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Dear Microsoft Windows ...
SpaceCanary writes "I recently read this open letter to Windows and I think it's pretty funny. The guy writes a letter to his OS as if he was breaking up with it. It's a bit strange, but finally more people are starting to see the light and moving away from Windows. The writer chronicles his relationship with the versions of Windows and finally is able to move on in the end."
Dear Internet,
I wish you weren't filled with self-righteous idiots who can only express themselves in manifestos, open letters, and rants. I wish people knew how to write meaningful criticism instead of half-hearted sarcasm.
Sincerely,
John Q. Irony
For example, do you know what I found on the computer a few days ago? Spyware! I wonder who let that in...
You did... surfing porn sites and clicking YES on every popup asking you if you wanted to install gain/gator/cometcursor/mysearch...
You can blame IE, you can blame Microsoft... but in the end... the real admins know... BLAME THE USERS!!!
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
Lets face it. Most people stick with Windows because it's there and it takes effort to get something better. Get a major PC manufacturer to start shipping some dual boot systems and see how well it fares...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
> Lets face it. Most people stick with Windows because it's there and it takes effort to get something better
Sounds eerily like the reason most people stay in the relationship they're in.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Personally I think Microsoft as a whole is just so incompetant they simply can't pull it off. Business policies, marketting, etc. all come together to make certain things more important than others, and a mindset of "just getting things done" versus "doing things right from the start" roll into the mediocre Microsoft mess we see today.
Unfortunately for them, to fix this, they can't just change a few lines of code. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire corporate culture in all respects. Doing that with a company the size of Microsoft would be pretty tough, especially with a mindset that tells them such things are unneccessary!
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Even though it is cool that you provided the article after it got slashdotted, there is no reason why your karma (as unimportant as it is) should be upped for doing so.
Your post is a great example of what is wrong with the moderation system. People treat mod points as PERSONAL rewards and punishments. Mod points should more properly be viewed as rewards and punishments FOR THE POST.
The post WAS informative. The site was dotted, and I wanted to read it. Thankfully, someone did.
True, it would have been more elegant if the poster had gone AC for it, but the fact that the guy may have been a whore in no way makes the post any less 'informative'.
But you, and others, will go ahead and use points to 'punish' people for being dicks. Go ahead, and be my guest. I, on the other hand, will use mod points as I belive they are intended: to allow users to separate the wheat from the chaff, should they so choose.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Tried to install it but it wouldn't run on an Athlon :(
Anyways I think people aren't "just" waking up to Windows being insecure, unstable etc. It's just that they are willing to live with it rather than investigate alternate OS
You say you wouldn't touch IE. How do you have any choice?
Why, the first thing I notice about my Income Tax program from Intuit Canada (Quick Tax), is that it clearly uses IE dll's for all connections to the net. It is impossible to avoid IE in doing the most security critical things such as accessing absolute mandatory program updates (without with which it could not be compliant with all last minute changes to tax laws).
Ditto, with Norton AntiVirus. When you keep up with the latest virus signatures, it uses IE modules for you to download them.
The list goes on and on, but the worst of all is Microsoft Windows Update itself which is carefully designed to force you to use IE and ActiveX.
By the way, I find that with respect to gdiplus.dll, the one that may be vulnerable to the bug that allows exploits via jpeg images, both HP and Norton software may be using doubtful versions.
Yep, you sure can trust good old Microsoft! NOT!
Microsoft is the good old "ease of use" company that changes to the "most difficult possible to use" when the slightest need for security arises!
I suppose most of your opinions could be a matter of personal taste (I personally wouldn't mod you flamebait--maybe troll if I was in a bad mood), but I think it is because some of your criticisms of Linux appear to me and others as somewhat baseless. It gives the impression that you are either ill-informed or just looking to stir up crap:
* MS is "easy to use" vs. Linux. This may be becasue you are most familiar with it. You'd probably think Macs were harder to use if you think Mandrake or Lycoris or Linspire were hard to use.
* MS "looks good" - again a matter of personal taste--I personally think XP looks like garbage and it is the one of the main reason I refuse to upgrade my Win2k system at home to XP. At work--well--I just have to deal with it (customer is always right you know--besides there is always "classic mode"). If you DO like the XP look there are themes to make Linux look more like it, and Lycoris and Linspire were designed with that in mind.
* MS doesn't take too long to load up. That is crap--on todays hardware everything starts up pretty quickly. On slower hardware like my notebook (dual boots Win2k and Mandrake 9.1) I find Mandrake boots significantly faster. Perhaps you did a huge/full install of Mandrake and started all services if you found it slow. In the application space, you should try AbiWord and Gnumeric--they are lightweight and speedy and have enough features to be useful for everyday work (actually Gnumeric kicks all other spreadsheets butts!)
* Games - probably your only truly valid point. However video card drivers and game selection are slowly getting better
* You don't have to build Linux from scratch yo your statement comes across as a thinly veiled insult. In fact in my experience and many others that are documented on the web, most popular distributions of linux are in fact EASIER to install than Windows. Plus, if you are reinstalling windows 2k or XP be prepared to spend extra time finding offline copies of the most important updates and installing them, along with firewall and antivirus software before you get anywhere NEAR a network connection, or you could literally pick up a virus within minutes. The only reason XP seems "easy" is because PC makers do the work for you before you even buy the PC.
* you've acknowledged you use Opera over IE--but aren't you aware that IE is so pervasive and integrated now that it could rear its hideous head even when you are not surfing the 'net? Plus, to use windows update you MUST use it.
It's a free country and you are entitled to your choice (and if your PC is indeed your entertainment then XP is probably the best choice). It's also fortunate that you've had zero problems with XP, because (along with win2k)it has been the cause of countless problems in my life. Personally, computer games are only a very small part of my "entertainment", and should I decide I want the best, latest games I'll pick up an XBox or a PS2. For productivity, web surfing and so on (my needs are not demanding either) I feel safer and more at home with Linux.
"Anyways I think people aren't "just" waking up to Windows being insecure, unstable etc. It's just that they are willing to live with it rather than investigate alternate OS"
That and both points are heavily sensationalized over here. I run XP and 2K across several different computers. The general assumption here is that I spend hours a week dealing with viruses. I don't. I haven't been exploited in months. And, the one time I did, it was because I had a fresh install of XP out on the net sans firewall or a service pack. Doh.
The other assumption is that I spend lots of time rebooting. Nope. My machines get rebooted once every two weeks or so. This is laughable compared to Linux, but virtually nothing in terms of practical time used. Back in the Windows 95/98 days, this was a legit complaint. (3 or 4 reboots a DAY) Today, though, it's just not enough time to notice. I'm 'living with it' about as disturbingly as living with wrong number phonecalls.
So, by relieving myself of those problems with Linux, I'm not gaining a whole hell of a lot. I would, however, rack up a bunch of Google time trying to figure out how to make everything work. Linux is just going to have to do better than that to get people to switch. This has nothing to do with people having mixed up priorities.
"Derp de derp."
You're only half right at best. Some of the players are using the weapons you mention, the crude ones, but other players are using very sophisticated weapons. State of the art weapons haven't made war unwinable, they've just made it unwinable if you happen to posses them and use them (thought I forgot the don't? Didn't.).
It's the classic story of the haves and the have nots. The haves (the ones with the state of the art weapons) sqeeze everything they can get away with from the have nots. Then they hang the have nots for daring to look at their women. It can go on like this for centuries until the have nots decide that they've had enough.
The English in India. The American South early last century. South Africa 30 years ago. The peasants in France pre-revolution. The workers in Russia pre-revolution. Linux giving away software as it's only weapon against Microsoft.
Today looks very similar. The trodden can only take so much before it doesn't matter how crude their weapons are... they fight anyway. And that war, as it turns out, is rarely winnable by the people with the state of the art weapons. Because you can't kill off _all_ of the people that do your laundry, buy your software, work in your mines and grow your food. When enough of them rise up, they find that even the crudest of weapons will do.
The only way to win against the crudest weapons is to assimilate the ways of the oppressed. China is winning because they're embracing many parts of capitalism. The Soviet Union won when their countries started holding elections. The only way the current overlords can hope to win is if they start showing respect to the lives of the people they're fighting against. As long as we consider them to be "evil" their crude weapons will carry the day.
TW
I am afraid that you have become a victim of a Western desease known as "sound-bite mania" or gross oversimplification of issues to make them appear black/white. This is a desirable effect of indoctrination by the "media", by like minded peers but most importantly by people who benefit from such abuse of your worldview.
To look at things in more detail: your "secularists" are not. The Western camp is divided in many groups, some of them equally vicious, bloodthirsty and dangerous as the Jihadists (Israel springs to mind). Some others are willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives to play global power games or prove their pet socio-economic theories (the Neocons). Some others are willing to resort to brutal repression to keep their state (for better or worse) from fracturing into thousand pieces, a process of fragmentation which is actively encouraged by the Neocons for their purposes (Russia). That last one is particularly insideous because the Neocons (and other power hungry jackals) are actually aiding and funding the same very Jihadists they are supposedly fighting desperately elsewhere. But as they say, lust for power knows no shame. I could go on. In the other camp you have a mix of religious maniacs, desperados and people who consider themselves freedom fighters. You have nationalists who blow themselves up under a US tank in a bid to free their country and you have psychos who send teenage girls to blow themselves up in a cafe while they jostle for political power.
This of course is just but a tiny sample of the actual complexity of the issue. But you are certainly doing a disservice to everyone by over-simplyfing it and at the same time you are also furthering the agenda of various Western-borne equivalents of "Jihadists" who wish to use this as a vehicle which they will ride to ultimate global power. Be wary because the fuel for that vehicle is ignorance and blood.