Why do people still use XP? Probably because everything just works out of the box. All my favorite games and my Pinnacle PCTV Card do anyway. I also have a Hauppauge Card which "just works." I have not been able to get either working in Linux. Yes I have Googled without success for a solution. I have just downloaded the latest drivers for the Pinnacle card so I can use it in Win 7, and I agree with everything you said regarding Win 7. If anyone has a solution to getting a TV card to work, please publish it so we can all benefit from it.
Stan Fraser
| LM |
LM: We are happy to print your letter in case anyone out there has some information on the TV cards you mention. You might be interested in the article on Freevo with the Hauppauge HD PVR 1212, which appeared in a recent issue of our sister pub, Ubuntu User (http://ubuntu-user.com/Magazine/Archive/2010/4/freevo). Ultimately, the card vendors are in the best position to get their cards working on Linux. Searching for "Linux" at the Hauppauge website turns up several pages related to Linux compatibility, so it seems they are trying. Search the Pinnacle site, and you'll get a message that says Your search - Linux - did not match any documents, so Pinnacle is at the nadir of the Linux curve. Of course, another message on the site reveals that Pinnacle's PCTV product line has been sold to Hauppauge, so maybe in time they'll ascend.
I just got the July 2010 issue of Linux Pro Magazine. After browsing through the content, I did indeed insure myself that I was getting the same sort of information I have come to count on. When I got around to the editorial and read your justification, I'm fairly sure that I had a reaction typical of most techies, "This guy doesn't get it."
You want to know why techies have such an adverse reaction to presentation? Because in our experience, there's a limited amount of capital to do everything on a project. It all has to come out of the same pot, so $1 spent on X isn't available to spend on Y. And so we've all had to live with the "there's no more money left for operations because money spent on advertising gives better ROI than does money spent on features."
Mike Hilsher
| LM |
Thanks for your letter. We want to assure everyone there is no smoking gun here. As we mentioned in Issue 116, we aren't changing anything about our focus or our core audience. The content looks the same because it is the same. We just redesigned the magazine because we wanted to give it a fresh look. The new design doesn't take money away from daily operations because it didn't cost any money. We carried off this redesign using in-house resources (kudos to our excellent art director Judith Erb). We all put in some extra hours for a couple months, but it was well worth it - we look at these pages every day, and we were ready for a change.
July 2010, Issue 116, you asked your subscribers if they had an opinion on a book section in Linux Pro Magazine.
It depends. If it is a regurgitation of the publishers marketing material, no. If it serves as a tool to help maneuver the mine field of technical books - to make us more efficient in less time, yes. I have purchased a number of quality professional books based on reviews from professionals I've come to trust.
Some of the items I look for in a book:
Then, I'll glance through the index for answers to particular problems or questions I've encountered. I don't have a budget for a lot of books, so I try to make my selections carefully; any resource that would make that job easier would greatly be appreciated.
Peg Russell
| LM |
Thank you for a very insightful summary of questions. We're still formulating our plan for book reviews. I can guarantee that anyone we sign up for the book beat will receive a copy of your message.