[ Thanks to Glenn Mullikin for this
report. ]
I was on the phone with a rep from a very well known company
today and somehow the subject of well, I have to admit, Linux came
up. Why did that come up? Well, by chance perhaps. But this young
man, he epitomizes the type of new users linux needs. People that
have energy and want to learn. So I told him about Linux and I even
offered to send him a catalog of books that deal with Linux. But
I’m getting ahead of myself.
“What’s your email address?”
“glmull@linuxfan.com”
“Let’s see, that’s spelled g l m u l l at oh, I’ve been wanting
to check out that linux thing.”
“You have? That’s great.”
“Yeah I want to learn about the GIMP. I’ve heard it’s as good as
Photoshop.”
“Well, I believe it is. I’ve been using it on my own website to
do basic jpeg graphics.”
“Windows is gonna be extinct in the year 2000!”
“Well, what kind of computer do you have?”
“Oh, can I get your account number?”
And then we discussed the business at hand and then he jumped
back in.
“But I’ve been wanting to put Linux on my second hard drive. Do
you think I could do that?”
“I would suggest you get a shrinkwrapped version of Linux, like
I did when I first started out.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about getting Red Hat.”
“Yeah, you know that reminds me, I’m a member of this Small
Computer Book Club and they have specials where if i get someone to
join they give me 3 free books and they give you 3 books for $2
each, and you get to choose which ones.”
“I’m interested. Could you tell me how to join?”
Sure I could tell him. And so we discussed which books would be
good for a beginning Linux user.
“You know, I’ve really been wanting to take advantage of this
special. You can’t beat it.”
“I need your home phone number.”
“Sure…”
“So I’m definitely interested in that 3 books deal. Let me give
you my email address and you can email me about it and I promise to
do it.”
“I will, and let me give you mine. But here are the books I
would suggest for you. They say you can’t go over a total
publishers price of $120 so these add up to not quite that much so
we’re good to go.”
“What’s the first book you suggest for me? By the way, I need
your current broker.”
“What’s the second book you suggest for me?”
“Well, this one is called Linux Programming Unleashed. It’s
brand new and I want it so bad. I was going to actually pay for it.
It also comes with the GIMP book called Sams Teach Yourself GIMP in
24 hours.”
“You think I can learn it in 24 hours?”
“Well, it might not be 24 hours but it won’t be much longer than
36 hours. Do you need my broker’s phone number?”
“Yeah, I’ve been wanting to learn the GIMP.”
“582-4600”