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Re: [school-discuss] Computing Appliances?



Joel

it seems you are posing an interesting question...

for some users ... will they be willing to give up personalization for a standard interface?

In terms of computers this has been tried on Linux, Windows and Mac... 

there seem to be benefits both ways...  yet I see it more and more possible as we move to web based apps over desktop applications.   One may give up configuration of their OS yet we have an amazing selection of web apps available to us with infinite personalization options.  

power users will always crave an ability to tweak all they can... but for run of the mill users who just want to get some task done and could care less what is happening behind the scenes it may be that less personalization capability is a smart move.  

Take the EEEPC for example...  have you seen the standard linux Gui interface one is presented with on the standard version?   they have done all the guess work for you...  a nice standard selection of software with minimal configurable options...

 wish I had some pics of the interface to show as an example...  reminds me very much of the  old Apple interface...  I forgot the name.. and Windows 3.1...

Tim






On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Here's a somewhat thought-provoking article:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Bring-On-the-Appliances/

I have doubts about whether the trend forecast here is possible
(people have been making predictions like these for decades);
I also question whether this would be good. In addition, I'm
uncertain how to interpret the reference to open source that
appears in the very last paragraph.

Joel







--
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John "Tim" Denny, Ph.D.
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International Journal of Multicultural Education, Electronic Green Journal
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