space as well
drjamessidbury: anyhow I recommend it
drjamessidbury: it works well with macs and pc's
rtzjm8: great!
drjamessidbury: the most common storage is magnetic disk
drjamessidbury: hard drives
drjamessidbury: floppy drives
drjamessidbury: zip drives
drjamessidbury: zip and floppy are very uncommon now because of the advent of flash memory sticks
drjamessidbury: do any of you have floppy drives on your computers?
drjamessidbury: I don't on either of my three main systems
amyo8x2: i dont have a floppy drive
PaulinaM2012: i think our main computer has one
rtzjm8: I remember copying stuff onto floppies on our old computer down the basement.
rtzjm8: It is from 1996 though
drjamessidbury: but I do have a floppy drive that can be plugged into a USB port in case I need to use some of the data from the past that I have on floppy
drjamessidbury: I'll review how magnetic disks work physically and logically
BB uu GG 22 44: My older laptop has interchangeable disk drives that you can put a floppy drive in if you need it otherwise it is CD drive
drjamessidbury: physically the disk is filled with metal specs
drjamessidbury: and they can be magnetized or demagnetized
drjamessidbury: if a spot is magnetized then it's a ONE if not it's a ZERO
drjamessidbury: data is organized onto clusters
drjamessidbury: all magnetic disks consist of several platters which are round discs that have magnetic specs on both sides
drjamessidbury: floppy disks and zip disks have only one disc
drjamessidbury: hard disks have 2 or 3 or even more discs
drjamessidbury: the magnetic specs are put on the platters in concentric circles called tracks
drjamessidbury: they are very close together.
drjamessidbury: for example on a regular hard disk the platters are about 3.5 inches in diameter and there are perhaps 32000 or 64000 tracks
drjamessidbury: when the disk is FORMATTED (prepared for use) the disk is broken up into a bunch of sectors which are wedges (shaped like a piece of pie)
drjamessidbury: on a floppy there are 15 and on a hard disk there might be 64 of them
rtzjm8: are these the same as partitions?
drjamessidbury: the intersection of a track and a sector is called a disk block
drjamessidbury: no partitions are logical and we're doing physical now
rtzjm8: ok
drjamessidbury: so for example if your hard disk has 30000 tracks and 64 sectors and two platters then the total number of blocks is
drjamessidbury: 30000 x 64 x 4
drjamessidbury: OK?
rtzjm8: got it
amyo8x2: ok
BB uu GG 22 44: k
drjamessidbury: now visualize a disk and you can see that the blocks near the outside of the disk are longer than the blocks near the center of the disk
drjamessidbury: BUT all the blocks hold the same amount of data
rtzjm8: that's cool!
borysboy: how's that?
drjamessidbury: the reason for that is that doing that makes the manufacture of disks easier and disks less prone to failure
drjamessidbury: well each surface has a head that moves back and forth that is used to read data from the surface or write data to the surface
drjamessidbury: sort of like a needle from a phonograph (if you are either familiar with very high end audio systems OR children's record players from when you were five
drjamessidbury: well the way that data is transferred is that the discs spin so the surface moves under the head
drjamessidbury: and since the head reads data at the same rate regardless of where it's positioned (and ditto for writing)
drjamessidbury: to put more data on the outer tracks would require the disk drive to slow down when the outside of the platter was being manipulated
drjamessidbury: and speed up when working near the center of the platter
drjamessidbury: changing speeds requires a much more delicate mechanism and is more prone to failure so most disks don't do this
rtzjm8: do any disks actually change reading speed?
drjamessidbury: with optical disks (CD or DVD) it works in the same way ALMOST
drjamessidbury: yes some disks do change speed
drjamessidbury: but they are usually very high capacity and typically more expensive
drjamessidbury: many of the 1TB drives have two speeds one for the inner "half" and another one for the outer "half"
rtzjm8: do u buy them separately or do them come in certain systems/models?
drjamessidbury: both
drjamessidbury: typically the specs don't tell you whether they are multiple speed or not
rtzjm8: how would the consumer discover this fact?
drjamessidbury: I'd guess that about 1/2 of my drives are multispeed but almost all of mine are at least 500 gb
drjamessidbury: the consumer doesn't need to worry about that
rtzjm8: wow!
rtzjm8: cool!
drjamessidbury: the disk takes care of itself
drjamessidbury: new ones are so cheap now
drjamessidbury: 1 terabyte drives are down in the 100 dollar range today
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drjamessidbury: two years ago they were twice that much
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drjamessidbury: drives are also much faster than they used to be
drjamessidbury: due to larger cache and also higher speeds
drjamessidbury: the speed at which data can be moved to/from a disk is determined by several factors
drjamessidbury: how fast is the disk spinning
drjamessidbury: 7200 rpm is typical for hard drives in desktop computers today
drjamessidbury: 5400 rpm for notebook drives
drjamessidbury: 4400 for older notebook drives
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drjamessidbury: 7200 is also available for notebooks but I don't use that speed because they are noisier, hotter and use more electricity
drjamessidbury: and 5400 typically works for virtually all applciations
drjamessidbury: working with massive databases would be quicker but it works OK
drjamessidbury: and 5400 can be used when transferring data from a camcorder in real time which is probably the most likely absolute need for speed on a person's computer
drjamessidbury: the speed at which the head moves is also an important factor
drjamessidbury: typically drives have a track-to-track speed that you can find
drjamessidbury: the quicker the better
rtzjm8: where would we find it?
drjamessidbury: the first disk drive that I owned had a track to track speed of 80 ms
drjamessidbury: the drive i'm using now has a track to track speed of 2 ms
drjamessidbury: it should be listed in the specifications on a web site from the disk drive maker or at an online retailer
drjamessidbury: most vendors like apple, dell, etc dont bother to list that as a spec
drjamessidbury: the interface that's used to connect the disk to the motherboard determines how fast data can be copied from the disk or to the disk
drjamessidbury: modern systems use the SATA system
drjamessidbury: older drives use IDE or SCSI
drjamessidbury: if your computer is less than two years old you undoubtedly have SATA or SATA II
drjamessidbury: if it's 3 or 4 years old it might also be SATA or IDE
drjamessidbury: SATA transfers data at 1.5 gb/sec and SATA II does it at 3 gb/sec
drjamessidbury: typically IDE does it at several hundred mb per second
drjamessidbury: let's look at disks from the logical point of view
drjamessidbury: first we'll discuss partitioning
drjamessidbury: partitioning is the process of setting up logical drives on your computer.
drjamessidbury: it's possible to take a single hard drive and make it look like two hard drives by partitioning it
drjamessidbury: you can even make it look like 10 separate hard drives if you want to
drjamessidbury: there are good reasons to not partition a drive and also good reasons to partition one
drjamessidbury: if you run two operating systems you may need to partition the drive
drjamessidbury: so if you have a mac and want to run os x and windows you can break your hard drive down into two parts one for os x and one for windows and then when you boot up tell the computer which system to boot up in and it will
drjamessidbury: there are also other reasons to partition a drive
drjamessidbury: you could set it up so that your programs are on one drive and your data is on another
drjamessidbury: or set it up with 3 partitions so that your operating system is on one drive, your applications are on a second partition and your data is on a third
rtzjm8: but wouldn't that make saving files slightly complicated?
drjamessidbury: that way if your o/s gets hosed and you have to erase and reinstall your operating system then you'll still have your data and programs
drjamessidbury: not necessarily
drjamessidbury: for example when you set up word you can tell it where to save your files
rtzjm8: so u can save files across partitions
drjamessidbury: and it will save them ther all the time unless you specify otherwise
drjamessidbury: so it typically only takes extra work ONE time
amyo8x2: thats really cool
drjamessidbury: and the same with other applications
rtzjm8: pretty neat!
drjamessidbury: if you rip a CD your ripping program has a default place to put your music and will do it there automatically unless you specify otherwise
amyo8x2: gotcha
drjamessidbury: so you might specify an external hard drive connected via USB or firewire to keep your music on
drjamessidbury: an external drive that way if you have two computers you can play your music from either one and if your system is hosed you wont have to rerip all your songs
drjamessidbury: OH, and I forget
amyo8x2: will it confuse your cmoputer if its set to an external drive and you go to save it another time and that drive isnt there
drjamessidbury: a few mimutes ago i mentioned that CD/DVD are almost like magnetic disk but not quite
drjamessidbury: yes it will
drjamessidbury: it will typically tell you that the location is not there and where do you want ot put the cd and then you can tell it
amyo8x2: oh ok
drjamessidbury: anyhow the difference between hard drive and CD is that a CD/DVD has only ONE track
drjamessidbury: instead of 50000
drjamessidbury: that's because on a hard drive the tracks are concentric like a target
drjamessidbury: but on a cd the one track spirals in from the outside to the center
drjamessidbury: Why is it like that?
drjamessidbury: because hard drives were orginally designed to save data and CD/DVD were originally designed to save music (or video)
drjamessidbury: and typically music might be one long piece instead of a bunch of separate broken down pieces
drjamessidbury: questions?
rtzjm8: nope
amyo8x2: no
PaulinaM2012: no
BB uu GG 22 44: nope
drjamessidbury: the other hardware to discuss is input/output devices
drjamessidbury: input examples are keyboard, mouse, game controller, scanner, microphone ...
drjamessidbury: and output device examples are video system, printer, audio system, ...
drjamessidbury: there are also esoteric devices
drjamessidbury: they are pretty easy to understand so I wont bother to discuss them unless you have a question
rtzjm8: no, I read about them on the links. there are some pretty cool machines out there.
drjamessidbury: OK lets finish by talking about computer speed
drjamessidbury: speed can be determined by reading the specifications of the hardware
drjamessidbury: but not very well
rtzjm8: what is the best way to determine your computer's speed?
drjamessidbury: benchmarks
drjamessidbury: there are standard tests that you can run to get a number that tells you how fast your system is
drjamessidbury: but in reality it depends on what you're doing
drjamessidbury: most of us spend a lot of time typing (word, e-mail, IM) and no one can type fast enough to tax the power of the slowest computer that you can buy today
drjamessidbury: the reality of the situation for everyone using a home machine is that speed is necessary to play top-of-the-line video games, to render video or perhaps to program
drjamessidbury: there are more game players than either of the other two
drjamessidbury: and programmers spend most of their time thinking and typing
drjamessidbury: so to me at least a fast computer may speed up a process up from 5 minutes to 1 minute but the programmer will have spent hours thining and lots of minutes typing
drjamessidbury: so eventhough it looks like a superpowerful computer would make programming 5x as fast actually it would cut the time for a days work down from 10 hours to 9 hours and 50 minutes mabye
drjamessidbury: as far as manipulating video lots of the work is sort of independent of the computers speed but when the rendering part (the conversion of the video from the camera to the final product after you've edited it and spliced it may save substantial time so the project changes from a 10 hour job to a 6 hour job
drjamessidbury: BUT the rendering can be done unattended so you could let lots of the work be done over night or while you were out to lunch or ..
drjamessidbury: and for browsing the speed is almost totally dependent on the speed of your internet conection and the time of day
drjamessidbury: it used to be the case that the busiest time on the internet was about 3:30 in the afternoon
drjamessidbury: when kids had gotten home from school and everyone was IMing their friends that they hadn't seen in at least 15 minutes :-D
drjamessidbury: but now that SMS is around that's probably not true anymore
drjamessidbury: questions?
borysboy: nope
rtzjm8: no
amyo8x2: no
PaulinaM2012: no
BB uu GG 22 44: no
drjamessidbury: how do you speed up your current machine?
drjamessidbury: the standard answers are two:
drjamessidbury: add more memory
drjamessidbury: which will allow you to run more programs at the same time or manipulate bigger data or if you're a very serious gamer perhaps upgrade your video system
drjamessidbury: you can also do other things but it's probably better to buy a new computer rather than try to upgrade the processor or motherboard
drjamessidbury: the second thing to do is clean up your software
drjamessidbury: I'd guess that ALL of you have lots of programs on your computer that you no longer use
rtzjm8: true!
amyo8x2: absolutely
drjamessidbury: and lots of programs when you install them realize that they are so important that they install lots of extra crap and automatically start themselves even if you don't want them to
amyo8x2: yup, i have that lol
drjamessidbury: so it now takes 5 minutes to boot up when it only took 1 minute when you bought your machine
drjamessidbury: With windows before XP I typically reinstalled windows every six months to get all the crap out
drjamessidbury: with XP and Vista and 7 I don't do that any more but I know I have more junk running than I really need
BB uu GG 22 44: Is there a way to stop them from loading on the startup
drjamessidbury: yes
BB uu GG 22 44: how because I really need to do that lol
drjamessidbury: what version of windows?
BB uu GG 22 44: Windows XP
drjamessidbury: this is from memory so it could be wrong
BB uu GG 22 44: okay Anything is better than nothing
drjamessidbury: click on start then run then run the program system configuration
drjamessidbury: that's not the name but with luck you can find it
drjamessidbury: one of the items in that is startup items
drjamessidbury: you can then go there and make changes to the list
BB uu GG 22 44: Okay thanks
drjamessidbury: it looks like I have 45 programs starting up
drjamessidbury: avast!
drjamessidbury: acrobat
drjamessidbury: quicktime
drjamessidbury: itunes
drjamessidbury: sysmonitor
drjamessidbury: powerdvd
drjamessidbury: windows live messenger
drjamessidbury: daemon tools lite
drjamessidbury: aol instant messenger
drjamessidbury: google toolbar notifier
drjamessidbury: google update
drjamessidbury: windows defender
drjamessidbury: ms windows mobile device center
drjamessidbury: and lots of others that I don't even recognize
drjamessidbury: now about 1/3 of these should run at startup:
drjamessidbury: avast, daemon tools lite, defender
drjamessidbury: but I don't need to run IM or iTunes or PowerDVD at startup because most of the time I'm not going to be using these programs so wasting memory and making my startup 5x longer just to make some programs quicker when I want to use them is not a good trade off IMHO
drjamessidbury: let's take a 5 minute break
rtzjm8: ok
borysboy: sounds good
PaulinaM2012: ok
BB uu GG 22 44: k
amyo8x2: hiii
drjamessidbury: OK I'm back
rtzjm8: I'm here
PaulinaM2012: me too
amyo8x2: ok
BB uu GG 22 44: me three
drjamessidbury: One of you wanted to see me tomorrow sometime between 1 and 4? Who was it?
drjamessidbury: apparently none of you so I wont worry about it
drjamessidbury: any hardware questions?
amyo8x2: no
rtzjm8: no
PaulinaM2012: no
borysboy: not me
BB uu GG 22 44: nope
drjamessidbury: I have another assignment that I want done at the end of next week
rtzjm8: what is it
drjamessidbury: it's not a requirement so I'll give you a point or two on your final average for a thoughtful answer
BB uu GG 22 44: ok
drjamessidbury: The way I chose to do the topics in this class was
drjamessidbury: networking
drjamessidbury: data
drjamessidbury: hardware
drjamessidbury: software
drjamessidbury: social issues
drjamessidbury: many others do
drjamessidbury: hardware
drjamessidbury: software
drjamessidbury: data
drjamessidbury: networking
drjamessidbury: and social issues
drjamessidbury: also social issues are often mixed up throughout the course
drjamessidbury: so what I want to know is:
drjamessidbury: what's the best order to offer the material.
amyo8x2: okay
drjamessidbury: Spiraling would be an acceptable choice in which you do a little of one and then some of another until you eventually get to the end of everything.
rtzjm8: sure. when do u want us to send/post it?
borysboy: so just like a 1 page paper about that?
drjamessidbury: soon after the last class which I think is next wednesday
amyo8x2: ok
drjamessidbury: or maybe next Monday
rtzjm8: I think last class is on Monday
drjamessidbury: next Monday
drjamessidbury: so I'd like to see it by next Wednesday
drjamessidbury: I may well not mention it again so don't forget
amyo8x2: ok
PaulinaM2012: how long should this be?
drjamessidbury: at least a page probably no more than two
PaulinaM2012: ok
drjamessidbury: Basically I want a choice from you and a reason that you think your choice is best (for you) and what you percieve as your peers
drjamessidbury: let's go to software
rtzjm8: sure
borysboy: ok
drjamessidbury: it's divided into 10 types: systems software and applications software
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drjamessidbury: systems software is what runs the computer and applications software is what you bought the computer for.
drjamessidbury: the main component of systems software is the operating system
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drjamessidbury: it's covered reasonably well on the Web page if I do say so myself
drjamessidbury: operating systems form the interface between the user and the system
drjamessidbury: it's how you communicate with your computer
drjamessidbury: there have been lots of studies about what makes a user interface good
drjamessidbury: from my point of view it breaks down into a few items:
drjamessidbury: how easy is it to use?
drjamessidbury: how easy is it to learn?
drjamessidbury: how fast does it work?
drjamessidbury: most common operating systems today have a user interface which is graphical in nature
drjamessidbury: Graphical User Interface or GUI (pronounced gooey)
drjamessidbury: back in the old days some crusty old computer users claimed that the GUI was an interface for wimps.
borysboy: lol
drjamessidbury: but a clever "power user" said that indeed it was a WIMP interface because it consisted of
drjamessidbury: windows
drjamessidbury: icons
drjamessidbury: menus
drjamessidbury: pointers
rtzjm8: cool!
drjamessidbury: and since I am an extreme power user (and have hair on my chest and all that) and I like to use a graphical interface then I agree with that guy
amyo8x2: HAHa
rtzjm8: lol
drjamessidbury: the non-graphical interface typically called a CLI or command line interface may actually be quicher and more powerful because IF you know the particular command then all you have to do is type it in
drjamessidbury: and there are some commands that can be done from the command line that can't be done from the GUI then the CLI is indeed useful
drjamessidbury: fortunately the CLI is available within most GUI's
drjamessidbury: in Windows you can open the accessories and find a COMMAND PROMPT which gives you a command line interfaced
drjamessidbury: on a mac you can run TERMINAL which I think is located in Utilities or maybe applications to give you a command line
drjamessidbury: I don't remember which because I put an icon for it on my dock
drjamessidbury: so if you want to get down and dirty both operating systems allow you to do that.
drjamessidbury: in general the GUI is slower because there is a lot of processing cycles being expended on the creation and maintenance of the GUI
drjamessidbury: but computers today are so powerful that most of us can't tell the difference
drjamessidbury: for almost everyone the GUI is easier to use
drjamessidbury: which gives us a seeming paradox in that it takes a more powerful computer to make it easier to use;.
drjamessidbury: why is a GUI easier to use?
drjamessidbury: primarily because everything tends to work the same
drjamessidbury: to run a program you find an icon for either the program itself or for a data file created by that program and click (double click) it.
drjamessidbury: so you don't need to remember the name of the Word program or the Excel program or the iTUnes program.
drjamessidbury: You just need to remember what it's icon looks like or what the icon of it's data files look like
drjamessidbury: and for me at least and I suspect for most people, it's easier to remember a picture than to remember a particular set of letters to type
rtzjm8: i definitely agree
drjamessidbury: there are lots of icons that I don't remember but the way I have my system layed out my files have both an icon and a name.
drjamessidbury: other people lay their system out the way that suits them.
amyo8x2: im sorry - i have to go. Dr. Sidbury, ill email you
drjamessidbury: OK
amyo8x2: have a great night everyone, take care
amyo8x2 has left the room.
drjamessidbury: why are there different operating systems?
drjamessidbury: there are different purposes
drjamessidbury: server operating systems
drjamessidbury: client operating systems
drjamessidbury: one for servers and one for clients
drjamessidbury: but why are there different client operating systems: Windows OS X, Ubuntu (and other linux and unix flavors)
drjamessidbury: to give you a choice
drjamessidbury: why do I drive a VW beetle and my department chair drive a GMC pickup?
rtzjm8: so that users can customize to their tastes
drjamessidbury: that's what we prefer (and maybe what we can convince others that that's what we need
drjamessidbury: maybe it shows who we are
drjamessidbury: at least that's what I thought when I had a red Fiat convertible
drjamessidbury: but I was single then
drjamessidbury: I don't really think there's a lot of difference betweent the capabilities of different client operating systems.
drjamessidbury: so it comes down to the applications that one needs to use.
borysboy: how'd u get a fiat in america?
drjamessidbury: I went to the fiat dealer and bought it
borysboy: oh I never knew they sold them here
drjamessidbury: most larger cities have or at least used to have dealerships
drjamessidbury: anyhow even as a mac user I'm willing to admit that if your love is for games then a windows computer is probably better for you
drjamessidbury: that's part of the reason I have both
drjamessidbury: none of the bigger players are much better than their competition
drjamessidbury: it takes getting used to the other systems but it's not inconvenient to use both
drjamessidbury: and all of them have at least some advantages and some points that I regard as absolutely stupid
drjamessidbury: Personally I think that Vista gets a bad rep as does Office 2007
drjamessidbury: because both of them are radically different in terms of how the user interacts with them
drjamessidbury: that if you're used to XP or Office 2003 then the change is difficult
drjamessidbury: it's always harder to learn a new system than to learn a system for the first time
drjamessidbury: at least to me
drjamessidbury: I still have to work hard in Word 2007 to be able to find the search and replace button
drjamessidbury: but thats because I use it so seldomly that I don't remember where it is.
drjamessidbury: And that's another reason why GUI systems are generally easier to use
drjamessidbury: To save a file in Word is control-s (or command-s on a mac)
drjamessidbury: to save a file in Excel is control-s
drjamessidbury: to save a powerpoint is control-s
drjamessidbury: to save a file in most other software is the same
rtzjm8: on a make save is always apple s
drjamessidbury: with a non gui interface save will be different keystrokes with different programs so for example if you do lots of number crunching and know your spreadsheet commands well then that automatically helps you with word processing and e-mail and other things with a GUI but may not be in the least helpful with a non-GUI interface
drjamessidbury: I think applications pretty much speak for themselves so I wont say anything unless you have a question
rtzjm8: i use commands all the time
drjamessidbury: and we'll pick up next time with development and distribution and speed
borysboy: ok
drjamessidbury: for example?
drjamessidbury: CID
drjamessidbury: and as a parting shot, if you haven't seen UP, I highly recommend it
rtzjm8: Have a good night!
drjamessidbury: particularly the 3D version
rtzjm8 has left the room.
PaulinaM2012: oh ok, my friends were going to go see it but never did
borysboy: good night
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drjamessidbury: I love animated movies.
PaulinaM2012: have a nice evening!
BB uu GG 22 44: bye night
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BB uu GG 22 44 has left the room.