Re: OS questions draft, III

["Pete St. Onge" <pete_st_onge@iname.com>]

> I was trying to send some additional ideas yesterday but had all
> kinds of problems with AOL. Finally it just crashed and had to be
> reinstalled last night. 
     Know what you mean - had the same problem with a Novell based email
prog, and lost three or four messages to this list. Urgh! Glad to see
that you're back up and about.

> going to look into it today. This leads to the thought that with much
> higher data transfer speeds becoming available, it makes downloading
> software much more practical. Thus there should be questions like:
> 
> *Will ADSL or cable modem influence your decisions concerning
>  downloading software.
>  web surfing.
>  web site material.
>  etc.

     Not sure where you're going in the last case? Do you mean that the
ability to transfer data quickly would influence the type of info /
content one would put on their web page (Shockwave, Java, etc)?
     Hmmm... One could ask if the added speed would make the user
reconsider using their box for teleconferencing, etc., but I think this
may be going too far.

> Just another thought. Since one user type is Business User --
> Mid/Large Office, they would probably have data base (Informix,
> Oracle) servers. Thus
> 
> *Being able to use your computer to connect to a data base server.

     Well, there is already the precedent of a partially platform
independant (Win 3.x / Win 4.x) general database interface (MS' ODBC),
which can connect to a DBMS on the same machine as well as over the
network. Surely something like this does exist in the unix world? (Can
anyone set me straight here?)

     Cheers,

     Pete

-- 
Pete St. Onge - McGill U.  Limnology - Fun with Ropes & Buckets
pete_st_onge@iname.com         http://wwp.mirabilis.com/4322052
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