The semantic desktop/web

[nadir]

but then the butler will be the chief.
And in Windows it is. You barely are able to go somewhere on your own. You have to type something in the search bar, and then can click on where you will want to go
(you probably can do it yourself, but it sure ain't obvious).

as long the EU pays for it, why not?

[MrJames]

I personally hate this semantic/metadata crap. I can see some use for it, but mostly it is either useless for me or a pain in the butt.

1. I know where my shit is. Man, I got a 1TB HDD (actually 2 500GB HDDs that I LVMed together, with /home spanning part of the first and all of the second ) jam packed with stuff. All that is needed is a clean logical directory hierarchy with proper (in my eyes at least) file names (I use file names like chris-de-burgh_spanish-train_patricia-the-stripper.mp3 - this does wonders for players like moc).

2. As a lot of stuff is snatched off the net, bogus or non-existant metadata (common with such files) will yield bogus results. If I fire up RythemBox, I get like several entries for the *same* artist in the Artist column. Why? Because the files are tagged with different capitalisations of the Artist's name. This is annoying.

[Randicus Draco Albus]

1. I know where my shit is. ... All that is needed is a clean logical directory hierarchy with proper (in my eyes at least) file names ...

I believe the correct forum response is +1. I organise all of my files, whether they be art, language, Linux, photographs, porn, into directories with each having its own sub-directories and a naming system for individual files. I have no difficulty knowing where everything is.

The use that huggybear pointed out and the problem Penguin Skinner mentioned are examples of how this innovation is "needed". Now that point and click is considered too difficult for people to learn how to do, Heaven forbid people should be expected to organise their data. If changing the icons and moving the panel are too difficult and are functions that should be removed from DEs, imagine how onerous organising one's files must be.

[huggybear]

Yes, it's partially ignorance about learning a clear organisational structure.
There are 2 more reasons:

1. lack of time -- I remember pointing this one out when we had the discussion about live CDs on the other forums (some of the self-proclaimed ubergeeks who happened to have been using Fluxbox for 2 months -- WOW! What an achievement... -- proclaimed and ruled for everyone else that using live CDs was a question of being appallingly ignorant and ungrateful towards the more efficient and proper ways of the Holy Debian Installer -- people, who pointed out how convenient and time saving such an installation can be if you like the collection put together on the live CD, were torn apart by the mob!). Yes, certain technologies, although they take away control, do make things much easier.
The semantic desktop phenomenon is one technology that already makes and will make life easier for many people for the simple reason that organising a humongous film and music collection is more time consuming than "Linux from Scratch" for certain people.
The disadvantage, apart from the possible data leak, be it due to malintent or bugs, is that this approach makes one a slave to certain programmes. This is why I, as much as I fancy e.g. Clementine, always rather return to moc or deadbeef + sitting down once every 2 months to put some order into my music collection. The same goes for window managers and also the OS. As nadir pointed out, I don't want an OS that reinvents itself every 2 years and forces me to relearn things that shouldn't need relearning

2. laziness. Nuff said.

[Randicus Draco Albus]

In regards to the people who simply down-load "things" without knowing where they are going, or even what they are called. Since they do not organise their files, I must wonder how those people keep their back-up copies up-to-date.
No wonder the myriad fora are awash with the question, "I lost my files. How do I get them back?"

[huggybear]

Well, they might back them up, it's just that they don't care where they are as long as they have apps that know how to find them.

[nadir]

In regards to the people who simply down-load "things" without knowing where they are going, or even what they are called.

I am not kidding:
I know a lot of people who don't even know with _which_ program _they themselves_ download stuff.
Like in: "i downloaded a picture, but can't find it." I look in Downloads and on the Desktop: nothing there. I think: k, lets open the app, and look where it downloads per default. I ask: "which app did you use?" Answer: "I don't know". I say: "did you try with vlc?". Answer: "Yes". I open it and ask: "that is the program?" Answer: "Yes". I search and search... finally: "No, that is not the program". I open a web-browser and ask: "Is that the program?" Answer: "It might be". And so on, and so on... Big fun.

I doubt that any program or service is smart enough to really help with that.

Next story? Ok:
"Oh, My, Oh, Uff... the PC is broken, the PC is broken!!!". Me: "What is broken?". Answer: "Everything. Everything, nothing works!". I hit the power on and it happily boots. I get the gdm-login screen. I get X. I say: "To me it looks as if it would work". Answer: "But nothing works. Nothing works.." and so on. End of story: internet connection was broken. It takes more than half an hour to make the default human be able to tell you what doesn't work (not the details, just the very general and vague problem). And a lot of patience and experience by the one who is supposed to figure it out.

Next story? Ok:
He: I got a picture, and want to upload it to the internet!
I say: but where? the internet is big!
He: To the internet.
I say: but where?
Finally i figured out that he wanted to print the picture (which to him meant: upload it to the internet. Because a PC _is_ the internet, hence printing _must_ be the internet, right? I tried to explain that you can print without internet access, but soon gave up.

Why did i tell that? Not really an idea. Probably cause it bugs me, and a lot. It is not that people would not be able to understand. They don't want to understand (nothing of that is hard to understand, but as soon the word "PC" is out, they change to i-am-a-zombie-mode)
The other thing which bugs me, i guess, is that i don't understand the whole semantic thing (and lack the time to get my head into it)

[huggybear]

They don't want to understand a lot of things. Just today I've had this discussion with a work colleague:

He: "Why does food get more expensive? I complained at the supermarket and they just said that everything got expensive. I don't get that."
I: "We have almost no economy to speak of, so, when e.g. fuel gets more expensive, everything else that relies on it gets expensive as well. It's a chain reaction. The govt. doesn't have the funds to subsidize food, crops, etc. or buy reserves to save us from that like richer countries do it."
He: "... I don't think I care about all that. I just want to know why the food is more expensive."
I: "SIGH! Yeah, you're right. It's probably a conspiracy by your least favourite social group."

I also had a similar story where a work colleague thought she had to download something to her USB key in order to print it. I was trying to get to the print dialogue from her attachment that was open in a word processor, but she just stopped me, claiming that she needed to get her USB drive first.

[vbrummond]

...

This post made me cringe. It is so true. My family will argue and argue with me when I have hacked on the CODE of a program they are arguing about. I tell them. Trust me! I know what I am talking about. It takes them forever to convince them that something isn't a virus (or whatever).

An example is my grandmother with computers. She had me help her buy a laptop so she could have the Internet at home. So (back at the time I used Ubuntu) I set up Ubuntu 10.04 on her computer. She said she wanted to learn about how to use computers better so I downloaded the (quite nice actually) Ubuntu Manual pdf right to her desktop and show her how to access it. I find later she is asking people on facebook if they have any spare computer for dummy books. I tell her on the phone the book would only focus on WIndows and would thus be irrelevant. In the end she asked someone privately and made them go out of their way to bring her a computer for dummy book even though I told her 'computers are not just computers there are different kinds, you will not need the book'

Of course the book is for Windows Xp (if anything the laptop came with Windows 7 anyway even if not Linux).

[MrJames]

I got a cousin that is not exactly a simpleton when it comes to computers but rather thinks of it as a tool (she is right) and cares not *how* it works but rather how it can be *useful*. Problem is, when a person makes use of a tool, usually they get to know something about it. Not so with PCs. I've yet to hear of a car owner that does not know how to change a flat tire.