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[Wed Dec 27 17:04:24 CET 2006]Slashdot published a few days ago that Google has become the second most visited website, therefore passing Yahoo! and just behind the most visited site: Microsoft. I'm sorry but after reading this I couldn't help but feeling a deep sorrow for the overall state of computer literacy more than ten years after the Internet became popular. No, I'm not criticizing Microsoft for the sake of it. What truly shocks me is the fact that Microsoft's website is the most visited one just because its browsers are configured that way by default. In other words, the vast majority of surfers out there don't know enough to even change their homepage! There's a scary thought for you! It certainly helps us understand why spam and viruses are so widespread. And, since we are talking about computer literacy, what to say of another story recently posted on Slashdot stating that college freshmen are still struggling with tech literacy? I find it worrisome that even young people are not very used to modern technology. Sure, they know how to check their email and browse the Web, but tha's about it sometimes. When it comes to real computer literacy... well, little, very little. I'm convinced the fact that our schools (both in the US and here in Spain) only teach people how to use applications instead of the inner functioning of things is to blame in this case. It wasn't so long ago (back in the 1980s) that my teacher's approach in high school was quite different: he taught us about the different parts of the computer, how it works, commands to do certain things at the shell and even some programming in BASIC. These days, almost everybody seems to believe that users are morons who are totally unable to do anything else but click here and there. It's a Windows thing, I'm afraid. {link to this story} [Wed Dec 27 16:57:12 CET 2006]Here is an interesting piece of news that shows where the open source development model shines: {link to this story} [Wed Dec 27 16:01:29 CET 2006]Just came across a short piece titled The Open Source Desktop Myth that contains a few interesting suggestions. Mind you, it's nothing out of the ordinary. We've all heard these things before. Still, for whatever reason, we tend to forget about them too often. It's just too easy to get entangled in the day to day OS wars and forget about the long run. I know, I know. As I said, nothing new under the sun. We already knew about this: the future belings to ubiquitous small and mobile devices capable of providing the users with the same interface and applications regardless of where they are using it from. We all know that, right? Yet, we tend to forget about it, especially when we enter into the ages old fray that is the OS wars. As it tends to be the case, the winner will end up being somebody who can think outside the box. {link to this story} |