Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 30/03/2004 13:18, Bill Rea wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Mar 2004, Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Easy: Mozilla 1.6, with the contributed builds listed at
> > http://www.mozilla.org/releases/#1.6. I'm not sure about the last
> > requirement, but that's an internal matter for the Solaris system.
> >    
>
> This just tells me you don't understand what you're talking about.
>  

Bill, I am not now a computer professional. I used to be, 15 years ago, 
and I worked with a similar setup with terminal emulators to a (local) 
Unix system. But we didn't do e-mail. So I don't understand the details 
of what your problem is. I am aware that there are GUIs available for 
Unix systems but it seems you choose not to use them. While I accept 
that I don't understand the details, I don't like the tone of your ad 
hominem remark "you don't understand what you're talking about".

> I've looked at Mozilla and Netscape several times, most recently as
> yesterday, there are problems with them. ...

Perhaps you would care to elaborate. Are you talking about small matters 
which might be fixed rather easily, or are you talking about the overall 
architecture?

> ... I haven't tried Gnus, that many
> be a possibility.
>
> I think we need to distinquish between people with a professional interest
> in Hebrew whom you could expect to customize their computer systems around
> their professional needs and people who are merely Hebrew amateurs and
> whose systems will be customized around some other personal or
> professional need. If this list is to be for professionals only, then I
> guess I should shut up and go away. But that's not a direction I would
> like to see it take as I don't know anyone else who has any knowledge of
> Hebrew. In the approximately 12 years I've been on the list it has been
> invaluable in keeping my interest in Hebrew alive.
>
>  
This list is not only for professionals in any field. It seems that you 
are using a specialised computer system for your own professional 
requirements and expecting it to work well for your personal interests, 
including Hebrew. You would do much better to get a cheap general 
purpose computer and use that for e-mail unrelated to your professional 
specialisation. Go into any store, buy their oldest and cheapest Windows 
PC (as long as it has a modem), and you are there immediately - or use 
Linux if you prefer. (Well, you need Mozilla or Outlook rather than the 
default Outlook Express if you want to use IMAP.) Or ask the 
administration section of your university if they have any old PCs to 
give away (minimum Windows 98). Or probably you already have some kind 
of PC, as your VT-100 emulation must be on some platform. Would Mozilla 
or something similar run on that same platform?

You are a bit like the driver of a large truck who wants to use that 
same large truck for all his personal uses. He can't take his wife out 
to her favourite places because there is nowhere to park his large 
truck. His large truck may be just what he needs for his work, but maybe 
he needs a small family car as well.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/