On 17 Jul 2007, at 7:15 pm, Robert G. Brown wrote:
To GET to another system from XP involves multiple clicks,
moving through several data entry windows and either the horror of a
brain-dead putty tty
I think that's a little unnecessarily harsh. PuTTY isn't bad at
all. Its connection user interface is a bit bizarre, but its
terminal emulation is fine, and it supports all the features of ssh
that I commonly use. It was the one thing that made my job bearable
back in the days when I had to use a Windows XP laptop.
or the equal horror of a vnc or remote desktop into
basically the same operating environment (with the certain knowledge
that I've just typed my password in the clear or at best crudely
encrypted across whatever networks happen to be in the way in some of
these cases) -- unless I use a VPN client with its own layers of
slowness and multiple mouse clicks interspersed with typing.
I'm not to worried about VNC on our own LAN. Outside, I tunnel it
through ssh. OK, that makes it as slow as molasses, but it's
reasonably secure. And its main function in my hands is in
emergencies only.
I could care less what it "looks like". "Readable" works, at least
for
me. Beyond that, applications, ease of use, speed and cost are
everything.
Heh, I suspect your metric for "ease of use" may differ from the
average computer user (although probably it doesn't differ much from
many of us on this list)
People for years have wondered over the speed of my responses and
voluminousness of my replies to the point where they have accused
me of
being a beowulf collective 'bot of some sort. Well, here's my secret.
I use linux and text-only non-mouse-driven editors and mail tools, and
have everything configured so that my fingers nearly always can
stay on
the keys where they belong. I use a mouse only where it makes
sense to
do so or is really necessary. It doesn't matter if you can type like
the wind if you have to leave the home keys and use the mouse every
time
you want to move through the text.
Very true.
Tim
--
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research
Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a
company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered
office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.
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