[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: OpenSource articles glore...

[Terry]

> The Firefox Explosion
> It's fast, secure, open source - and super popular. The hot new
> browser called Firefox is rocking the software world. (Watch your
> back, Bill Gates.)
> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/firefox.html?pg=1&topic=firefox&topic_set=

After reading the above article, I can't help but think;  the
OpenSource community is doing a great deal for MS users, just with
this one project, or two I guess, Firefox and Thunderbird.

I dropped by a MS user friend's house just yesterday, (win98), spent
about 2 hours cleaning up their computer using spybot and ad-aware,
and then I installed Firefox and Thunderbird so that they can keep it
clean.  They were reluctant at first, (had only used IE and OE, never
anything else), thought it'd be too hard to learn to use anything
else, and couldn't even really grasp the terms "Web Browser" and "Mail
Client".

I got 'em both installed rather quickly, (as compared to how long it
took to dredge out all the spyware), and when I got done, they were 
thrilled!  I showed them how popup blocking worked, tabbed browsing,
the google search bar, etc.

And Thunderbird just picks up all the configurations and mail cache
and mail directories and address book and connection and login
settings from OE, and they were just amazed.  In just minutes they had
a whole fresh new way to access and communicate over the Internet.

I was a hero! I'd preformed a minor miracle on their computer, and all
I did was  to delete a whole bunch of spyware and install two
OpenSource applications on their computer.

And one difficult and amazing part was that I had trouble even
explaining those two terms. I guess if you've only used one web
browser in your life, you have no use or knowledge of a term like "Web
Browser", same with having only used one mail client. No one's ever
defined either of those terms for them so they just couldn't grasp
either of them at first. Even though surely they've heard the words,
they just didn't know what they meant.

I gotta tell you, they were really happy when I left.  They were about
ready to buy a new computer, now they're just happy as a couple of
little clams.