The Hard Six

On Usability and Linux

Scott — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:11:14 +0000

A friend of mine recently asked me if I thought Ubuntu was suitable for his mother-in-law. In a nutshell, he didn’t want to spend the money for a MacBook given that she is a very basic user. So he bought a Dell laptop with Vista Home Premium and both him and his mother-in-law couldn’t stand it.

The basic user problem is an interesting conundrum. It’s hard to justify purchasing a $999 MacBook (and Office, and AppleCare, etc…) for a user who checks their email, surfs the web, and maybe whips up an occasional spreadsheet. But most casual users I know can’t stand Vista. The consensus seems to be “everything is different, but I don’t see any tangible improvements.” XP is often a viable option, but it’s becoming harder and harder to buy a laptop with XP on it, and lets be honest: XP is old and lacks a lot of functionality that is par for the course in a modern operating system. Apple experienced a similar stall in the 90s with System 7, but System 8 was hailed as a vast improvement and most users migrated quickly. On the other hand, Windows XP is still the dominant version of Windows nearly eight years after it’s release.

So, what about Linux? Ubuntu is “Linux for Human Beings,” right?

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Star Trek is Obviously a Reboot

Scott — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:57:48 +0000

The new Star Trek trailer is out. I’ve been a Star Trek fan since before I could walk. I could give you a summary of any TNG episode if you gave me nothing but the episode name. Anyone who calls me out on this gets my Skype name and ten minutes of my time to prove me wrong. Go ahead, I dare you. I could do the same with most TOS, DS9, and VOY episodes. My ENT knowledge, while extensive, isn’t up to par with the other four. This isn’t something I lose sleep over.

I know Trek. I’m pretty confident I could take just about anyone in a Trek knowledge competition, with the exception of Bernd Schneider. (Yes, that includes Trek writers. No, that doesn’t include books.)

I brag about my Trek knowledge (is that something even worth bragging about to begin with?) so you can fully comprehend the weight of what I am about to say:

I’ve yet to see anything about Star Trek that leads me to believe it is anything other than Star Trek. This is the real McCoy, people.

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From the Archive: Regarding Resolution Independence

Scott — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:53:10 +0000

The last of three articles I have decided to resurrect from the Hard Six archives. I’ve added some minor addendums as well.

Resolution independence. There’s a good chance you’ve heard of this. Mac OS 10.5 “Leopard” supports it, and Windows Vista partially supports it. What is it, and does it matter to you? I’ve added some corrections and notes as well. (more…)

From the Archive: Zune is not an Xbox

Scott — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:06:52 +0000

From the Hard Six archive, part of my continuing effort to repost my favorite articles. This was originally posted on 30 November, 2006.

But if Zune¹ isn’t an XBox, why does everyone seeking to defend Zune argue that since the XBox was a success, Zune will be too? And no, that J Allard heads up both divisions is not a valid reason. Here’s why: (more…)

CSSEdit 2.0’s Icon

Scott — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:37:32 +0000

So, here’s the post that made me famous. The original, unfortunately, has somehow ended up in /dev/null/. So here’s the new and improved version.

And thanks to Leopard, we can see this little easter egg better than we ever have before!

CSSEdit 2.0 is an amazing app, I use it all the time. The Xray feature is worth the price of admission alone, throw in the live previews, the built in validator, the interface (look at those tabs!), it’s just well worth the $29.95 in every way.

But it gets better. I love this little easter egg that MacRabbit threw into the icon:

Hilarious.