What does it take to make computers more accessible to women

[kermitfan22]

Quote:
<specific screen name> slaps her ignore button on <my screen name>

Shame on you Jason. How dare you take a quote SOOOOOO far out of context?

I think if you re-read the ENTIRE conversation carefully you will discover that <your screen name> was being quite rude. At least that was how it felt to ME. I RARELY mute someone. But you had us chasing our tails for like 10 minutes trying to figure out why your system wouldn't do something, and after all was said and done, you weren't even in Puppy! How can we help someone if they don't give us all the clues?!?

ANY user at ANY time is alowed to place the ignore on someone else. It has little to NOTHING to do with "What does it take to make computers more accessible to women", but I thank you for attacking me on my very first series of posts in this forum.

NO FREAKING WONDER WOMEN DON'T FEEL WELCOME!!

[Flash]

Maybe Jason has unintentionally provided an answer to the question of why women don't seem to be interested in computers.

kermitfan22, I hope you won't let the rude dogs chase you away from the Puppy forum. Most of us really appreciate active members who are as articulate as you. Perhaps you would consider working on Puppy's Documentation Project?

[Flash]

This may be a bit off-topic, but I can't find a more appropriate place for it.

If anything qualifies as terrorism, this is it.

The ability to anonymously post in a public forum is apparently more than many people can handle. They go off their meds, post vicious and uncalled-for attacks against people, especially women, and generally behave in a way that makes me pray that there is no God. I'd be scared, as a member of the same race, to ask Saint Peter to let me through the Pearly Gates.

[rarsa]

Flash,

Thanks for posting this. I knew there was some harrasement going on in forums and chat rooms, but I attributed it to overhormonal idiots.

This article shines a totally different light on this dark issue.

Quite sad.

[Billwho?]

Whats their problem? Are they scared the girls might get their jobs or something? With an attitude like that it's the least they deserve!

[slvrldy17]

Given that life, what with earning a living, running a home, dealing with scheduling issues for a large church, is hectic enough what do I really want? I think Cobelloy said it all with this comment -

I have just given one of our old laptops to my mum with puppy installed, she is not even the slightest bit interested in operating systems and their workings, all she cares about is that it starts when you click the on button, and once its on you can send emails, talk on msn and skype, write and print letters, and play with photos, she cares not if it is windows or linux, or for that matter if it fast or slow

I might add that I really don't have the time or patience to write scripts, tweak the system or applications - I need it to work with a minimum of thought or trouble. Unlike some I could not care less about games or chat - in a windows system the first thing I get rid of is the games and chat - What do I need/use? Office applications that are fully compatible with current MS formats - word, power point and excel. A first rate, easy to use media player - spend some time playing with Windows media player 11 and you will see what I mean - insert a CD/DVD into the drive and it opens ready to play. Or open it from the menu/quick launch - select Library>Artist and select an album to play - done. Add web browsing and a good email client and my basic needs are covered. Once in a while I need to use a photo organizing/editing program and Paint.net and Picasa are all I need - Gimp or Photoshop are overkill. To sum it up I'll use a term my brother is fond of - the KISS system - short for Keep It Simple Stupid!

What do I ask from forums like this? Mostly simple courtesy - when I ask a question its because I really don't know the answer and have likely already Googled and checked FAQ's without finding it. In that this forum is way ahead of most - there are a few that are less than patient but most of you are gentlemen - even if my questions aren't always as clear as they should be. Keep up the good work guys - I'll keep dropping in as time allows - Puppy has great potential and much of what I do through my church involves helping folks who can't afford new high tech equipment - Puppy is ideal for many of them. Thanks for your time.

[BladeHunter]

I unchained my woman from the Out house sink

[Linux_chick]

How did i come to miss this 'enthralling' thread. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wish i had seen it earlier.
Yes! yes! yes!, It isnt so much as making it simpler....the software just needs to be more appealing, direct (without the zero's and one's jargon). I do not like microsoft....ewwwww 'BARF', but the colouful layout of all grabs youngsters and everyones attention in the first few seconds....eeeeep. The technical aspects and language, you are all used to but for the every day people trying to get to grips...they find it hard to start with and get tempted by the useability and advertising of microsoft. We lose a lot of people who would have been smitten by puppy but got bored working it all out. Soz...hope this dos'nt offend anyone?
Am still here and working in the back ground....teaching my self programming inbetween music work.

Its all 'fantastic', what you all do...keep the momentum, and determination.....and one day we will 'take over the world'......hehehehehehe......

Victoria
xx

[Linux_chick]

Awww...no one posted to my last thread here, but not to worry..Ive just seen under cybercafe under 30pound thread, that one of the key points has been fulfilled with ex at the cafe we worked in. The soft ware has been changed to make it easier and more workable...part of my dream has come true. Its not making it more accessible to women, its for all ages and it isnt the computers, its the good software that counts...lol.

Yes...keep it coming!!!!!

[WhoDo]

The soft ware has been changed to make it easier and more workable...part of my dream has come true. Its not making it more accessible to women, its for all ages and it isnt the computers, its the good software that counts...lol.

Yes...keep it coming!!!!!

Hi Vik,

Give EZpup a try. You might like what it does for your Puppy system.

Cheers

[Lobster]

Yes! yes! yes!

I will have what she is having . . .


At the moment I am in PClinuxOS using the eye candy and fun factor of Beryl. I had to set it up. People have set Beryl up in Puppy but as yet it has not been implemented in a simple format [sob]

Somewhere over the rainbow there is a perfect Puplet
Here is one I prepared earlier . . .
http://tmxxine.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=LinuxTmxxine10

Some people prefer stark
or minimal
I prefer the option

Just remember that Puppy is aiming towards no manuals or internal help (should not be required)

What a ride.

[Linux_chick]

I like...and the sky is BLUE.

You have been VERY busy......'Cool' packages and much smoother!

Thankyou

[rarsa]

Just bumping it up.

This issue is as current as the day we started talking about it

It is not a coincidence I'm bumping it up. I'm right now at the Ontario Linux fest conference and just came out of a session titled "Women in Open Source"

The issues discussed are the same as we've talked about in this thread. I encourage you all (women and men) to go to this link and read what linuxchix has to say about this

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 055#102248

[Linux_chick]

Indeed, where are all the women?

Only my voice around and on a few other threads....Must confess, had not checked this thread for a long time...(been busy mending a broken heart...lol)
Am pleased to say that i agree, it isnt so much as making it accessible for women..., but .a package for all ages and gender. As i stipulated many moons ago when i hinted at making puppy as pleasing and catching on the eye as windows, but much BETTER! Something to grab the viewers attention in the first minute, and think we are getting there with the ecopup. Maybe a little basic on the eye to most, but its in its beta form and another custom and more technical one to follow for the technicaly challenged dudes...lol. Its a start and it was needed to get folk more interested...there are 3 and a half million people using Linux and its about time we increased that and wiped the board with microsoft rob dogs. Rrrraaaargh!!!

[Linux_chick]

Thankyou Rarsa!

Loved the topic....Just wish we had more womens views on here... ;-(

[Linux_chick]

Loved to have been at the Ontario Fest!!!!

Maybe we could get Linux chix to put a mention on here??? hehehehe.

[slvrldy17]

The view below is from a woman on another board that I post on who has looked at the current (3.0) version of Puppy - she works with numerous Non Governmental Organizations ( here after referred to as NGO's) and is used to dealing with folks who are not tech inclined - quite the opposite in fact. I had recommended that she look at 3.01NOP and consider adding the Open Office .sfs file - Mind you, a lot of the folks she works with are stuck with old hardware - Win 95/98 era with 64MB or less of RAM, her comments are below -

I've installed earlier versions of puppy to HD a few times on a test laptop, even with a generous swap partition, OOo is a lot for Win 9x machines to handle. Abiword is usually fine, along with a basic spreadsheet. DBs can be set up on a server and acccessed using the browser. I think you really need 128 MB and a P3 for 'chubby' version.

Puppy documentation is still underway, getting there but very slowly. This means you have to figure everything out for yourself adapting from slackware docs which is a bit demanding when you've got 20 orgs to deal with.

This kind of user doesn't usually know what to do with Opera and finds it initmidating anyway so Seamonkey is fine - simple like MSIE. If they need more, I would put Firefox on - it's slow but looks kinda familiar to MSIE users. I know Opera wins on security hands-down and developed a lot of the innovations that Firefox built on - but I still have a preference for free software over proprietary. The extensibility and interoperability of Firefox is hard to beat.

Well, Puppy is a great project, just not quite there for the non-techie user of older equipment yet. I've used the package managers on an HD installation and almost all the packages have anything up to a dozen or more dependencies missing with no help beyond google at tracking down libraries. A newbie would have a nervous breakdown!

As an experienced user I find the great choice of file managers and other tools really, really good - for a newbie, it's confusing. I'm not sure how to guide the non-technical user without doing the sort of annoying integration of tools and applications entailed with GNOME.

As soon as I've finished messing about trying to get mythubuntu set up at home I'll have a look at the new Puppy but I've got a feeling it might have to wait until 4.0 is unveiled.

Anyone care to comment on her thoughts? I'd say she has some very valid points.

[cb88]

I dissagree that opera is too complex there really is no difference in the interface only a few enhancements that are available but usually keep out of the way....

open office is too big I agree will not run effectivly in 64mb ram maybe with 128 on a PII prolly still slow

I don't understand you dependancy issues...since petget does resolve internal dependancies? of course some dependancies are flat left out and are non essential...

community developed .pet do have more dependancy issues but are usually posted together on the forum

I think puppy 2.12 is much better for a 64mb PC than later versions puppy 2.14 is a close second 3.00 is slug-like

As far as gui apps they rarely require documentation except for certain more advance features.

puppy has reached a level of themeablity that I think is adequate especially in 4.00 alpha with the new GTK themechooser and gradient themes in JWM

firefox can be fast just try out firefox 1.5 in DSL 4.0 it isn't always about sticking with the latest and greatest somtimes you need to stand by software that is good enough to get the job done withough the fluff....i mean BLOAT. Perhaps if puppy linux were to take up firefox 1.5 like DSL interest would pick back up and security fixes would continue to be supplied...long shot but worth it

[rarsa]

Loved to have been at the Ontario Fest!!!!

Maybe we could get Linux chix to put a mention on here??? hehehehe.

I sent an message to the linuxChix email distribution list advising of Ontario Linux Fest. I don't know if it got distributed.