On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 7:42 PM, Nishit Dave <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Sriram Narayanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > of free time and of how shy they are about meeting other tech > > enthusiasts. > > I sometimes think LUGs take the tech enthusiasts thing too far - > scaring away lay users like me who are not interested in programming > languages or database administration, but in solving day-to-day > computing issues. Usually happens when you have a large number of > students participating in the group. >
You are so right. What I've found interesting is to get the techies to apply their knowledge to solve a problem. ======= I have a small business selling carpets and handicrafts. With the grace of God, my business is now expanding, and I will be able to offer employment to about 10 people. Each of these persons will use MS Office and Internet explorer. I don't have much money right now to opt for high end computers or for licensed software. I'm considering hiring desktops and using pirated copies of Windows and MS Office on those. Are there any legal options available for me ? ======= I'm using a Foxpro 2.6 for DOS based application which is working just fine. However, my old computer is about to die - the hard disk is starting to make some clanking noise, and the computer hangs after six hours of use. My hardware technician tells me that I should replace this with a new computer. I do not want to put in too much money on very high end systems and pay for a fancy GUI that I will never even use. The technician tells me that Vista is good for viewing DVD movies, but I already have a DVD player at home. Are there any other options that my technician has not considered for me ? ======= We have one internet connection in the office, and this line is connected to an office PC. So far, we've been using the PC on a turn by turn basis. But sometimes, we have to ask the customer to wait too long before we get a chance to send them an email. Our present solution is to type the mails in Word, save the documents onto a floppy, and to then sit on the internet PC and upload that document. We're considering connecting internet access to one more PC as a short term measure. Is there any low cost ISP who can provide us with dedicated connections to each and every PC that we have ? (This was a case where the people hadn't heard of a LAN, or of internet connection sharing, or of line bonding) ======= With real world problem statements like that, the tech folks would be challenged to come up with an implementation where the costs, the technology, the suport angle, etc, all have to be considered. It is one thing to discuss abstract issues on a mailing list. It is quite another thing to put together a concrete system such as a solution for the above. Tossing together a network with Ubuntu is no big deal - I do it all the time. But then we're the techies. It's the non-techies for whom such things are a big deal, and for whom seeing a solution materialize in front of them would be very very mind-broadening. I know an ex-insurance agent based in Pune who has quit his insurance business and has started to offer solutions to people who have problem statements such as the above. This person, Arun Tomar, is a PLUG member, btw. Perhaps future PLUG meets of CSLug meets could actually have an exercise where people implement solutions to the above. People who have never set up networks before could now actually setup networks. And those who're wondering just how one makes money using open source software would now get to understand that there is a market for providing services. -- Sriram -- ______________________________________________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List: (plug-mail@plug.org.in) List Information: http://plug.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug-mail Send 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for mailing instructions.
