I am curious to know what are the M$ things users demand. I have not been to a cyber cafe for a long time, and hence have lost touch with the current state of things.
didnt you read mrugesh's post in this same thread?
Sure I did. That is why I asked, because according to him the information was a few years old.
In any case, I think the learning curve of GIMP and Blender will never be as steep as keeping a Windows machine virus free. Why? This is because the latter is close to impossible. Moreover customers do not appreciate going to a cyber cafe just to plug in their floppy or pendrive and have a virus remove all their precious data.
Secondly a cyber cafe is a place people primarily for browsing the Web using a Web browser. I am not sure how many cyber cafe's have the necessary bandwidth to allow _all_ their users to _simultaneously_ engage in voice chat or video chat.
Therefore a viable alternative is to earmark a few machines which are only going to be used only for browsing (and some text based IM) to be converted into GNU/Linux or *BSD or any other free operating system.
Moreover it would be nice to have the cyber cafe association issue a press release expressing their preference towards free software wherever feasible. It would be an excellant oppurtunity to let the comman man taste free software.
Regards, Debarshi
On Sunday 25 Mar 2007 15:02:38 Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray wrote:
I am curious to know what are the M$ things users demand. I have not been to a cyber cafe for a long time, and hence have lost touch with the current state of things.
didnt you read mrugesh's post in this same thread?
Sure I did. That is why I asked, because according to him the information was a few years old.
Its still valid. Few meant a little more than one.
I'll add another one to the list. A Windows based software for managing the cafe. Though there were a couple of Linux alternatives, but I have not tried them.
In any case, I think the learning curve of GIMP and Blender will never be as steep as keeping a Windows machine virus free. Why? This is because the latter is close to impossible. Moreover customers do not appreciate going to a cyber cafe just to plug in their floppy or pendrive and have a virus remove all their precious data.
Oh give me a break and be practical for once. I've not had a single virus or spyware on my Windows box for over 3 years. We've had Rony on the list who had to reinstalled Windows after a considerable amount of time. If you use it properly, its pretty manageable. Yeah every customer in the cafe might not, but then in the cafe I converted, the owner would run anti-spyware and anti-virus scans thoroughly every night before he left. He hadn't had a problem even once.
Secondly a cyber cafe is a place people primarily for browsing the Web using a Web browser. I am not sure how many cyber cafe's have the necessary bandwidth to allow _all_ their users to _simultaneously_ engage in voice chat or video chat.
Dream on. I've seen that happening. A couple of the people having webcam sessions and a few others playing Counter Strike online simultaneously on a 512K line. Then again, the cafe soon switched to a very affordable 1M connection.
Therefore a viable alternative is to earmark a few machines which are only going to be used only for browsing (and some text based IM) to be converted into GNU/Linux or *BSD or any other free operating system.
You'll lose even more users rather than gaining them if you try this. Trying to pull out people from their comfort zone is a bad idea if tried aggressively. Have patience and go gradually. Attack the roots and not the leaves. And seriously, NO ONE is interested in freedom. They aren't interested in learning about it either. Seriously, get out of your self spun freedom cocoon and be practical.
Moreover it would be nice to have the cyber cafe association issue a press release expressing their preference towards free software wherever feasible. It would be an excellant oppurtunity to let the comman man taste free software.
LMAO!
P.S. And btw, next time you reply to this thread, try to make sure that you've actually done something about this issue.
--- Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
Oh give me a break and be practical for once. I've not had a single virus or spyware on my Windows box for over 3 years. We've had Rony on the list who had to reinstalled Windows after a considerable amount of time. If you use it properly, its pretty manageable.
Yes, I agree. But I guess, the *_legitimate*_ issues regarding Windows should be focussed upon, and this thread intiated with that.
May be Mozilla Firefox should be encouraged for using it as the default browser on Windows, though not forcing the customer to do so. God, help with those "This website is best view in IE 4.0 or above" (eeks!) websites.
-- FSF of India Associate Fellow http://www.gnu.org.in http://www.somaiya.edu/sksasc
__________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/
On 25-Mar-07, at 9:21 PM, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
I'll add another one to the list. A Windows based software for managing the cafe. Though there were a couple of Linux alternatives, but I have not tried them.
there was a brasilian thingie on sourceforge, saw it some years back, forgot the name - seemed to cover all the needs of a cybercafe
On Sunday 25 March 2007 21:21, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
Oh give me a break and be practical for once. I've not had a single virus or spyware on my Windows box for over 3 years. We've had Rony on the list who had to reinstalled Windows after a considerable amount of time. If you use it properly, its pretty manageable. Yeah every customer in the cafe might not, but then in the cafe I converted, the owner would run anti-spyware and anti-virus scans thoroughly every night before he left. He hadn't had a problem even once.
Neat solution no. Run av on all machines all night pay for bijlee, pay for AV pay for man all night and continue blowing your profits. Not to mention the frequent registry and dll corruptions and inevitable reinstall. Ahh one can always automate the process.
There was a long thread a few years back on hardware compat, prices, etc for cyber cafes. It will cost you substantial money to maintain the doze poisons strewn all over the os and cyber space. Further the cyber cafe software cost is priced at Rs.100. Policeman is proly going to add a zero to that per month. If u think cyberbhai's going to buy licences (or pay you for maintaining linux boxes) just forget it.
On Monday 26 Mar 2007 18:12:34 jtd wrote:
On Sunday 25 March 2007 21:21, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
Oh give me a break and be practical for once. I've not had a single virus or spyware on my Windows box for over 3 years. We've had Rony on the list who had to reinstalled Windows after a considerable amount of time. If you use it properly, its pretty manageable. Yeah every customer in the cafe might not, but then in the cafe I converted, the owner would run anti-spyware and anti-virus scans thoroughly every night before he left. He hadn't had a problem even once.
Neat solution no. Run av on all machines all night pay for bijlee, pay for AV pay for man all night and continue blowing your profits. Not to mention the frequent registry and dll corruptions and inevitable reinstall. Ahh one can always automate the process.
There was a long thread a few years back on hardware compat, prices, etc for cyber cafes. It will cost you substantial money to maintain the doze poisons strewn all over the os and cyber space. Further the cyber cafe software cost is priced at Rs.100. Policeman is proly going to add a zero to that per month. If u think cyberbhai's going to buy licences (or pay you for maintaining linux boxes) just forget it.
I don't get this. Why are you guys always thinking one dimensional? In this case, just viruses and spyware. My friend never had to pay a single paisa for any of those problems. And no, he didn't use any pirated versions. He had a license for Windows and used free versions of AVG anti-virus and some other free anti-spyware tools. Also, he ran the scans when he was nearing the closure and the computers were free. He'd do his calculations while the scans ran. They ran for some 15-20 minutes. I wonder how much money that cost him. He STILL switched his server to Linux because he found certain advantages with it - none related to any kind of freedom - beer or speech.
And who talked about me being paid for maintaining Linux boxen? You just conjured that up out of the thin air! And what policeman?
And seriously, if you're going to offer a virus free system in exchange for losing customers, you've lost already. I don't understand why there is this almighty urge to get everyone to switch to FOSS. If you think you're freeing all those souls, think about this. You can't even raise a vote of no confidence against an `aamdaar' or a `khaasdaar' or any blah blah person you've elected who isn't doing his job. The only power you have in your so called freedom and democracy is to vote once every few years. What other freedoms do you really have? You can't even choose to watch movies uncensored. Whether you want to or not is another issue. But why can't you choose when you want to? Why are you to be sensored for saying `I hate blah blah' on Orkut? Why? Is that freedom? These issues are more important than software in cyber cafes.
This seems to be like the religious wars people fight. I believe in something. You MUST believe in it too. If you don't, we'll make you believe. Soon it becomes.. You don't have a right to exist because you don't adhere to what I believe in.
P.S. If you do succeed with this (and contrary to what you might believe by now, I don't have a problem with Linux getting into cyber cafes), since freedom matters so much to you, use one of the absolutely free distros mentioned on the GNU site.
On Monday 26 March 2007 21:23, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
I don't get this. Why are you guys always thinking one dimensional? In this case, just viruses and spyware.
Not at all. It was just a response to the solution - security. Which ofcourse is completely redundant in the case of a cyber cafe.
My friend never had to pay a single paisa for any of those problems. And no, he didn't use any pirated versions.
And who talked about me being paid for maintaining Linux boxen? You just conjured that up out of the thin air! And what policeman?
Heck it's not u as in Mrugesh. It's u as in somebody who provides a service - including the self provider - you have to account for the resources expended on a thorughly useless activity. It's like doing pushups to improve your cybercafe business (and by god pushups is a lot less useless overall). Your friend (God bless him) is an honorable exception in using licenced software. The vast majority of cyber cafes dont care. I have visited a hughe number of them right across the country. Their cost is the cost of a cd and with the introduction of registers - where every kid worth his mouse writes a fake name and address - the bribe to the local cop who flies by for inkspection. With the cops added responsibility of discovering piracy the cost of chaipani might go up.
And seriously, if you're going to offer a virus free system in exchange for losing customers, you've lost already. I don't understand why there is this almighty urge to get everyone to switch to FOSS.
There isn't. Which is my point in the case of cybercafes. Stop wasting your time trying to find justification of any kind to make the cybercafe switch. Unless you drag them all to court and fine them the cost + 150% of all software on the disk nothing's going to change.
P.S. If you do succeed with this (and contrary to what you might believe by now, I don't have a problem with Linux getting into cyber cafes), since freedom matters so much to you, use one of the absolutely free distros mentioned on the GNU site.
He he. We are both shouting about the same thing. Wrong medicine for the wrong people. Cyberbhai's wanna make a living and like all other bhai's they dont care at whose expense. If anything the police should also mention a 10 yr RI for using any illegal software. Afair i had taken the responsibilty in the 2 year old thread of coming up with package that would be an order of magnitude cheaper than the combined cost of hardware / software using FOSS. Caveat the cybercafe owners assoc. which was making a big song and dance about something ( idont remember what) make all it's members use legal software
They are still convincing themselves. Everytime they see the long end of the bamboo they start hollering.
On Tuesday 27 Mar 2007 12:00:25 jtd wrote:
My friend never had to pay a single paisa for any of those problems. And no, he didn't use any pirated versions.
And who talked about me being paid for maintaining Linux boxen? You just conjured that up out of the thin air! And what policeman?
Heck it's not u as in Mrugesh. It's u as in somebody who provides a service - including the self provider - you have to account for the resources expended on a thorughly useless activity.
Oops. Sorry.
Your friend (God bless him) is an honorable exception in using licenced software.
Hehehe, he did it because of the fear of being `caught', but yeah, he did buy the licenses.
The vast majority of cyber cafes dont care. I have visited a hughe number of them right across the country. Their cost is the cost of a cd and with the introduction of registers - where every kid worth his mouse writes a fake name and address - the bribe to the local cop who flies by for inkspection. With the cops added responsibility of discovering piracy the cost of chaipani might go up.
Yup.
And seriously, if you're going to offer a virus free system in exchange for losing customers, you've lost already. I don't understand why there is this almighty urge to get everyone to switch to FOSS.
There isn't. Which is my point in the case of cybercafes. Stop wasting your time trying to find justification of any kind to make the cybercafe switch. Unless you drag them all to court and fine them the cost + 150% of all software on the disk nothing's going to change.
Yeah. The association making it compulsory for the cyber cafe owners to buy licenses to software will facilitate FOSS' entry greatly.
P.S. If you do succeed with this (and contrary to what you might believe by now, I don't have a problem with Linux getting into cyber cafes), since freedom matters so much to you, use one of the absolutely free distros mentioned on the GNU site.
He he. We are both shouting about the same thing. Wrong medicine for the wrong people. Cyberbhai's wanna make a living and like all other bhai's they dont care at whose expense.
LOL, we actually agree for once.
Cheers.
On 27-Mar-07, at 12:18 PM, Mrugesh Karnik wrote:
There isn't. Which is my point in the case of cybercafes. Stop wasting your time trying to find justification of any kind to make the cybercafe switch. Unless you drag them all to court and fine them the cost + 150% of all software on the disk nothing's going to change.
Yeah. The association making it compulsory for the cyber cafe owners to buy licenses to software will facilitate FOSS' entry greatly.
do you really think so? all it means is that surfing rates will go up
I don't understand why there is this almighty urge to get everyone to switch to FOSS.
i guess there are a wide and diverse list of reasons for the same. Some people want to do it for freedom, some for technically superior software, some for pure business, etc. etc.
If you think you're freeing all those souls, think about this. You can't
even raise a vote of no confidence against an `aamdaar' or a `khaasdaar' or any blah blah person you've elected who isn't doing his job. The only power you have in your so called freedom and democracy is to vote once every few years.
What other freedoms do you really have?
You also have the power to stand for an election.
You can't even choose to watch movies uncensored. Whether you want to or not
is another issue. But why can't you choose when you want to? Why are you to be sensored for saying `I hate blah blah' on Orkut? Why? Is that freedom?
i guess one keep doing all of the above, untill that person is physically stopped from doing so. In reality that's exactly what people do. Even after they are stopped, some people still continue, but with different tactics.
These issues are more important than software in cyber cafes.
True. However the topic was started as pertaining to software in cyber cafe's :-)
Regards,
- vihan
On 25-Mar-07, at 3:02 PM, Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray wrote:
didnt you read mrugesh's post in this same thread?
Sure I did. That is why I asked, because according to him the information was a few years old.
for a person who hasnt visited a cybercafe, you sound pretty knowledgeable about it. Did you do a study? or is the stuff below part of your dreams
In any case, I think the learning curve of GIMP and Blender will never be as steep as keeping a Windows machine virus free. Why? This is because the latter is close to impossible.
just reinstall now and then and the problem is solved. Anyway, that is not the customers headache. The owner has to do the virus bit. And no visitor to a cyber cafe is going to be able to learn gimp and blender.
Moreover customers do not appreciate going to a cyber cafe just to plug in their floppy or pendrive and have a virus remove all their precious data.
doesnt happen
Secondly a cyber cafe is a place people primarily for browsing the Web using a Web browser.
how do you know this?
I am not sure how many cyber cafe's have the necessary bandwidth to allow _all_ their users to _simultaneously_ engage in voice chat or video chat.
if you are not sure, why post on it?
Therefore a viable alternative is to earmark a few machines which are only going to be used only for browsing (and some text based IM) to be converted into GNU/Linux or *BSD or any other free operating system.
even if they have *one* doze machine they have to pay the full licensing fee
Moreover it would be nice to have the cyber cafe association issue a press release expressing their preference towards free software wherever feasible. It would be an excellant oppurtunity to let the comman man taste free software.
lol
hello, following are my observations. note that most of them are on my personalexperiences and observations. 1. except gaming and may be corel, I don't think there is any need formicrosoft windows. I want to know what gnulinux can't do? 1. I can not only have an application similar to ms office but also can create .doc and xls files (although not recommended ) in open office. I don't find any interface changes in that, and if miner ones are there, cafe owners can be trained for that. 2. gimp and inkscape (great for corel users) might have a steep learning curve for those who are not into graphics designing. but for those who know photoshop in particular, can use gimp with no "STEEP LEARNING CURVE". this is my study because I have been involved with an organisation which takes workshops every week end and they have managed to teach gimp to photoshop users in just 2 day, I repeat just 2 DAYS! for me gimp will be absolutely greek and latin because I am not into graphics nither do I know photoshop. same is the case with inkscape. we have an expert on gimp and inkscape on this list in the form of shradha,so I leave it to shradha to answer this comment. 3. gaim works with yahoo very well and as far as voice chatting is concerned then skipe is better and even popular. and more and more people need to acccess orkut these days so again the tide is not m$ specific.
4. mp3 and movies dont seam to be a problem once xmms and related things are installed. and let ubuntu media center and fisty come out. 5. there are three problems that cyber cafes want to get rid of. "virus, virus and virus!" 6. Stability is the most important issue when one wants huge business as far as cafes are concerned. we need uptime dude! so gnulinux is not just serving as an alternative but also as a "better alternative". yes, games is an issue and I believe that there should be a couple or 3 windows boxes with a huge notice board "warning, this computer is completely unsafe and your data is at risk. we will not be responsible if your data catches virus or is currupt!". then users will be aware that some machines dont carry this notice and some machines do. it is obvious that no one can take risk on this and if they do they will realise some day or later. and in front of every linux machine just put a notice "this is free software and gnulinux is completely virus free. we are aware that these machines perform better than windows ". the word "aware " is very important here. we are not giveing any vorenty about it because there could be hardware problems which are then pointed towards linux. so I think we must work on these points when we meet the cyber cafe owners. regards. Krishnakant.
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Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray -
jtd -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
krishnakant Mane -
Mrugesh Karnik -
Roshan -
Vihan Pandey