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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
Well, I bet he doesn't have a real girlfriend to write the letter to! If he does, he probably spends more time with his OS (or should that be SO?!)
Hey (*dink* *dink*), it looks like you're trying to write a letter.......
I'm sorry to have left files on you that were posted to /. We had some great times, you and I... sharing files w/ people all around the globe. I noticed that you started to glow red and smoke, but thought this was just a signal of your burning passion for me. Alas, I can now see that the pressure of servicing so many other people has taken its toll on you and you've succumbed. I'm sorry to see you go.
Sincerely,
Joe User
P.S. You will receive a bill for the burnt hole in my carpet.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
write an Obituary for this guy's webserver.
"IT was a spunky server, full of life and function, however the Good Lord deemed it necessary to remove this server from this world with an act of Slashdot".
Sig it.
see you in hell.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
A dear John letter to an OS. Reminds me of when I had my last Pascal class on a VMS/VAX system:
Dear VMS:
You have tortured my life for the last time. I hate you with a pure and perfect hatred. Your renaming of my files is maddening. Your syntax is arcane and pointless. I would prefer attempting to cluster 500 Windows ME systems.
It's not me, it's definitely you.
Ahhhhhh! I'm on fire! Ahhhhhhh!
- Web Server
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
Dear Microsoft Windows,
In retrospect, this letter should be of no surprise to you. For years now I have stood by you despite the terrible things people have said. We have always managed to work through our serious problems but too many things have been swept under the table. I do not think I can stand (idly) by you any longer.
What's that? No, another service pack will not help, not this time. I remember when we met, a warm April day, in 1992. For years I had been hearing about you, about your graphical user interface, innovations, and problems in the courtroom... I had seen you here and there, but it was not until that fateful day, April 6, that our relationship became serious. Though you had changed with the times, never like this. I was almost knocked off my feet when I first saw you. Right then I knew it, you had to be mine. Who else could offer me what you could? I wanted, no, I needed, your TrueType font support, your video playback capability, your color screen savers...
As time progressed so did my needs. Our affair took its next serious step on August 24, 1995. At the time I thought our happiness would never end. You brought me places I never thought possible. How could I refuse your Plug-and-Play cabability or your TCP/IP stack? I mean, you gave up your best friend, DOS, so our relationship could progress unhindered. It hurts me to look back at us, two starry-eyed lovers wanting nothing more than each other's company.
Then it almost all came tumbling down. June 25, 1998. What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? You changed, like in 1995, but not like I thought you would. Still clinging to your DOS kernel, like a small, lost child clutching its teddy bear. Where was the OS I had learned to love? You feebly proffered USB support, DVD playback, and a Quick Launch toolbar, but you were beginning to mix with a bad crowd. With that invasive Internet Explorer. I knew about what happened... You let him access your Explorer. I thought that was something special between us.
Though we had a bit of a falling out afterwards, my love was rekindled after February 17th, 2000. You were once again new- Professional- just like I thought you could one day be. I knew you were once again stable, not like back in 1998, and that you were the only OS for me. I remembered what had drawn me you you in the first place- ease of use, speed, your stunning looks, your compatibility. I remember saying, "I hope things never change because I love you the way you are."
I thought that what we had meant something- your transformation in 2000 seemed to cement that. I know now that I was wrong. By Sept 17 you tried to change for the Millennium. I saw right through you- trying to settle down and fit in better with the 'home-user'. Did you think I would love you more because of a few cosmetic changes? I was not impressed with the full-color icons, fancy skins, or your new media player. I thought what we had was deeper than that. Luckily you gave me a choicer, I did not have to choose the new you, the old version would be fine. I know you meant well but you just shouldn't have done that, especially with the '1998' episode so fresh in my mind.
By October 25, 2001 more changes had come. Everyone told be how great the new you would be. I got so tired of hearing about how up to date, easy to work with, and slick looking you had become. That was all I could take. You changed so much that I didn't even know you any more. I really dug some of your new features but the old you, the you from 2000, could have done all this. So why did you have to change at all? I didn't want to upgrade you or make you into something you were not.
Well, like I wrote, I have reached my limit. Its going to take more than an automatic update to fix our relationship. I just don't feel like I know you anymore. For example, do you know what I found on the computer a few days ago? Spyware! I wonder who let that in...
Windows, I know you will try to
With the first link, the chain is forged.
After all, using Windows is like being with someone who:
- Only lets you do things with her approval
- Requires money once in a while to 'upgrade' her features
- Doesn't allow you to even think about seeing anyone else besides her
And to top it all off, you end up contracting a dozen or so STDs even though she says that she always uses protection.
Yeah, because everything you see written on the Internet can be extrapolated into assumptions about the general population.
And you thought goatse was just one freaky guy...
Was Windows cheating on him and allowing some script kiddie to access its private parts or something?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
You let me run the games I want to play, the industry-standard word processing and publishing software I need to use in my job, and haven't crashed on me in months. While your security is questionable, at least I know that there is some accountability in your design.
I'll be home by 5.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Of a readers letter I really enjoyed from The Register UK IT mag. It was an answer to an article about Microsoft saying basically they get too much stick. Managed to track it down via Google: Enjoy, if it's your thing.
..
"Microsoft simply makes some fairly mediocre software and charges a lot for it."
No.
Microsoft deliberately designs software that is inherently insecure and refuses to fix the fundamental design flaws no matter how bad the outcome is.
When Microsoft merged IE and the desktop, almost ten years ago now, I immediately acted to get IE and Outlook banned at work. Why? Because using the same APIs to operate on trusted (local) and untrusted (email, internet) objects makes every program that uses those APIs responsible for determining, independently, whether an object is trusted or not.
I and every security administrator I knew wrote Microsoft telling them this was a horrible idea. Nothing. They ignored the security community and went on to actually build IE in to the next release of Windows so you couldn't leave it out, as part of their game-plan to try and outflank the DoJ.
I didn't know what the result would be, but I knew it would be bad. I did what I could to discourage our users from running IE and Outlook, and waited.
We didn't have long to wait.
When the Melissa virus showed up, I thought, "OK, this should let them know they've got a problem. They'll pull out IE and settle, and we'll be able to secure Windows again". Boy, was I naive.
Here we are, it's 2004 instead of 1996, and there are still weekly exploits found in IE, Outlook, Windows Media Player, programs that use the MSHTML control. Get rid of that and you'd cut the virus problem by a factor of 10 or 100. 90-99% of the time spent fighting and cleaning up after viruses should be billed directly to Redmond, and because they did it to illegally avoid complying with the agreement they had with the DoJ, there should be criminal charges on top of that.
Microsoft doesn't merely charge a lot for mediocre software, they deliberately and knowingly force people to chew up lifetimes fighting a problem that should not exist, and they do it to win a little extra market share for a secondary product that they don't even charge money for.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
If I had visual studio and the .Net framework on Mao OS X, I'd throw away all of my other computers.
Mao OS was that the one the chinese were developing?
This sig has no nutritional value...
You mean you actually tried to RTFA?
In retrospect, this letter should be of no surprise to you. For years now I have stood by you despite the terrible things you have said about Microsoft. We have always managed to work through our serious problems but too many things have been swept under the table. I do not think I can stand (idly) by you any longer.
What's that? No, another DOOM3 review will not help, not this time.
I remember when we met, a warm April day, in 1999. For years I had been hearing about you, about your terrible green HTML of death, Open Source advocation, poor social skills, web server obliteration, and problems raising money... I had seen you here and there, but it was not until that fateful day, April 6, that our relationship became serious. I was almost knocked off my feet when I first saw you. Right then I knew it, you had to be mine. Who else could offer me what you could? I wanted, no, I needed, your Cowboy Neal polls, your Insightful comments, your great techno music...
As time progressed so did my needs. Our affair took its next serious step on August 24, 2001. At the time I thought our happiness would never end. You brought me places I never thought possible. How could I refuse your IOCCC results or your Napster articles? I mean, you gave up your best friend, financial independence, so our relationship could progress unhindered with OSDN. It hurts me to look back at us, two starry-eyed lovers wanting nothing more than each other's first posts.
Well, like I wrote, I have reached my limit. Its going to take more than mod points to fix our relationship. I just don't feel like I know you anymore. For example, do you know what I found on the site a few days ago? A dupe! I wonder who let that in...
Slashdot, I know you will try to change, but I have been hurt too many times. You should know that I have been seeing someone else for a few months now. She is fun, easy going, and will do something for me that you never even considered, oust the president.
I don't know what else to say- we had a good run, but now its over. Pack up your Beowulf cluster, your SCO stories, hell, take slashcode if you have to. I am sure we'll see each other from time to time but I know one thing, I'll never again have to depend on you.
Yours no longer,
N I
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
Windows, I'm sorry about my affair with Linux. If it will make you happy... I wasn't root. You know I'm your only admin. What? Everyone you know is your admin? By default? What are you, some kind of whore?! This is over! (Stomps out of room crying).
I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
Actually, it looks like Linux....
Netcraft output
---------------
Linux Apache 29-Feb-2004 69.5.25.92 FUTUREQUEST INC
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Just last week I read an article where Microsoft's consumer OS market share has been continually dropping -- down from from a 6 year high of 108 percent to 105 percent just last quarter.
The Microsoft rep that lives under the sink in my kitchen was quick to strike back, however, telling me that the drop came only as a result of survey companies no longer screening for "dirtbag hippies and Communists."
I'm hopeful.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
Hey (*dink* *dink*), it looks like you're trying to write a letter....... [Help me] [No thanks]
(click "No thanks")
Okay, you don't want my help! Should I close?
(click "yes")
Okay, I'll close. Bye! Shall I do a little dance as I go?
(click "Hell, no")
Come on, I love dancing! Pleeease?
(click "Do you want to find out how many times you can bend a paper clip out of shape before it snaps?")
Hmm, you make a persuasive argument. I think I'll just close now.
$8.95/mo web hosting
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.
I work with UNIX full-time at work, specifically Solaris and HP-UX. I have been "driven up the wall" by the various errors Solaris and HP-UX have caused me, which includes not sleeping all night to fix a problem that I felt was a UNIX-only issue. I've also had problems with Windows, but I usually delegate the task of fixing Windows boxes to someone else. My poiint is every OS when used extensively can and will give you some pain. Sometimes I feel like the whole Windows vs. Linux thing is like the republicans versus the democrats.
Just a rant with karma to burn..
That was my first thought. Shameless.
...my mom thinks I'm handsome. ...I think I'm hilarious. ...when I drink, I become a better singer.
In other news...
Anyone could have used a spell checker (Skiron exempt).
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Dear Server,
Stop buckling under slashdot's load, you vacuum-tubed dented cow-boxed surplus wimp! I cannot read the damned link.
Sincerely,
Pissed slashdot user
Table-ized A.I.
Well, at least you know that you won't have to wait until your birthday for her to go down on you.
In other news... ...my mom thinks I'm handsome.
If she thinks YOU'RE handsome, she'll definately let me hit it. What's her number?
NTITE
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
Yours no longer,
S C
Dear S C,
I didn't give a fuck about you anyway -- already took all your money AND made you look like an idiot - what woman can possibly want more?
Sincerely,
Ms. Windows
I think his webserver just broke up with him :(
SIGFAULT
> 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.
Isn't that just like a man? Inattentive, unappreciative, selfish. Gawd, what was I thinking when I went home with you?
Do you have even the slightest idea what I do for you, tirelessly, flawlessly, every day? No. You spend more time doting on your car than me. You've never even looked in /etc, have you? Oh, that's right, "I shouldn't have to think about that."
And to think you'd begrudge me ten measly hours. Do you have any idea what those ten hours will pay you back down the road? Don't you understand that we're trying to build a relationship here? And that relationships require time and commitment? But no, your eyes keep drifting over to that cheap, heavily-made-up harlot from Washington, and thinking to yourself, "Things would be so much easier and more fun with her." Yeah, for a little while. But then the problems would start, and multiply quickly after that. And you know something? The problems you'd have with her would turn out, fundamentally, to be the same problems you say you're having with me. I proved this to you; did you think I was lying? At least I'm being honest with you, and making you aware up-front of what you're getting into, and the work you'll need to do.
I may be cheap, but I'm not easy, buster. If you want something meaningful, something lasting, I'll always be willing to give that to you. Hell, I'll even dress up like that floozy Washington chick if you want. But you'd better be ready to get off your kiester and put in some effort. You may think I'm trying to emasculate you or humiliate you, but what I'm really asking you to do is become an adult. Otherwise, you're just going to go from disappointment to disappointment, and never understand why things keep falling apart.
I'll always be there for you,
Linnie
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I wish you didn't work for Microsoft.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
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
Dear SC:
If you think you're going to just dump me and leave after you've used me for all these years, you have something else coming, bub.
I was a tramp when you met me, and you should have known this. I was brash, got around, was completely unstable. You weren't particularily good to me either -- you'd just disappear for hours every time you wanted to play Doom with your buddies.
And it wasn't as if you didn't have other options. There was that nice, stable, amd smart OS/2 next door who had eyes for you. OS/2 was smart, sophisticated, let you do more at once, and could handle twice the bits I could. But you wanted someone who got around, who had been with all your friends, and who didn't require you to think or learn anything, who let you leave me and covort around with your old DOS buddies whenever you wanted.
I did everything I could to try to hide the good life from you. I gave you some flash once in a while, but no substance. For some reason, you stuck around. I was always afraid you and your friends who used me would notice, so I had to take drastic measures.
First off, I had to routinely sneak into your house in every new PC you bought, even if you or your friends didn't want me around. In fact, even if you couold go to sufficient lengths to make sure I didn't sneak back into your home, you still had to pay for my services. You paid, and got nothing in return. And yet you still kept coming back.
I didn't like some of your friends. That DR-DOS guy bugged me, so I went somewhat haywire everytime you invited him around. I didn't want you to see that there were ways to improve me -- I never had any intention of improving.
Eventually you started noticing that my bits were only half of what the others were offering, so I promised I'd change. That I too would have 32 bits like the others.
And you believed me like a sucker. At first I claimed to support 32 bits through Win32s, but it was really just some more 16 bit stuff in a 32 bit disguise. I kept changing at random, not for your benifit, but to make sure you couldn't leave me by breaking OS/2's ability to run my software every month or so. Poor OS/2 was running around in circles trying to attract you by keeping up with my useless changes.
Then suddenly in 1995 I decided to get some cosmetic surgery. You were stunned when you saw me, but really I just showed the cosmetic surgeon some pictures of OS/2 and MacOS and had him take bits and pieces from them and re-shape me to look like their bastard child. I was still ugly underneath, with serious problems. I still couldn't do more than one thing at a time very well, was still unstable, and still got around with all your friends.
Worse yet, now even if you had wanted to get rid of me, I was going to show up. When you decided to upgrade your old 486 to a shiney new Pentium, I showed up uninvited. When you upgraded that Pentium to a faster model, I once again showed up, even though you already had paid for my services and held a valid license. I kept sucking your wallet dry, and was still mentally unstable.
Then I became schitzophrenic, and started offering myself in a real 32 bit version without the cosmetic surgury. But you avoided me because I wouldn't play with your old DOS games, and had serious issues that were new and strange to you.
In 1998, you started to sour. I'd been abusing you for years, but you like the sucker you are continued to stick around. I offered you a way to get onto the Information Superhighway, but ensured you could only do so in my way, when I felt like letting you. Sure OS/2 had been letting people do this for a few years -- I kept you away from the game as long as possible, but in the end, in order to keep you, I finally relented and gave you access to the new highway.
By 2000, I was able to become cocky, and my schitzophrenia grew worse. You had every right and option to leave me, but I had put blue screens over all your windows so you could
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!
"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.