Journal astrashe's Journal: Small triumph for linux desktop 2
My mom has a small travel agency business that she runs out of their house.
When my parents go out of town, I go up and check on the mail, make sure the fax machine has paper, and all of that.
This time, they're gone for ten days, so I booted her machine from a morphix gnome livecd. That way I could set up my own bookmarks and cookes, configure the mail program so I could check my mail, etc., without mucking up my mom's stuff. My mom runs windows 2000.
I have the evolution mailer configured to leave mail on the server, and to BCC me anything I send. This way I'll have copies of whatever emails I've sent to friends from my parents' house.
Last night, I got an email from my sister. It was a BCC to a message she sent to my mom. "Wow, your computer sure looks different, but it's been awhile since I've used it." Then she went into a few practical details about travel bookings.
The point is that my sister, who has never seen a linux desktop, and who was expecting to find a windows desktop, sat down at the machine and figured it out. She didn't even know it wasn't windows -- I think she thought it was some sort of funky windows configuration. She sent email, and she probably used the web, too. (I haven't spoken with her yet.
She did this with no help, and no warning.
I think it's a good sign for the future of the linux desktop. It's a little thing, but it shows that things are becoming a lot more intuitive.
Re:security? (Score:2)
I was a little bummed about the email, but I don't get many letters that require privacy. I didn't expect anyone to come in, and I didn't expect that anyone who did come in would pull up the email program.
The point is that they could do it. A few years ago, an ordinary computer user wouldn't have been able to open up a terminal, fire up mutt, and read my mail. That's a real d