Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft PR Rep is the Switcher
Here's a followup to our
earlier story
about Microsoft's "inverse switch" campaign. The AP tracked down the switcher and spoke with her:
she's an employee at a Microsoft public relations firm but says she actually did switch from Mac to Windows. Microsoft's
page
is still 404 (but Google's
cache
still works).
The interesting part to me is that the AP "tracked Mallinson by examining personal data hidden within documents that Microsoft had published with its controversial ad." Hmmmmmm.
(Kudos to obidonn, the first to
demonstrate
the use of a stock photo, which piqued interest in this story.
As of noon EDT Oct. 15, other
stock
photos
are still being used in anonymous Microsoft "testimonials.")
when i read that, i thought the person worked for microsoft so i wasnt suprised
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One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
this comes as a surprise to whom?
starting to look like that nasty chick in a cheap porno
Bukkake is not cheap. Those tapes are like $60 a pop (no pun intended) mail order from Japan.
All microsoft products are gone from my machine! Oh wait, I want to play Fallout one more time.....
How well it works in WineX: 4 out of 5
3
User Comments: Fallout works really fine; Haven't
experienced any glitches while testing
the game.
http://www.transgaming.com/gamepage.php?gameid=17
Please note the original post when moderating down this plagarist.
Dear Sir,
/. to find out if you've been given that precious precious karma point, you're in a state of confusion. After all, you
I bet you're feeling a little confused right now. You posted what you thought would be a funny/insightful comment, yet your fellow nerds have left you out in the cold. I bet right now, as you furiously refresh
1) Labeled M$ stupid.
2) Mentioned IP/copyright with a negative connotation, thereby showing your solidarity with the communistic beliefs of your fellow open source piers.
I must say I'm quite surprised, as your Slashbot hive mind seems to be in proper order. Try posting earlier next time. You'll get there!
Considering /. was featured in the New York Times Today I'm sure the word will get out. /. is more well known and "mainstream" than you think. There are lots of normal people who read /. but don't post and don't read the comments.
What's funny is that my earlier post today Was modded down as a troll, and sparked a series of arguments that MS wouldn't be trolling/Astroturfing /.
;-)
(Can somebody give me back the points I lost for Troloing please?
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.
I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.
Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.
Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.
There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.
Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 12 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)
Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.
lol. Mod parent up!
this is just a test, please ignore.
a aa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
thank you.
Whoa. I'd get that checked out, buddy!
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Not really on-topic but, despite the recent move by the Chinese government to "unblock" access to Google, all cache functions are still inaccessible for those of us living on the mainland.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
congratulations el_mex! you just won the 4th annual WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT award! this handsome engraved plaque will chronicle your achievements in MAKING NO SENSE, and it will be delivered personally to your door and SHOVED FAR UP YOUR ASS!
Again, CONGRATULATIONS on your important contribution to the field of BEING A COMPLETE IDIOT.
The best OS ever was the Apple-made OS for the Apple IIGS, called GS/OS.
I use both OS X and Win2K in my home systems, and my perspective as a casual user is that they are far more similar than they are different. It's not like it's System 6 vs. Win3.1. As a tech geek, I know that OS X and Win2k/XP are very different, just like I know that gas and diesel engines are very different, but you still put your foot down on the pedal to make the car go. If you can follow simple instructions, you can easily use either OS for consumer-level digital media, office-type applications, and internet browsing.
Unfortunately, the various free OSes are right now more like hybrid cars. They're great if you want basic functionality, or single-purpose function like web servers, but forget about anything fancy (for example, digital video editing, or seamless device synchronization with mp3 players or PDAs). That said, for anyone who seriously cares about security, or privacy, or the right to control their own computers, etc., it's obvious that you have to use one of the free OSes. (And I mean free, not just semi-open source, so OS X doesn't count.)
Yes, because there's just no way anybody can disagree on slashdot and not work for Microsoft!
what incredibly shallow and mind-numbing logic.
And seeing how my legitimate comment gets modded -1, it's pretty obvious what a circle jerk this place is now.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
I mean, Coca Cola is a popular drink, but you don't see them claiming it builds muscle or makes your penis/breats grow
I couldn't say for sure about my penis, but my breats are definitely twice the size they were before I started drinking coke.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
because they've admitted that she is an employee of their own PR firm, jackass
Heh. One guy pointed out that iPhoto (Or whatever the name of the software was) wasn't released until after Christmas, so that lady who saved Christmas couldn't possibly have used THAT to save Christmas, but then admitted that there were some other options around at the time, so he wasn't necessarily calling her a fake.
It was the same guy that said the Switch ads were doing network admins a *great* disservice by saying that hooking up several Macs was "networking" and it was "easy", because it devalues the profession, and he'd like to see that person plan out a larger LAN, or a WAN with multiple OSes, email, dns servers, etc. etc.
I think the fact that the Apple ads are fluff, and that no one who knows anything about each individual topic will take them as more than "consumer" is enough.
-Sara