Maybe I should have helped him more beforehand, but to be fair, 1) I didn't actually know him very well and I thought he must have had some level of technical competency, since he used Firefox and was the one who asked me about Ubuntu, 2) I was explicitly clear about what Ubuntu was, and made sure he knew what an OS, etc. was (which he did), 3) the original plan was for me to be there and set it up for him myself a few days later, but then he decided to do it on his own earlier and turned down the over-the-phone help I offered (so therefore he should take responsibility for his actions), and 4) I actually did tell him to choose the option to take up only 50% of the hard drive once he got to the appropriate screen after he turned down my initial help, just to do my best to reduce the chances of him doing something stupid (which he did anyways).Actually, I just remembered, but the whole reason he was even curious about Ubuntu was that I noticed he had a Mac theme on his Firefox (I was at his house because we were working on an honors bio "final project" that ended up really sucking, but we somehow got a B+), and I was like Hey is that a Mac theme? (it wasn't a Safari theme, just a Firefox2 Mac theme, so there wasn't much difference from the default theme and I was partly guessing) and he was like Yeah I want a Mac but all I have is this stupid Dell and then I mentioned how I had a really good Mac theme on my laptop at home and he was like cool and I was like Yea u wanna see? and he was like Sure, so I showed him this <a class="user" href="http://tinyurl.com/2z3k2q">http://tinyurl.com/2z3k2q</a> and he was like Wow thats a really cool theme how'd you do that? so I explained how I used a different OS called Ubuntu that's really easy to theme basically any way you want and he got curious and was asking more about so I was explaining Ubuntu/Linux and then eventually he asked if he would be able to get it and I was like Yeah sure if you want I could come over later and set it up for you in a dual boot with a Mac theme and he was like Cool. Then he asked if I could just give him the CD at school and then come and set it up later and I was like Yea, sure, so I did, and then, well, the rest is history... But I mean, it's not like I just one day gave him the CD and was like go figure out how to install this and try not to screw things up, and I don't believe I'm really at fault here. I really tried to help him. Of course, it would have been much better if this whole thing never happens, because his stuff (including a song he happened to be working on that he mentioned later) was deleted and Linux's marketshare/his perception of Linux isn't any better off for it, but it was a good learning experience for me about how to handle those types of delicate situations. Actually, I think it did help me out, because recently I helped out this guy get started with Ubuntu by walking him through every little thing step-by-step through AIM, and he's now a happy Ubuntu user, despite his slightly odd hardware setup (he's using an unsupported wireless-N USB adapter on his desktop that has no access to ethernet, so it wasn't completely uncomplicated). Also, for his benefit, I actually explained everything I was telling him to do (a lot of what I told him to do was terminal commands and stuff, since that's easier than "okay, now open X, go to menu X, look for X, open it, click X, type X, click Okay, and put in your password), and he even remarked about how he was learning so much, and it was actually kind of fun in a weird way (come on, you all know the feeling). (I tried to help him twice actually, and the first time he was like Screw it when it got complicated, but when he IMed me again a few months later (recently), we actually saw everything through and got him a working dual boot (powered by Wubi though, since he didn't know much more than Dan (my other friend) did.)Anyways, without the learning experience of accidentally leading my friend to completely screw himself over, I probably never would have been able to help that random guy who saw my AIM screen name (buu700@gmail.com) on the Ubuntu Forums and decided to IM me for help.
Damnit, my spam bot went into an infinite loop look for the term 'email' in this section. Next time actually supply the email address so I don't have to update my crawler.
Do you think I would use a transparent terminal, then be that stupid?I don't use real transparency because it's too annoying. Pseudo-transparency gives my terminal a nice, non-distractive background. I hate typing and reading text that is transparently laid over some other text, it's hard to read and annoying.
mrbitchFeb 27, 2008
laid
sarixeFeb 27, 2008
i meant for web browsing, not the rest of it. with the exception of the internet, i would say that windows is just as secure as linux...
shadicFeb 28, 2008
To the morons out there, the music in that xkcd IS a RickRoll.
ccmachinedFeb 28, 2008
OpenDNS FTW!
Closed AccountFeb 29, 2008
Good for you.
sewerraccoonFeb 29, 2008
It's darwin, which is based off a good amount of code from the FreeBSD Project. I'd rather use FreeBSD personally
Closed AccountMar 3, 2008
Maybe I should have helped him more beforehand, but to be fair, 1) I didn't actually know him very well and I thought he must have had some level of technical competency, since he used Firefox and was the one who asked me about Ubuntu, 2) I was explicitly clear about what Ubuntu was, and made sure he knew what an OS, etc. was (which he did), 3) the original plan was for me to be there and set it up for him myself a few days later, but then he decided to do it on his own earlier and turned down the over-the-phone help I offered (so therefore he should take responsibility for his actions), and 4) I actually did tell him to choose the option to take up only 50% of the hard drive once he got to the appropriate screen after he turned down my initial help, just to do my best to reduce the chances of him doing something stupid (which he did anyways).Actually, I just remembered, but the whole reason he was even curious about Ubuntu was that I noticed he had a Mac theme on his Firefox (I was at his house because we were working on an honors bio "final project" that ended up really sucking, but we somehow got a B+), and I was like Hey is that a Mac theme? (it wasn't a Safari theme, just a Firefox2 Mac theme, so there wasn't much difference from the default theme and I was partly guessing) and he was like Yeah I want a Mac but all I have is this stupid Dell and then I mentioned how I had a really good Mac theme on my laptop at home and he was like cool and I was like Yea u wanna see? and he was like Sure, so I showed him this <a class="user" href="http://tinyurl.com/2z3k2q">http://tinyurl.com/2z3k2q</a> and he was like Wow thats a really cool theme how'd you do that? so I explained how I used a different OS called Ubuntu that's really easy to theme basically any way you want and he got curious and was asking more about so I was explaining Ubuntu/Linux and then eventually he asked if he would be able to get it and I was like Yeah sure if you want I could come over later and set it up for you in a dual boot with a Mac theme and he was like Cool. Then he asked if I could just give him the CD at school and then come and set it up later and I was like Yea, sure, so I did, and then, well, the rest is history... But I mean, it's not like I just one day gave him the CD and was like go figure out how to install this and try not to screw things up, and I don't believe I'm really at fault here. I really tried to help him. Of course, it would have been much better if this whole thing never happens, because his stuff (including a song he happened to be working on that he mentioned later) was deleted and Linux's marketshare/his perception of Linux isn't any better off for it, but it was a good learning experience for me about how to handle those types of delicate situations. Actually, I think it did help me out, because recently I helped out this guy get started with Ubuntu by walking him through every little thing step-by-step through AIM, and he's now a happy Ubuntu user, despite his slightly odd hardware setup (he's using an unsupported wireless-N USB adapter on his desktop that has no access to ethernet, so it wasn't completely uncomplicated). Also, for his benefit, I actually explained everything I was telling him to do (a lot of what I told him to do was terminal commands and stuff, since that's easier than "okay, now open X, go to menu X, look for X, open it, click X, type X, click Okay, and put in your password), and he even remarked about how he was learning so much, and it was actually kind of fun in a weird way (come on, you all know the feeling). (I tried to help him twice actually, and the first time he was like Screw it when it got complicated, but when he IMed me again a few months later (recently), we actually saw everything through and got him a working dual boot (powered by Wubi though, since he didn't know much more than Dan (my other friend) did.)Anyways, without the learning experience of accidentally leading my friend to completely screw himself over, I probably never would have been able to help that random guy who saw my AIM screen name (buu700@gmail.com) on the Ubuntu Forums and decided to IM me for help.
damentzMar 3, 2008
Damnit, my spam bot went into an infinite loop look for the term 'email' in this section. Next time actually supply the email address so I don't have to update my crawler.
tendonutMar 4, 2008
I get these requests all the time BlueTunic. I've seen some ugly 40's names quite a few times.
beaconJul 19, 2008
Do you think I would use a transparent terminal, then be that stupid?I don't use real transparency because it's too annoying. Pseudo-transparency gives my terminal a nice, non-distractive background. I hate typing and reading text that is transparently laid over some other text, it's hard to read and annoying.
beaconJul 19, 2008
It's called pseudo-transparency.