FireFox driving me NUTS !!!

[Jan Sneep]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
> [mailto:ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com]On Behalf Of Bart
> Silverstrim
> Sent: June 3, 2007 1:01 PM
> To: Ubuntu user technical support,not for general discussions
> Subject: Re: FireFox driving me NUTS !!!

[snip]

> It's configured to only allow particular MAC addresses out or
> something
> like that?

No just have MAC address filter for the wireless connections to the LAN.

I've got 4 Win Xp's all using IE and my son's Wii (no idea what it uses to
"browse" the Internet) [all working perfectly] and the Ubuntu server using
Firefox. I just installed Ubuntu two weeks ago, so it's as clean as one can
get and right out of the box it has had problems not waiting long enough for
web servers responses. That's why I'm surprised that more people aren't
having a similar problem.

[snip]

> While GUI's can make it easier, I've seen many GUIs that make things
> just more confusing because of their wording or layout.

No question ... any poorly designed interface sucks!

[snip]

> knowing the apropos command would probably be just as easy to *find*
> information.  I've always thought that all things being
> equal, knowing
> how to locate and utilize information is in many cases more
> useful than
> simply knowing the precise rote way of doing something, if
> for no other
> reason than the fact that things change and people who need
> to know the
> by-the-bulleted-list way of doing things usually get lost.

Agree. As an Engineer I don't bother trying to remember every minute detail
of the building code, but I do know where on the shelf my copy of the code
is.

>
> For a simple copy, using "cp filea.ext /mnt/destination" is
> faster than
> opening windows and dragging the file to another location if
> they're not
> already open or if I'm not doing something more complicated with the
> copy.  Plus you need to know how to drag and drop, and navigate to
> proper windows (or panes, if that is your application's way of doing
> things), and which mouse button to use...

True, but in a good interface typing "help" or maybe "help commands" would
bring up a listing of basic commands and if it was an even better interface
when I type the english command COPY, in a way that the OS can interpret as
a command it would be able to tell me the command that I might be looking
for is CP.

Interfaces can ALWAYS be made better. But like any illness, the first step
is often admitting that one has a problem! Personally I have always hated
the way the various GUI's have implemented the copy command. Have always
preferred the command line DOS versions of copy, so much more powerful.

My point is that a GOOD interface gives you knowledge, like what your
options are so you can make an informed choice about what route you want to
take. By definition a NOT SO GOOD interface requires you to have specific
knowledge to operate it. No question there is some minimum required
knowledge needed to operate any interface. Think of a simple elevator panel
... you do need to know what floor you want to go to and know that pushing
the button ladled 6 will take you to that specific floor. But also, no
question, at some point in the future I will be able to access a touch
sensitive screen to look up people's apartment number or simple say "I want
to go to Mr. John Smith's" today and the elevator will take me to floor 6,
because I REALLY don't care what floor Smith lives on I just want to go and
see him.


> But this is a near-religious debate that will get nowhere.  Point is
> that any interface has a learning curve, and users will always find
> something to whine about.

As a friend is often fond of saying "Much wickedness has be done in the name
of religion"

> Did you try pinging addresses internally and externally to
> see what your
> connectivity is like on the Ubuntu system?

No I haven't but I will.

Cheers,

Jan