DISQUS

and google will deserve it.

...or backwards in time, in order to protect John Connor.

VBA is a proprietary Microsoft language. Don't confuse it with something that that is necessary for an office suite. The only reason it exists is because Microsoft excludes the programmers of the other 500 computer languages from automating their product through a simple C (or REST or anything but MScode) API.

Don't snitch. They got away with it because they are primarily an RSS reader. Seems obvious.

I know that this is going to get lost in the comment swarm, but this story illustrates two problems that I've had with getting computer-illiterate friends on Ubuntu.

1. College classes insisting on Microsoft programs for homework submission - They don't even ask for a .doc file or an .xls, they say that you MUST HAVE MICROSOFT WORD AND EXCEL IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS on the syllabus. This is this college's mistake, and many colleges mistake.

2. network-manager is completely impenetrable confusing crap, and it ships with Ubuntu. The first thing that I do after someone I know installs Ubuntu is walk them through installing wicd, a nicer, more intuitive program to manage connections, and most of their problems are over.

In conclusion: this is a perfect customer for Ubuntu - a person who is not into video games, just into the internet and basic office productivity software, tasks that Ubuntu accomplishes as well as any other operating system and for free. It's the fault of Ubuntu that they've chosen to make networking out of the box so much harder than it needs to be, and don't bend over backwards in that opening "welcome to Ubuntu page" to explain that your Word/Excel/Powerpoint needs are covered by OpenOffice.org nicely. This should be a priority, because for most computer-illiterate computer-users, this will completely provide for their needs.

you're about to become the belle of the ball

If you work with computers, you most likely use dozens if not hundreds of freedom-respecting programs a day, including most of the infrastructure of the entire internet. Equating trusting your vital data to locally hosted as-free-as-possible software to living in caves and fishing with your hands is a little disingenuous.

Also, no one would slight anyone using the cloud for things that are convenient and not crucial or overly private. I, in the past, have used gym lockers, coatrooms, and left my shoes at the doors of establishments and residences that would prefer that I not wear them inside. Equivocating between that and "[...]moving to a 'cloud' model — even if it does involve storing all their files and mail and photos with The Great Google in the Sky[...]" is not constructive.

Just like the original dot-com bubble burst when people realized that e-commerce was just really reactive catalog shopping and wouldn't alter the laws of physics to create money out of thin air, eventually people will realize that cloud computing is just storing every document that you have offsite, just 1000x less trustworthy, and accessible and deletable by at least 1000 employees of Google at any particular time, from any location on Earth.

That being said, I love being able to test out and deploy stuff on EC2, just don't expect to see my medical records or client lists in the cloud any time soon. I would much prefer to have them locked inside a .pst file that is only openable by an outdated version of Outlook that only runs on Windows ME, or even, maybe, take Stallman's advice because he thinks about the implications stuff a lot more than I do (and the solutions that are the result of what he's established are often really nice and easy to use!), and shouldn't be flippantly dismissed like some ignorant throwback dirty hairy hippie. Even though he is a throwback hairy hippie. He also may be dirty, but I haven't smelled him. He looks a little dirty.