Are people listening

Title leads to an interesting blog entry on Linuxtoday by John Terpstra from October 3rd, claiming that people make the wrong decisions because they don't listen.

Hmm, I think I know what he means, but is the problem really in listening? To be honest, if an expert (or a salesman for that matter) starts talking about all the details in a good solution, also not shying away from things that might go wrong I'd say most people will not have a problem listening, but a problem understanding. What's good about a Linux or any Open Source solution probably goes way over the head of most people because due to lack of understanding, the concepts discussed and their technical advantages and disadvantages compared to some proprietary system are way too fuzzy and intangible.

One big problem for Open Source Software is still that it requires you to acquire quite a lot of knowledge in one way or another to make the correct decisions. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good thing (tm), but it's not what people are used to. In the example cited about a SOX audit:

"He asks the local network manager to configure a particular data file for change tracking so that it will log all file access, all file changes, and to report same with a matching user network logon record. The network manager says he needs time to figure out how to do that."

This was not the answer the auditor was looking for and I believe the network manager should have understood that. He should have said "OK" and solved the problem (now I realize that the auditor might have wanted to have it done while he was standing there, but let's assume he didn't).

You always have to adapt the message to the receiver and the FLOSS community is not quite there yet.

Oh yeah, one other thing

I'm sort of changing the focus of this blog (on a whim of course!) although not by a terrible lot.

I will continue to make this a blog about my little slowly ongoing media home project, but I will also make it a place to rant and rave a bit. What this means is that sometimes topics are quite likely to be off-topic. I have discovered a need to express myself in bursts of annoyance at some issues of today's society so I'll do that now and then. I'm getting older and grumpier so I need a place to vent. I might get another blog name if it takes over too much but I hope not ;-)

"94 bottles of beer on the wall, 94 bottles of beer..." Cheers!

Ok, english might get me some notice...

I'm not in the least bit surprised that my infinitesimally small section of the blogosphere hasn't been noticed that much. My own intentions all along were just that I want to be able to take notes on my media-enabled home project. However, a certain craving has manifested itself, and since the only comments I have are from some sort of "bot" begging me to visit "its" site. So english it is. Actually i find it somewhat easier to think in english when it's related to computers and technology. It's a sad situation and I'd really hate to see the swedish universities stop providing advanced courses in swedish. As an engineer I believe it is extremely important that you are fluent in your own language as it pertians to your field.

But I digress.

I also drink beer, but I snuck away from the corporate party for a while ;-)

Anyway, the Wife Acceptance factor has struck again! I had to give up on only recording video on our main computer and instead return the VCR to its spot under the TV set since I, yours truly, had mistakenly shut off/killed the computer during recording of beautiful wife's important recording for the third time. NB: There were no insurmountable technical difficulties (apart from some streaming issues that I have fixed), just that the solution was not stable enough if I forget about it - I need a dedicated box for this...

So I am currently investigating various chassis for use as a base for building an HTPC. The new miniHFX from german mCubed looks sweet, but we'll see. It's not exactly cheap but it fulfills a major requirement: silence.

Second problem is that video editing is so slow (if I want to get anything else done at all)! I need to set up a bunch of SATA disks in a RAID1+0 (or 0+1) configuration I think - or get a SCSI controller plus disk... Again, not exactly cheap. And if I build an HTPC I might offload this task from my machine so the problem goes away. Decisions, decisions...

Still haven't done my homework to provide a network picture. Soon (tm).

Ta-ta! Oh, btw: Sweden will probably crush England in tonight's game :-O