[Beowulf] Sidebar: Vista Rant

[Tim Cutts]

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


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