Real reason MS's OSes suck

[prosaic]

Originally posted by: wizardLRU
Dude, I was going to flame you. I was gonna smoke you like a cuban cigar, but you clicked reply to thread before I could .

Well anyway that's gotta be the best paragraph I've ever read in these forums.

Must have been one of my rare lucid moments. It probably won't happen again.

- prosaic

 

[prosaic]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey


Yes, more intelligent people like this is exactly what this/these forum(s) need.

Have you just started posting in the OS forum prosaic? I have not noticed you before..

It's not so much that I'm intelligent as it is that I've learned to speak and write as though I were intelligent. Several decades of life in academia marinates the brain of even the most mundane individual in a bath of educational epistemology. A good brain will be imbued with knowledge in such circumstances. A mediocre one merely acquires a patina of learning, making its owner facile enough to pass as intelligent and well-educated -- so long as he is not examined very carefully. If you scratch the verdigris from the brain of such an one you will discover the sort of numbwit who parks his beemer beside fire hydrants on emergency snow routes during blizzards. I hope my continued presence here will not disabuse you of the notion that I am intelligent.

I am fairly new here. I learned about this forum this past fall from a friend whom my wife and I have been visiting during his long illness. I will probably not get a chance to participate for very long. When I return to the field I'll be out of touch again, but I'm very happy to have had this experience. It has helped me to learn a little about the OS that shall not be named.

- prosaic

 

[drag]

Computers and what people use them for is weird. I went to linux from win98 when w2k was becomming mainstream.... I read a while ago about how IBM mainframe people walk around with blinders on there eyes when it comes to other technologies. The guy who wrote the article elaberated on a old cliche. He said something like:

The classic IBM operator is like a man whose only tool is a hammer. After a while he has begun to ignore everything that can't be fixed by hitting them. And everything that he can fix is now called "nails" weither they realy are or are not.

Now I actually work in a "classic"-type IBM shop I understand what he ment. A guy I work with has been a programmer for 15 years, he has worked with computers for so long, but he didn't know how to log onto a server to get a network drive going in win95. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to me and he didn't understand what I was telling him and he didn't care.

I see the same thing with most experianced Windows users. Not techies so much, but just the average user. They have no clue what they are missing. XP seems like a alien battle ground to me, weird cartoon things poping up in front of me stopping me pointing out the obvious, little irritating pop ups with bright x's in the corners telling me to sell my soul to passport in order to gain freedom and a trouble free way to drain my bank account. Every time I want to do something I have to search thru 30 different menus, dozens of icons. Pointers pointing at different things. window in window in window in window.... 3-4 different obscure and inefficent ways to do the same thing. Conflicting options, oddly located settings. I kinda scares me and mostly just gives me a headache.

I enjoy simplicity. I don't have to worry about viruses, trojans and stuff like that. I don't want html e-mails, I want something I can read. I want remote access, servers, simple and universall ways to move information from one job to home to another job quickly and securely. I want to use my old 486 for something, I want to be able to configure my own firewalls. I want to create my own apps, I want to fine tune my OS for speed. I want simple scripts so that I don't have to repeat the same steps over and over again. I want my computer to do the boring work. I want quality sound, I want flexibilty. I want apps that run well and don't crash, and if they do I want the tools to be able to fix the problem and I don't want to have my computer crippled by it either. I get this thru linux.

 

[prosaic]

Windows seemed alien to me (probably much more so to me than to you) when I first started using it. I didn't get used to using any kind of GUI until I used Deskview (on DOS) and Motif on AIX, which came pretty late in my experience with computers. But, believe it or not, I have managed to have practically all of the advantages you mention with respect to Linux in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Of the issues you mentioned only the issue of needing to keep a somewhat higher state of consciousness regarding malicious software is more of a problem to me in Windows than it was in the various flavors of Unix I've used. (Notice that the *nix world isn't devoid of such mischief. Routes of exploitation exist there, too.) And even that hasn't been that much of a hassle. Truly. I think that technology-minded individuals can manage to get what they need from either Windows or Linux without serious difficulty. It's merely a matter of applying a little judgment and a little persistence.

There's an old saying about walking on water being easier when you know where the rocks are. It applies to operating systems and other less-than-miraculous technologies, too.

- prosaic

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: prosaic
Truly. I think that technology-minded individuals can manage to get what they need from either Windows or Linux without serious difficulty. It's merely a matter of applying a little judgment and a little persistence.

Interestingly enough, I've found that it takes more "judgement and persistence" to get something from windows working in linux then the other way around.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Current software trends can be summed up nicely with the following quote:

"... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words ... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."


-- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation


Why would Microsoft try to eliminate any competition from Unix, Linux , FreeBSD etc.., when
it is their very exsistence that keeps them from being ripped apart (much like AT&T)?

Without competition, the DOJ would had have their way with them.
As it stands now, they (the DOJ) have no clue as how to handle Microsoft, and
has even taken on the burden of doing Microsoft's job for them (ISONews).

What it boils down to is money and whats good for Microsoft.

Example: Gartner research study
"Microsoft believes it has simplified its licensing; Gartner believes Microsoft confuses simplification with the elimination of options. Either way, most enterprises will pay much more. A typical enterprise with 5,000 desktops that upgrades Microsoft Office every four years will have its fees increase from $900,000 to $1.7 million."

The TCPA initiative is not Intel response, rather a Wintel response.
Money is Power. Power is Money. Whats good for Microsoft......

My only wish is that IBM or Motorola get their acts together to break the Wintels stranglehold.

 

[prosaic]

You know something? I hadn't thought of this much from the cost perspective. I realize that a lot of people like BSD / Linux / the unlamented Solaris on x86 because of initial acquisition costs are so low (or non-existent). I see a lot of resentment about the cost of MS Office and the OS products, but it's hard for me to get worked up for it because the costs of operating systems and application software for me on the *nix / mini / mainframe side has always been at least an order of magnitude higher than what I pay now for my "toys" from Microsoft. These toys, btw, are not too shabby. I'm impressed with the functionality offered, particularly when I consider the range of hardware and software with which they must work. I have been used to shelling out several thousands of dollars for operating systems and several tens of thousands for software (unless it was developed in-house, in which case the cost of producing it might be more if you were to figure in the full-time salaries of the people producing it!) for a single workstation. But I realize that spending a couple hundred for a new OS and several hundred for a new applications suite every three to four years puts a burr under the blanket for a lot of people, particularly personal users.

I guess that, as usual, it's all a matter of what the market will bear. If the freeware out there gets good enough to compete features-wise with the MS operating systems and applications software I'm sure we'll see Microsoft's prices on those items drop -- well, as soon as the general public gets wind of the situation. But it's going to have to be easy enough for the gen pub to live with. No man files for Joe Blow, nosiree!

To me it has always been about the quality of the tools and the data, particularly the data. I'm careful to keep versions of all data in non-proprietary formats so that it will be easily accessible in the future, regardless of how much time has transpired since the software that produced it has ceased to function on any machine extant. To that end I have been pleased with Microsoft's apparent work in the area of allowing both content and at least some of the formatting to be preserved by saving in XHTML (or whatever they're calling the particular implementation of what I call XML at the moment).

- prosaic

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: prosaic
You know something? I hadn't thought of this much from the cost perspective. I realize that a lot of people like BSD / Linux / the unlamented Solaris on x86 because of initial acquisition costs are so low (or non-existent). I see a lot of resentment about the cost of MS Office and the OS products, but it's hard for me to get worked up for it because the costs of operating systems and application software for me on the *nix / mini / mainframe side has always been at least an order of magnitude higher than what I pay now for my "toys" from Microsoft. These toys, btw, are not too shabby. I'm impressed with the functionality offered, particularly when I consider the range of hardware and software with which they must work. I have been used to shelling out several thousands of dollars for operating systems and several tens of thousands for software (unless it was developed in-house, in which case the cost of producing it might be more if you were to figure in the full-time salaries of the people producing it!) for a single workstation. But I realize that spending a couple hundred for a new OS and several hundred for a new applications suite every three to four years puts a burr under the blanket for a lot of people, particularly personal users.

I guess that, as usual, it's all a matter of what the market will bear. If the freeware out there gets good enough to compete features-wise with the MS operating systems and applications software I'm sure we'll see Microsoft's prices on those items drop -- well, as soon as the general public gets wind of the situation. But it's going to have to be easy enough for the gen pub to live with. No man files for Joe Blow, nosiree!

To me it has always been about the quality of the tools and the data, particularly the data. I'm careful to keep versions of all data in non-proprietary formats so that it will be easily accessible in the future, regardless of how much time has transpired since the software that produced it has ceased to function on any machine extant. To that end I have been pleased with Microsoft's apparent work in the area of allowing both content and at least some of the formatting to be preserved by saving in XHTML (or whatever they're calling the particular implementation of what I call XML at the moment).

- prosaic

Solaris SPARC is free until you get past 8cpu machines, or if you wanted some POS trusted version.

 

[Saltin]

During my time here, I've come to the conclusion that I should stay out of discussions like this. I'm not much for the *nix versus MS debate anymore.

Just this week I finished the book "Fast Food Nation". Maybe some of you have read this book. A decent amount of people in this thread are worried/concerned that computing freedom and choice is on the decline. The future looks bleak as the corporate giant Microsoft looms large.

I wouldnt argue with this point of view too much. I worry sometimes too.

Anyhow....... there are many industries where these fears we have about computing have already been realized. The food producing/packing/distributing industry is one of those industries. It is very rare to ever hear any public outcry over the practises and monopolistic behaviour of the large multinationals that sell consumers thier food in America. The things they do are deplorable, and often fly in the face of open market freedom (price fixing, poor saftey, anti-unionism, etc, etc).

What's the point?

The point is that real choice is already severly limited in America. Where you shop, what you wear, what you eat.... lots of different brands and "apparent" choices, that are really owned by a handful of large and powerful corporations.

Now, I'd like computers to be different. We all would. But can anyone tell me why it should be any different for the world of computers?

 

[spyordie007]

Great discussion guys, I am very glad this stayed in the OS sub-forum and not OT (no need to mess it up with a bunch of blubbering idiots )

I see tons of great points here, and thought "this would be a great time to add another opinion to the void". A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that the PC industry had reached that plateau where it was no longer a growth industry (but of course you all say). Here is the problem for me, whenever an industry gets to that point the competition slowly dwindles and the only players who remain are those who know how to continue to make a profit regardless of the ups and downs of the economy and the regular industry booms and busts. I felt both funny and sad when Mandrake went bankrupt this past year because it only helped to further reinforce my assumptions and generalizations about the industry as a whole.

Of course if there are only a handful of big players who remain they will continue to focus on what they make money on the options will further dwindle to the point where PCs just become a model year and you can select a handful of different ?packages? and ?upgrades.? In the end everyone will still flock to the newest and fastest PC even though the ?2010? model still gets them where they need to go.

So I made the decision that I would stop focusing on the tech industry as a whole and have been reading and learning and slowing moving myself into the role of ?business owner/investor? where I will have people who work for me who can continue to talk about the ?new? stuff that is available and I can worry about what I need to worry about. I?m still far from that and would be in trouble financially without my tech job to pay the bills, but it makes me feel a little better when I read about things like TCPA because I know it like all things will pass. In reality the only reason that companies like Microsoft are able to flourish is because of all the businesses who use their products because you truly can make more money in business with PCs on the desks of your employees (connecting to *nix servers of course ) and some day consumers will find something else that holds their fancy.

The thing I?m more concerned about nowadays is how America is becoming more Socialistic as time passes (hell 60 years ago income tax was a strange new thing). Maybe I can spend the rest of my life fighting the morons who think they deserve something solely because they exist.

I guess what this thread should have been titled is ?the real reason the PC industry now sucks.?

-Spy

PS sorry for any misspellings or bad grammar, but I don?t feel like reading all this yet again before I hit this here ?reply? button.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

It's not so much that I'm intelligent as it is that I've learned to speak and write as though I were intelligent.

I here you loud and clear on that. If you compared the way I *type* right now to how I did a year and a half ago, you would think I went from age 13 to age 30. I also speak much more intelligently, however the change was not as drastic as my typing. I still type like crap on irc though

 

[Spyro]

Great discussion guys, I am very glad this stayed in the OS sub-forum and not OT (no need to mess it up with a bunch of blubbering idiots )

You sure got that right.

I felt both funny and sad when Mandrake went bankrupt this past year because it only helped to further reinforce my assumptions and generalizations about the industry as a whole.

Trust me on this, I don't think that mandrake's bankruptcy spells their certain doom. However, as much as I hate to say it, even if mandrake bottoms up the source code will always be freely available. As long as there are those who are knowledgeable about linux, mandrake's code will never really die. It was this certain "immunity" of linux that attracted me to it in the first place. Besides I've seen several companies declare bankruptcy and then come back stronger for it. Although the odds may be against it, mandrake has a very devoted user base, and I expect them to survive.

Of course if there are only a handful of big players who remain they will continue to focus on what they make money on the options will further dwindle to the point where PCs just become a model year and you can select a handful of different ?packages? and ?upgrades.? In the end everyone will still flock to the newest and fastest PC even though the ?2010? model still gets them where they need to go.

I've seen this happening. People thrown out 333mhz computers even though the only thing that they will ever use a computer for is internet browsing and typing the occasional document.

The thing I?m more concerned about nowadays is how America is becoming more Socialistic as time passes (hell 60 years ago income tax was a strange new thing). Maybe I can spend the rest of my life fighting the morons who think they deserve something solely because they exist.

Trust me, the "something for nothin'" effect is truly a new creation. If I had more time on my hands I would probably investigate this, but as it stands now, its painfully obvious that the average U.S. citizen is woefully unaware of what companies like Microsoft do. And as long as they think that they are getting a bargain I really don't think that they would care. They don't want to know, and their aren't enough people that do know to teach them any better.

I guess what this thread should have been titled is ?the real reason the PC industry now sucks.?

The PC industry does suck, which is why I'm watching the console gaming industry very carefully right now. Its obvious that games are The Next Big Thing [tm], but its also obvious that Micsrosoft is trying to extend their deathgrip on the PC industry into the area of gaming. I do like age of empires , but I don't like what I've been hearing about the next generation of the xbox.

In the mean time I've found watching Microsoft actually compete for a change to be quite entertaining. (Although their purchase of Rare really ticked me off :|.)

PS sorry for any misspellings or bad grammar, but I don?t feel like reading all this yet again before I hit this here ?reply? button.

It's cool, you typed it pretty well to me.

Besides this isn't USENET ya know.

I shiver at some of the mass flamings I've witnessed in some of those groups, just because a newbie forgot not to top-post. :disgust:

 

[merlocka]

I haven't read any of the subsequent posts in this thread, but I did read the articles in the first post.

And then I downloaded mandrake 9.0 iso's.

I guess it's time. Sigh.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: merlocka
I haven't read any of the subsequent posts in this thread, but I did read the articles in the first post.

And then I downloaded mandrake 9.0 iso's.

I guess it's time. Sigh.

 

[Booter]

Originally posted by: wizardLRU
Well anyway that's gotta be the best paragraph I've ever read in these forums.

I second that! I just read through this topic. w00t! I say prosaic for elite!!

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Booter

Originally posted by: wizardLRU
Well anyway that's gotta be the best paragraph I've ever read in these forums.

I second that! I just read through this topic. w00t! I say prosaic for elite!!

Crap, if all you have to do is ask to be an elite, then I nominate the grand, glorious, and all powerful wizardlru for elite

Edit: This thread _was_ definitely a classic.

 

[prosaic]

Uh, er, heh-heh...

Outside of the fact that I haven't fulfilled any of the requirements, it's kind of ironic for someone to nominate someone called "prosaic" for elite status.

But I appreciate the thought.

- prosaic

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: prosaic
Uh, er, heh-heh...

Outside of the fact that I haven't fulfilled any of the requirements, it's kind of ironic for someone to nominate someone called "prosaic" for elite status.

But I appreciate the thought.

- prosaic

If the mods are listening I definitely second that nomination

 

[prosaic]

If the mods are listening, they are probably as confused as I am!

- prosaic

 

[smp]

Originally posted by: Saltin
During my time here, I've come to the conclusion that I should stay out of discussions like this. I'm not much for the *nix versus MS debate anymore. Just this week I finished the book "Fast Food Nation". Maybe some of you have read this book. A decent amount of people in this thread are worried/concerned that computing freedom and choice is on the decline. The future looks bleak as the corporate giant Microsoft looms large. I wouldnt argue with this point of view too much. I worry sometimes too. Anyhow....... there are many industries where these fears we have about computing have already been realized. The food producing/packing/distributing industry is one of those industries. It is very rare to ever hear any public outcry over the practises and monopolistic behaviour of the large multinationals that sell consumers thier food in America. The things they do are deplorable, and often fly in the face of open market freedom (price fixing, poor saftey, anti-unionism, etc, etc). What's the point? The point is that real choice is already severly limited in America. Where you shop, what you wear, what you eat.... lots of different brands and "apparent" choices, that are really owned by a handful of large and powerful corporations. Now, I'd like computers to be different. We all would. But can anyone tell me why it should be any different for the world of computers?

Right on the money.


Computer nerds almost have their heads in the sand.. not realizing that the trends they see and fear in the computer world have been ravaging the rest of the world the whole time.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: prosaic
If the mods are listening, they are probably as confused as I am!

- prosaic

 

[MGMorden]

Well, I've generally come to the conclusion myself that I won't be selling my current computer hardware anymore. If federal laws are enacted requiring DRM tech, I'll just keep a system running with my spare parts and a Linux distro (goodness knows I've got enough Linux CD's lying around ) for as long as I can. SSH tunneling, running non-cert hardware etc., I should have a good run (feels like talking about heading for the hills before a nuclear war ). I've pretty much relegated myself to consoles for gaming, and have no interest in doing anything online with those, so I'll just avoid future computers if DRM is mandatory.

Of course I doubt that vendors from all over the world would want this. You can bet that Taiwan and the like would be cranking out a lot of unprotected gear for use over there. I might would end up taking a vacation there every two or three years and bring back souvenirs . . . .

 

[jhbball]

You're right, Bill Gates is an evil entitiy trying to take over the world, internet, whatever. Microsoft, hp, compaq, are all bad... or something.

hahahahahhaha!

Damn you nerds and your linux. Just quit crying, take off your clokes or whatever, put down the d & d guide for a sec, and just accept that xp is an acceptable os.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: jhbball
You're right, Bill Gates is an evil entitiy trying to take over the world, internet, whatever. Microsoft, hp, compaq, are all bad... or something.

hahahahahhaha!

Damn you nerds and your linux. Just quit crying, take off your clokes or whatever, put down the d & d guide for a sec, and just accept that xp is an acceptable os.

Hey! Good thing you put so much thought into the subject, considering we haven't!

 

[MGMorden]

Originally posted by: jhbball
You're right, Bill Gates is an evil entitiy trying to take over the world, internet, whatever. Microsoft, hp, compaq, are all bad... or something.

hahahahahhaha!

Damn you nerds and your linux. Just quit crying, take off your clokes or whatever, put down the d & d guide for a sec, and just accept that xp is an acceptable os.

And here folks, is exactly why American society is going down the toilet. Idiots who would rather hurl around mindless generalizations and stereotypes and try to pass them off as a valid argument rather than actually look at some issues.

You're right. We all are D&D fanatics because we don't want our rights taken away. (damn I wish that this forum software had a rolling eye emoticon . . .)