[News] Is Google Becoming More Like Microsoft (in a Bad Way)?
Roy Schestowitz
,----[ Quote ]
| As Google gets bigger and the pots of cash grow, so the firm needs
| to increase its political influence. As it buys up companies from
| around the world and integrates them into its machine, its activities
| are bound to attract the close eye of Washington, and a public
| policy department is sure to serve as a focus for 'interaction'
| between Google and the government.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40392
Related:
Google to recruit a bevy of Europeans lobbyists
,----[ Quote ]
| Google, the search engine heavyweight, is no longer prepared to
| stay out of the business of fashioning the political environment
| for decisions made in Europe. For lobbying work on its behalf the
| company is at present searching in numerous large European cities
| for politics-savvy lawyers; one such "European Policy Counsel"
| position will be available in Hamburg/Berlin.
`----
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/87158/from/rss09
Privacy International demands apology from Google over smear campaign
,----[ Quote ]
| Privacy International has accused Google of embarking upon a smear
| campaign within the media to discredit both PI and a report, to be
| published in full later in the year, which ranks the privacy
| performance of the top Internet service companies.
|
| [...]
|
| The Google response should be interesting, to say the least. Expect
| this one to run and run, up to and beyond the date in September
| when that final report is published...
`----
Rex Ballard
wrote:
> Google gets into politics
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | As Google gets bigger and the pots of cash grow, so the firm needs
> | to increase its political influence.
The irony is that most of these opportunities were "out in the open".
They were based on Open Source technology (linux, dig, crawlers,
WAIS...).
They were based on publicly available information (usenet newsgroups)
The aquisitions were thought to be insane at the time (YouTube).
The offerings were highly leveraged - very little customer investment
gives very large return.
Service was optimized to best meet the needs of both the paying
customers (advertizers), and non-paying (searchers).
Most of the "ideas" had been posted on usenet and mailing lists for
years.
Eric Schmidt just did what it took to turn good ideas into reality.
Politicians (paid by Microsoft) have tried to tie up google with lots
of red tape, including:
Antitrust issues,
SEC Regulatory issues.
Taxation questions
Nuisance lawsuits - people demanding payment for content,
then asking to have their content put back - for free.
> | As it buys up companies from
> | around the world and integrates them into its machine, its activities
> | are bound to attract the close eye of Washington, and a public
> | policy department is sure to serve as a focus for 'interaction'
> | between Google and the government.
Google has been attracting attention almost since day one.
When they went public, the SEC couldn't figure out why?
The IPO was repriced a few times, based on it's actual revenues.
The OSS structure makes it hard to track expenses - what should be
taxed?
On the other hand, Google never said "You can ONLY list your content
with us"
in fact, most of their content is available publicly - even through
other search engines.
Google never said "you can only search through us"
In fact, several other search engines search google as part of
their content search solution.
Google never said "you can only advertise through us"
In fact, Google's customers often pay a fee to be listed on several
search engines at once.
Google's main advantage is their ability to cluster a bunch of Linux
servers so cost-effectively that
even though it would be completely trivial to compete, almost nobody
really wants to try.
The more obvious issue is that Microsoft attempted to "lock out"
google, by attempting to replace
the search engines that call Google (including the browsers), with
their own. Microsoft wants
to lock out Google and then charge them for access to the OEM
distribution channel. Google
has managed to compete by offering a very good service which can be
downloaded for free,
and can be installed in just a few minutes.
Microsoft has been trying to "Lock out" Google, almost since their
inception. With Vista,
they have just resorted to pure and simple sabotage. They attempted a
tactic which
made it nearly impossible to install Google utilities and tools, and
made it nearly
impossible NOT to use Microsoft's search engine services.
The irony is that Microsoft is a google customer. Search Linux or any
OSS project and you
will almost always see a link to one of Microsoft's "fast facts"
reports.
Microsoft is attempting to "protect" it's users from the "pornography"
of Open Source Software.
Google is one of the easiest ways to get unfettered and unbiased
information about almost any
topic, including Open Source Software.
Remember, it is Microsoft who has tried to maintain monopolistic
control of the desktop, especially
the OEM channel. It is Microsoft who was ordered, in the Appeals
court ruling unanimously approved
by a full panel of 9 judges - NOT to attempt to use it's monopoly
power of the Operating System to extend
it's monopoly into other areas. They were also ordered NOT to
interfere with the access of competitors to
the Marketplace.
The DOJ has decided to ignore the Appeals Court ruling, and has become
deaf, dumb, and blind to
all of the activities and open and flagrant violations of this Appeals
court ruling, based on the "fine print"
of a settlement that was appearantly designed to allow Microsoft, one
of George W Bush's earliest and most
aggressive contributors, to be "ABOVE THE LAW".
Maybe George W Bush will give Charles Manson a pardon too?
Maybe another for John Hinkley.
> `----
> http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40392
> Related:
>
> Google to recruit a bevy of Europeans lobbyists
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Google, the search engine heavyweight, is no longer prepared to
> | stay out of the business of fashioning the political environment
> | for decisions made in Europe.
Let's see. The EU rules against Microsoft, fines them $?million/day
for contempt of court.
They order Microsoft to stop sticking shovel-ware into their operating
system.
They order Microsoft to stop trying to exclude competititon from the
OEM market.
They order Microsoft to stop trying to bundle new products with their
monopoly-ware.
They order Microsoft to publish the trivial changes they have made to
public standard protocols.
Microsoft has refused to cooperate with ANY of these mandates, but now
it's GOOGLE who is
manipulating the government?
Microsoft tried to lock-out RealMedia, QuickTime, iTunes, WordPerfect,
Corel Draw,
Netscape, AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve, Borland (numerous products), Lotus
(1-2-3, Notes, SmartSuite...),
Adobe (Acrobat, Photoshop, Flash...), Norton, Symantic, McAffee...
And now you DARE to say that it was GOOGLE who had lined the
politician's pockets?
ROFLMAO!!
This is like letting Ted Bundy go, and then shooting one of the nurses
who managed to survive
the rape and murder spree, because she was "making too much trouble
for Mr Bundy".
> | For lobbying work on its behalf the
> | company is at present searching in numerous large European cities
> | for politics-savvy lawyers; one such "European Policy Counsel"
> | position will be available in Hamburg/Berlin.
> `----
The judges and prosecutors are going totally crazy over Microsoft's
absolute refusal
to even pretend to be a law abiding citizen, and the appearant
inability of the US courts
to enforce their own laws and judgments.
When Google said "we have a little problem here", most of these
politicians were
chomping at the bit to have someone who wouldn't "weasel out" when
Microsoft
started trying to turn the thumbscrews.
Google is a huge cash engine, and they don't have much debt. Google
was already
huge when it issued it's IPO, and only sold enough to compensate some
of it's early
founders who were ready to retire.
> http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/87158/from/rss09
> Privacy International demands apology from Google over smear campaign
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Privacy International has accused Google of embarking upon a smear
> | campaign within the media to discredit both PI and a report, to be
> | published in full later in the year, which ranks the privacy
> | performance of the top Internet service companies.
Isn't Privacy International the company who tried to sue Google for
publishing
copyrighted material of other companies? Google pointed out that it
was quite
easy to exclude any content using a very simple online form. There
wasn't even a charge.
Google even offered to permanently "Lock out" the clients who appeared
to not want their
copyrighted material cited by Google.
Of course most of those "represented" almost immediately came forward
and said,
"Never mind, we don't want our content removed". Perhaps PI had told
these people
that they would get a huge cash payment from Google in a negotiated
settlement. Of
course, the lawyers would have recieved a substantial portion -
perhaps as much as half.
When Google appeared more than eager to comply with their wishes and
stop publishing their
copyrighted material, the extortion scheme backfired.
It's a bit like when the blackmailer gets pictures of you with an
attractive woman who isn't
your wife, and tells you "If you don't pay me $50,000 I'll send a copy
to your wife", and the
"mark" responds with, "That's a great picture, could I pay you $500
for about 100 8x10 glossies,
I want to send them to ALL of my friends - including my soon-to-be ex-
wife". Could I get a poster
sized one for my friend, the District Attorney?
Not only have you not achieved the desired result, but now the "mark"
will let everyone
know what a great "photographer" (blackmailer) you are. Instead of
getting a big fat
paycheck, you have to leave town - in a hurry.
> | [...]
> | The Google response should be interesting, to say the least. Expect
> | this one to run and run, up to and beyond the date in September
> | when that final report is published...
When the lawsuit mentioned above was first filed, the commentators on
Bloomberg, NPR, and Fox were all
saying "careful what you ask for, you might get it". They all
understood that many businesses PAY google
to provide links to their archives and index the content of the ads
(to assure that it reaches "interested viewers").
Perhaps the plaintiff didn't understand how easy Google had made it to
prevent EXACTLY the type of undesired
publication being listed in the complaint.
> http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1491.html
Dr. Zhivago
"Rex Ballard" <rex.b...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1182206461.9...@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 18, 11:02 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@schestowitz.com>
> wrote:
>> Google gets into politics
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | As Google gets bigger and the pots of cash grow, so the firm needs
>> | to increase its political influence.
>
> The irony is that most of these opportunities were "out in the open".
> They were based on Open Source technology (linux, dig, crawlers,
> WAIS...).
> They were based on publicly available information (usenet newsgroups)
> The aquisitions were thought to be insane at the time (YouTube).
> The offerings were highly leveraged - very little customer investment
> gives very large return.
> Service was optimized to best meet the needs of both the paying
> customers (advertizers), and non-paying (searchers).
> Most of the "ideas" had been posted on usenet and mailing lists for
> years.
> Eric Schmidt just did what it took to turn good ideas into reality.
>
> Politicians (paid by Microsoft) have tried to tie up google with lots
> of red tape, including:
Jesus F'n Christ. Shut up already. SHUT UP.
Why is it that every single damn time you post you need to write some 20
page essay with these ridiculous conspiracy theories and "perhaps this" and
"maybe that" and "it's all secret and the records are sealed."
You don't know jack shite so shut up, answer or comment in a couple of
paragraphs and be done with it. Nobody, but nobody is going to read 20 pages
of your nonsense.
Get it?
Roy Schestowitz
>
> "Rex Ballard" <rex.b...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1182206461.9...@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jun 18, 11:02 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@schestowitz.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Google gets into politics
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | As Google gets bigger and the pots of cash grow, so the firm needs
>>> | to increase its political influence.
>>
>> The irony is that most of these opportunities were "out in the open".
>> They were based on Open Source technology (linux, dig, crawlers,
>> WAIS...).
>> They were based on publicly available information (usenet newsgroups)
>> The aquisitions were thought to be insane at the time (YouTube).
>> The offerings were highly leveraged - very little customer investment
>> gives very large return.
>> Service was optimized to best meet the needs of both the paying
>> customers (advertizers), and non-paying (searchers).
>> Most of the "ideas" had been posted on usenet and mailing lists for
>> years.
>> Eric Schmidt just did what it took to turn good ideas into reality.
>>
>> Politicians (paid by Microsoft) have tried to tie up google with lots
>> of red tape, including:
>
>
> Jesus <snip>
*plonk*
Stick to one name, Gary.
Good post, by the way, Rex. Your points are all very valid. Mind the subject
line, which has a question mark. There's a coordinated character assassination
attack on Google. Your long post makes a good case that refutes all the mess
and disinformation.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | YaSTall Linux to figure out the magic
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
run-level 2 2007-06-16 18:32 last=
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine
Kier
It isn't flatfish. Nothing like flatfish, at all. Surprisingly enough, not
all trolls are flatfish.
--
Kier
BearItAll
Someone has success and some in Linux world jumps on them, tears them apart
and kicks them in the short and curlys.
When someone else comes up with a set of services and applications that are
as good as Google's are, then they can take over, it will be a natural
order of things, if it's better people will take to it and use that instead
of Google. In the meantime what is wrong with Google earning a few bob?
That money was never coming your way anyway so does it really matter who
has it.
That OS they are writting wont be cheap, two years so far and then three
years before we are expected to see anything. That development costs a
great deal of money, 5 years of I don't know how many developers wages to
pay, with potentially no rewards, because who knows at this point if it
will be a success, it's a risk. We mustn't stamp on people willing to take
such risks. It is the only way that things move forward at all.
All the other development work Google has done, it must be a very good team
of developers because much of what they do is very popular, they must have
a good insight into what people want before they actually want it. Good
developers don't come cheap.
I am more than happy for Mr Google to have a 200 foot fishing yaght, he is
investing money in the future of computing. Not the only future, but one of
the probabilities.
I would also like a 200 foot fishing yaght, but so long as Mr Google is
willing to let me use his for fishing off Whitby, then I'm more than happy
to let him ten year old car, it's a great car that has character, you have
to bash the dashboard to make the windscreen wipers work, then every so
often one of the wipers falls off.
Rex Ballard
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:51:42 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> > ____/ Dr. Zhivago on Tuesday 19 June 2007 00:41 : \____
>
> > *plonk*
>
> > Stick to one name, Gary.
>
>
Agreed. Flatfish has manners, and doesn't have to resort to
profanity when he can't actually offer a sensible counter-argument.
Doc, feel free to post a nice long (if you wish) rebuttal, pointing
to evidence that shows that Microsoft is the innocent victim and that
Google is the predatory monopoly who has openly defied law enforcement
authorities. Feel free to articles you've previously read from
memory.
A fully researched document, complete with references, links, and
supporting documentation can take about 2-3 days per page. These are
usenet postings, responses to a public discussions. In effect, like
the speakers in a public forum.
If somebody were paying me to post these, perhaps by the page, or by
the word, I'd be more careful to research all my assertions, and
provide links for everything.
Since I'm posting these during short breaks between meetings or other
activities, I often have to complete a posting in a few minutes, or
for longer articles, have to packs as many words as possible into a 10
minute period, perhaps 3-4 10 minute "blasts" over the day.
Fortunately I use a Dvorak keyboard and I can type about 80 words per
minute. I'm lots of fun on chats. :-D
> Surprisingly enough, not
> all trolls are flatfish.
There are lots of people who really like Microsoft's products, and
don't really know much about Linux, OSS, or even the infrastructure of
the Internet at all. They think that Microsoft does all of the work -
because their desk has the windows logo on all of the client
applications.
They seem to think that Bill Gates can do no wrong, because he has a
$40 billion net worth.
What they are doing on COLA, I'm not sure, but their dialogue and
arguments, well presented, make the discussions on this group much
more interesting.
> --
> Kier
Rozzie
> The irony is that most of these opportunities were "out in the open".
> They were based on Open Source technology (linux, dig, crawlers,
> WAIS...).
So when does the Google boycott start?
You Linux users are really a pip.
Choice is fine as long as it's choices that you like, as Linux users.
If a particular company or marketing strategy or what ever doesn't fit
into your concept of Linux Utopia
you start the bad press and boycott wheels spinning.
At some point, you will realize that this is all about money. Every
single conglomerate, wealthy backer or
organisation that gets involved with Linux is looking to make a profit.
They all start by seeding the community with
freebies and support, but ultimately they will all go commercial in one
form or fashion. It may be in the form of a split
like Suse and Redhat (Fedora) have done, or it may be sleeping with the
devil as Linspire has done but it will happen.
The Linux movement is similar to the hippie movement of the 1960s. Many
statements, philosphies and so forth were
put on the front pages of the press, but it ended up being a money
making movement for some anyhow.
Who do you say?
Well, the so called "organic food / health food" market for one.
Remember Earth Day?
It's all about money and power and someday, history will look back and
say their is just no stopping capitalism.
Roy Schestowitz
I think the only one tearing them apart (or at least trying) is Microsoft
because they can't make a buck off them, let alone control what (proprietary)
code they use. More ironically, Microsoft pays Google a lot of money to run
these Linux slander attacks.
> When someone else comes up with a set of services and applications that are
> as good as Google's are, then they can take over, it will be a natural
> order of things, if it's better people will take to it and use that instead
> of Google. In the meantime what is wrong with Google earning a few bob?
> That money was never coming your way anyway so does it really matter who
> has it.
They attracted excellent engineers because of their good search engine. In
order to keep them occupied (and avoid 'unrest') they let them build other
great projects. eBay had the same dilemma, as pointed out by Joel Spolsky last
year. What do you do with the engineers when the work is done? You must
expand.
> That OS they are writting wont be cheap, two years so far and then three
> years before we are expected to see anything. That development costs a
> great deal of money, 5 years of I don't know how many developers wages to
> pay, with potentially no rewards, because who knows at this point if it
> will be a success, it's a risk. We mustn't stamp on people willing to take
> such risks. It is the only way that things move forward at all.
>
> All the other development work Google has done, it must be a very good team
> of developers because much of what they do is very popular, they must have
> a good insight into what people want before they actually want it. Good
> developers don't come cheap.
On the other hand, many good developers are cheap...
...But they also have a passion for what they do.
> I am more than happy for Mr Google to have a 200 foot fishing yaght, he is
> investing money in the future of computing. Not the only future, but one of
> the probabilities.
Ah! The yacht again. It's a recurring theme. :-) Carry on with this and Mr.
Ellison will start lurking in COLA.
> I would also like a 200 foot fishing yaght, but so long as Mr Google is
> willing to let me use his for fishing off Whitby, then I'm more than happy
> to let him ten year old car, it's a great car that has character, you have
> to bash the dashboard to make the windscreen wipers work, then every so
> often one of the wipers falls off.
Didn't Brin live (or buy) in dorms for many years and drove a small Japanese
car until a couple of years ago (he probably still does)? Just like
Shuttleworth, those two (Brin and Page) are average students that turned into
mil/billionaires. They all used Linux.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | chmod a-r *.mbox
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Mem: 515500k total, 444724k used, 70776k free, 4336k buffers
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
Rex Ballard
> Rex Ballard wrote:
> > The irony is that most of these opportunities were "out in the open".
> > They were based on Open Source technology (linux, dig, crawlers,
> > WAIS...).
>
> So when does the Google boycott start?
> You Linux users are really a pip.
> Choice is fine as long as it's choices that you like, as Linux users.
> If a particular company or marketing strategy or what ever doesn't fit
> into your concept of Linux Utopia you start the bad press and
> boycott wheels spinning.
I think you missed the point of my posting. Google is a perfect
example of how a good company, with good management, can use OSS
technology to create a business solution that can be very profitable
and very scalable, even before doing an IPO.
Google doesn't even try to claim that they are brilliant innovators.
They provide a really good and popular service, don't charge for
people to submit content, encourage people to put their content into
the database, and offer premium placement for a price. They make sure
that the advertizing is viewed by the people most likely to want to
see it, and as a result, they have a remarkably high ratio of viewers
who follow the advertizer's links.
Furthermore, advertizers know that google is a very good place to
place the "ready to close" advertizements. Viewers often know what
they are looking for, and just need a supplier and a price.
Google is also smart not to try and eat massive amounts of bandwidth.
They keep their displays very simple, with graphics that are static
and easily cached. The result is that Google is often "first choice"
as search engine.
Yahoo also did a great job of turning BSD and other OSS technology
into a profitable business. There are several other companies that
have never gone public, because they don't need to.
> At some point, you will realize that
> this is all about money. Every
> single conglomerate, wealthy backer or
> organisation that gets involved with Linux
> is looking to make a profit.
Absolutely!
Google, Amazon, E-Trade, Yahoo. All great examples of
companies who have created successful business models
in which OSS is a strategic element of their business.
Others, such as Wachovia, WalMart, and Burlington Coat
factory aren't "pure Linux" or even "pure OSS" success
stories, but have demonstrated how Linux and OSS can
provide the strategic "edge" to help them focus their
resources on "bottom line" activities.
> They all start by seeding the community with
> freebies and support, but ultimately they
> will all go commercial in one form or fashion.
Sun is a great example of this. They offer a "free"
(as in beer) version, then they offer the "for fee"
version. Get J2SE for simple applications, but you
have J2EE for the big commercial projects. Get OpenOffice
for the kids' homework, but get StarOffice for the business
correspondence. Get Linux for development, but when you need
a high availability production system for your Enterprise Database,
Solaris runs Oracle or DB2 extremely well.
IBM is also a good OSS and commercial player.
Pick up Eclipse, WebShere Community Edition, and Derby/Cloudscape
for prototyping, training, and development, but when you are
ready to create a production deployment, there is WAS, Rational,
DB2/UDB in Enterprise edition flavors that can be run on AIX, or
Linux Clusters. If you need a more "windows friendly" interface
They can even provide the .NET to SOA integration.
You can build it yourself, or have the consultants build it for you.
You can support it yourself, or have operations outsourced to IBM.
You can host it in your data center, or have IBM host it for you.
But you can test your concept on a Linux VM.
> It's all about money and power and someday,
> history will look back and
> say their is just no stopping capitalism.
Of course not. Nothing wrong with people creating a nice
business based on services created using OSS. Nothing wrong
with using OSS to feed commercial products.
Microsoft is missing the big opportunity. They actually messed
themselves up when they tried to divorce the server from the
workstation. Now, Linux has moved into the desktop because
people can use the desktop to prototype their server based solution.
Tracy R Reed
> Fortunately I use a Dvorak keyboard and I can type about 80 words per
> minute. I'm lots of fun on chats. :-D
Hey Rex!
I've been pondering going to dvorak for many years. But how can you use
emacs or vi when the keys get shifted around? Even if I did successfully
learn it I just can't see using vi or emacs as the key patterns would be
crazy when hjkl get moved around. If anything I would consider going to
a totally different input technology altogether. I would really like to
go to something like:
Because it doesn't even have a concept of key positions. But these are
very pricey and the fact that only one company makes it and it isn't a
standard scares me. I would be very upset if I invested so much time in
mastering the thing and then the company went under.
At the moment I use a Happy Hacker keyboard and I am pretty satisfied
with it. I love the small size and the control key being where it
belongs. Just wondering if there isn't an even less stressful way to go
about entering text.
--
Tracy R Reed Read my blog at http://ultraviolet.org
Rex Ballard
> RexBallard<rex.ball...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Fortunately I use a Dvorak keyboard and I can type about 80 words per
> > minute. I'm lots of fun on chats. :-D
>
> HeyRex!
>
> I've been pondering going to dvorak for many years.
Go for it! It's pretty easy to learn the keyboard typing.
There is even a Dvorak typing tutor for KDE on openSUSE 10.2
> But how can you use
> emacs or vi when the keys get shifted around?
Like so many other things, you just get used to it. It helps if you
have full mapping for things like cursor keys. the HJKL you can learn
fairly quickly, even though it's not as intuitive in the new
arrangement. Emacs keys are even simpler, because you are already
using p (for previous) n (for next), and so on.
It helps if you practice a bit on something that isn't critical, and
save often when you first start working on "real" documents, but I
think it took me about 2 hours to relearn the vi keys, about an hour
to relearn the emacs keys.
> Even if I did successfully
> learn it I just can't see using vi or emacs as the key patterns would be
> crazy when hjkl get moved around.
I normally don't use the hjkl keys as cursor keys, except when using
ksh in "vi" mode, but it becomes second nature after about an hour.
Remember, it takes 14 correct repetitions to create a new habit.
Strange as it seems, I sometimes have to think more carefully when I'm
typing on someone else's keyboard, because I'm so used to the dvorak
layouts for the function keys.
> If anything I would consider going to
> a totally different input technology altogether. I would really like to
> go to something like:
>
> http://www.datahand.com/
The argument is very old. Even as early as 1977, people proposed
ditching the keyboard and using voice recognition - but VR still can't
put a mike to a speakerphone and get an accurate transcript of all of
the members of the call.
VR is good for simple commands, or maybe even a phone list, but as the
primary input device, it really doesn't work.
Probably the best "good attempt" was that notation used in the Palm
Pilot. Some people can scribble on a pilot faster than they can write
on paper. I used to be pretty good at taking notes on a pilot myself.
We have computers that can "read your mind", Steven Hawkings uses one,
as do many other quadrapeligics, and people with cerebral Palsey. It
doesn't really read your mind, but it can see where your eye is
focused and "type" the word or character desired. Learning to use it
makes learning dvorak seem trivial. A similar device is used by the
military for sighting and selecting targets. The computer sees where
they are looking, and once the signal is given, the missles focus on
that target as accurately as the eyes did.
Smalltalk attempted to claim that you could do anything you needed to
do with a mouse, if you lost the keyboard. It was true, but "typing"
using a mouse isn't the exactly a model of efficiency.
There are several "chording" technology where a combination of keys
are pressed to get the desired letter. The good thing about this is
that it requires fewer key strokes, but it's still pretty hard to
learn, and stenographer's notes are still a bit cryptic.
I'm actually surprised that more people haven't learned the Dvorak
keyboard. Now that it's just a simple configuration option on Windows
or Linux, you would think that people would want to avoid RSI and
fatigue. Of course, most qwerty teachers still tell students that the
layout was designed to be MORE efficient, even though that was only
true up until about 1910, when they started using springs to make the
keys snap back faster.
> Because it doesn't even have a concept of key positions. But these are
> very pricey and the fact that only one company makes it and it isn't a
> standard scares me. I would be very upset if I invested so much time in
> mastering the thing and then the company went under.
And this has happened several times. IF you dig up some archived
copies of Byte Magazine, you can find ads for a "key pad" - it was a
one handed device that combined rocking and finger presses to create
up to 96 different keystrokes. No recollection as to how fast it was.
> At the moment I use a Happy Hacker keyboard and I am pretty satisfied
> with it. I love the small size and the control key being where it
> belongs. Just wondering if there isn't an even less stressful way to go
> about entering text.
any light travel keyboard, such as a laptop or "mini" keyboard,
combined with a dvorak layout selection, will eventually reduce the
stress significantly. Take a week to get used to it, and then stick
with it for about a month, and before long you won't want to go back
to qwerty.
Roy Schestowitz
I know you're expecting Rex to give his opinion, but I can't help spewing out a
personal perspective.
The issue of duality probably has a cost. In a world where not all devices
support Dvorak layout and many public terminal are closed to options, one has
to be used to both. I've read that people who move to Dvorak can mentally
switch from one layout to another (just like language), but from a productive
point-of-view, this just leaves me doubtful. Dvorak is a mountain to climb (an
investment in the learning sense).
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: Digits 772-777 of Pi are 999999
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Swap: 1510068k total, 511328k used, 998740k free, 49848k cached