[plug] Linux laptops

[Gavin Chester]

My reply to Phill re. DET web pages taken offlist direct to him

Gavin


On Thu, 2008-10-16 at 09:38 +0800, Phillip Twiss wrote:
> G'Day All, especially Gavin :}
> 
> 	Surprisingly many of our web servers are actually Linux :}
> 
> 	This sounds very weird; could you give me the link you were trying to access?  I can check it and forward it to the appropriate team to fix it :}
> 
> 	As to DET forcing us to run Windoze desktops, well, Anyone who knows me knows my feelings on this :} ( I think it sucks, so much money wasted, I get sick of hearing people saying " Im doing Excel" or even worse " Im doing Powerpoint" when really what they are doing is spreadsheets and presentation software!! )
> 
> 	Anyway enough ranting..  I would love to see the NSW government do OpenSource software in preference to closed source/proprietary software wherever possible, in fact, I think all government departments should be encouraged to do it :}
> 
> 	Regards
> 
> 	Phill Twiss
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On Behalf Of Gavin Chester
> Sent: Wednesday, 15 October 2008 9:02 PM
> To: plug
> Subject: Re: [plug] Linux laptops
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 19:41 +0800, Senectus . wrote:
> > exciting if true, but I see this as a ploy to get MS to drop their
> > pricing...
> 
> Yes, if it were only true ... and if it were only happening in WA education.
> 
> I'll give you an extreme example of how blinkered DET's syadmins are:
> 
> I'm just coming to the end of my secondary teacher training and
> tried to complete my placement application (nomination
> of school at which I want to teach) using DET's online system. But to do
> it I was forced to use a windoze PC to compete the process! Where's the
> employment equity in that?
> 
> Before I reached that desperate point, I tried running IE under wine,
> and also konqueror doing it's very good job of masquerading its identity
> as IE on XP, but the web interface at DET kept saying words to the
> effect that "your operating system is not compatible". Hell, it was just
> a standard asp form system with a few boxes to tick, but they set it up
> so that you have to use MS! BTW: I think from memory that even firefox
> on MS worked, so it was rejecting the operating system, not the browser.
> 
> Gavin.
> 
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