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Interview with Tony 'Say No to Windows' Bove
An anonymous reader writes "XYZ has an interview with Tony Bove, author of the upcoming book, "Just Say No to Microsoft". From the article: 'With this book Bove intends to help readers rid Microsoft from their life- this is easier said that done, but it is certainly possible. The book goes on to list alternatives to the Microsoft programs on which people have become dependent and probably think they cannot give up.'"
The Army reading list
I personally switched to Mac for my personal platform in '03. I love it, it's great, etc, etc, etc. But I still use Windows at work. And I think it's probably the best solution given the alternatives. It just seems that there are so many services that Microsoft provides that simply don't exist (in an easy to use manner any way) on other platforms. Things like Sharepoint, MS Project come to mind, but we also use countless programs that simply aren't available for other platforms. I understand that other platforms ARE possible for use, but is it really worth it? Anyone out there using another platform that never finds themself asking, "man, if I only had Windows?"
Mark A. McBride -- OmniNerd.com
Okay, I've been using Macs since the 80s (yes, you read correctly) and have been exclusively on Windows from between 1994 - 2004 (I'm a J2EE engineer). Last year, I belatetly hopped onto the OS X bandwagon and the only thing that keeps my Windows boxes at home running are dozens of apps that I have accumulated in the last decade. I know that I could replace most of my apps with Mac apps, but sometimes they don't support my workflow or I cannot interchange. With that said however (and with this not supposed to be turning emotional ;-) I must concede that my Windows days are limited. It has already started with iPods, Cinema displays, etc.. and my next system for sure will be an G5 or G6 (whenever it'll be released) - I happen to know Unix very well, so OS X simply rules for me. Finally, with the video iPod a new era in online video is being spearheaded (see yesterday's /. thread on the topic) and Quicktime is going to be the future. That will allow me to distribute my little shorts to millions of iPods all over the world - something Windows is lightyears away from doing. Finally, on the development front - I'm already 1/2 the time developing on a G4 and hopefully Windows is going to quietly go away in the remainder of this decade.
Agreed - the best Distributed Control Plantfloor Automation System available for the Pharma/Biotech industry is Delta-V ---> no other vendor on any other platform even comes close to it for the raw number of installs or capabilities in the last 5 yrs. Delta-V only runs on Windows - period!
The irony is, before Delta-V came out 7 or 8 years ago, all DCS's were on Unix - now if it ain't on M$ - it ain't *&(*&. The other vendors like ABB, Honeywell, etc are all filing down the same path to M$ =-)
"Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
I often think about switching away from windows but I keep seeing there is no need, and it's not really possible at this point.
Take for instance, the major tools you need to make a 3d model. Most people use 3dsMax and/or Maya, and Photoshop. You can't run those on Linux (at least well.) People can jerry-rig something, sure, but many creative industries require things to work. That's why most production houses still use Photoshop 7. It's stable. Don't even get me started with in-house tools that we use that require windows.
So, the major advantage to using windows is that it can be used for so many different things at the same time, (yes I'm aware that OSX and Linux have the ability to use different tools, but the support just isn't there yet.)
No offense, but most open source applications just aren't up to par with major releases from major corporations. Not yet, anyway.
"Lead my skeptic sight."
Why exactly should I get rid of Microsoft? I use their operating system on my primary computer although I use Linux at work as well as on my own server. I would not want to trade Windows for Linux, or Linux for Windows. Both need to co-exist.
The author of this news item says, I quote, "this is easier said that done, but it is certainly possible". So WHY exactly should I waste my precious time on trying to convert to something else when I see no need? I almost get the feeling that this dude wants a job at CNN and write articles about Bagdad Bob or something.
Get a grip. Microsoft is in a well-earned position. They fought over something that IBM had and they won. I can't say what's going to happen next but I certainly dislike people whining about its dominance too much. If you don't like the product, well, don't use it then. I don't see you driving around in an all new car that you totally hate before buying it.
Full Tilt
Aren't we preaching to the converted with these kinds of books? The people are earnestly capable of switching away from Windows are probably smart enough to do that on their own, and those that choose not to, probably also have good reasons for doing so (re: gaming). I just don't think the software is quite there yet for Grandma to use a Windows alternative without relying on some heavy tech support (often a family member). In a few years, the OSes will be there, but right now I really believe these books are premature.
I agree with you for the most part, but more from the corporate side of things. For personal use switching to Linux isn't all that hard, but when you've got some big expensive software packages in your company that are Windows-only, it makes the switch *very* difficult. It's a lot more than just word processing for most organizations. And even for simple tasks like word processing, Open Offices's MS Word import/export filters aren't perfect, making document exchange between companies difficult at times, because MS Office is just so prominent. I wish it wasn't like this really. I switched from Office to OO on my personal machines quite a while ago and am perfectly happy.
Anyhow, at home I have two Linux machines (Gentoo + Gnome & Gentoo + Flux), one Windows XP machine, and one Mac OSX machine. My Windows machine gets the most use because it's just what I'm most used to, and my experience over the past four years with Linux on the desktop hasn't given me enough reason to say that it's a *better* environment (forgetting about what's under the hood, that is), aside from not having to be as concerned about malware/viruses.
The only thing I really don't like about modern-day Windows these days is that it's from Microsoft. Especially after the BSA crap and their bogus "software assurance" licensing bullshit, I won't even accept calls from Microsoft salespeople or market researchers at work anymore.
It is fair game to complain about the costs of Windows, Office and other MS products because that leads to a costs vs benefits analysis of whether it is a better value vs the time and effort spent by the users and the administration costs than other solutions like Linux and OpenOffice. It is fair game to complain about the security issues with Microsoft's products because they have admitted as much that there are issues there and regularly release patches and advisories to address them and are making the ability to run as a non-administrator level user a requirement of software written for Vista to further address it. It is fair game to quantitatively compare the performance of Microsoft's solutions versus other vendor's solutions because, as long as the setup is fair and impartial, numbers don't lie and are a useful tool for comparison of applicability and value of a solution to your needs and hardware. It is fair game to talk of particular bugs and issues you have with Microsoft's products because they have a responsibility to support their products such that they work as advertised. It is even fair game to argue subjective points like ease of use and ease of administration of Microsoft's solutions versus that of their competitors because these are things that people from desktop users to system administrators use every day as an integral part of their jobs and have some responsibility for making things as easy and productive as possible for all involved in the enterprise.
However, what is not fair game is this view of Microsoft as evil and their solutions are never to be considered and you need to "Say No To Windows." Beware those who will tell you that Microsoft is evil, that it's solutions are never better suited to your situation and who will say things about the stability and performance of the OS that fly in the face of the millions who use it without such issues day in and day out to get their work done. There are people believe in Linux and opensource almost as a religion and suffer from the logical fallacy that, if Linux is as better in every way as they believe it to be, Microsoft can only be maintaining it's dominance in marketshare by some sort of evil trickery and vendor lock-in. You are not going to get the answers you need from these sorts of individuals - the corporate solutions will never get any consideration no matter how easy to use, easy to administer, fast, stable and secure that they get. I am still waiting to see a truly fair and objective comparison on Slashdot that takes all these things into account for various situations. That is an article I'd read and the book I'd buy...
And from the average user's perspective, anything more than 0 steps is too many.
Now this is the type of arrogant ignorance I get series headaches from when I come across it. How many steps did you require to learn to use a Windows ? Ok, scrap that. What you mean is that you got so so mentally stuck and so unable to change, to learn and to adapt, or became simply too fragging lazy to even consider using anything else than some good/bad [doesn't really matter] app you got used to ? If that's the case I really deeply feel sorry for you, but all I can say is that all you get is what you deserve. God forbid you happen to drop into a situation where you need to learn new things. What will you do, hang yourself ? Bah, I'm outa here.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Haven't read his book, skimmed TFA since it doesn't apply to me, but...
I am a Mac user and find it vastly superior to XP, but I'm not going to be your typical zealot. XP is FULL of flaws, and this leads to 3 possible solutions, Switch to OS X, switch to Linux or the ilk, or fi Windows. The last one is out of our reach, leaving the previous two, both of which are viable, and both of which ultimatly boil to to personal taste/practicallity. Linux wasn't my thing (not developed enough, to much kludge and ductape, got plain sick of maintence and working for my computer), but it might be yours.
Whats wrong with XP/MS? Security, natch. Even with the security SP it still is about as secure as something that isn't secure. Active X is a slayer. XP itself is a VAST improvement for MS, but still has a hard time having over 30 days uptime without a crash. I generally take a day off once a week or month to antivirus/spybot/adaware/reg clean/defrag, which is damn obnoxious. I don't like having a handy CLI for when I want to get my hands dirty (BSD for OS X and Linux for... Linux). Sure, XP has ghetto DOS emulation, but it lacks ANY power when compaired to OS X or Linux. I don't like any OS where I need to do undo maintence to. I don't like having to reinstall XP every once in awhile, and where that is the best option for most soft problems. I don't much like the look of it, and customizing it takes a grip of time (who thought a blue start menu was pretty?), and even in 98 mode, it looks like crap still. I don't like a shit ton of completely hidden and obscure features. I don't like the OS telling me what to use for tasks, and taking a performance hit if I don't. Along with that, I don't like software integrated into the OS as it takes away my choice.
As to why I chose OS X (ignore this if you hate Mac talk), my XP Box ate it from bad hardware, and I realized that I really didn't feel like taking the time to fix it, EVER AGAIN. I am too damn busy to be spending time fixing and babying my computer. I must agree with the Apple folk, a computer should be an appliance, it should sit there quietly when not used, and do what it is supposed to do when it is, with no real interference from me. Neither windows or Linux (as of yet, I do have hope) has this ease of use yet. I also like things to be powerful, but simple. Yes, Macs have a dumbed down, easy to use interface, this used to irk me, but now I think it is the best thing. I used to think that Macs were not powerful because of their easy colorful look, but then I started messing with terminal. Also macs can use Quicksilver and XP/Linux boxes can't. QS is like tabbed browsing, you can't go back after using it. Windows, vanilla OS X, and Linux boxes feel gimped now.
Now it is your turn to defend windows.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I dunno, I seem to be doing pretty well running very popular karaoke shows on weeknights and weekends in a college town using an all-digital system entirely based on free software running on a notebook.
64-bit Ubuntu Linux starts things off, Enlightenment manages (very effectively) the desktop I run during the shows (part of the screen is shown on a big-screen TV so folks know who's singing and who's next; Firefox (!) does that display work), XMMS does a beautiful job (moving to amaroK for this purpose though; it's even nicer) playing both filler and karaoke music, crossfading smoothly between tracks and managing all the audio bits for me, SingIt runs the CDG karaoke lyrics, and my own home-grown Python code manages the singer rotations for me. Sure seems like more than Word and Excel to me.
Sure, I'm a "geek" and I know what I'm doing. No need for Windows on this machine.
Essentially out of the blue, two weeks ago my mother called and asked me if I could bring a Linux Live CD by next time I visit. She's sick of how slow her machine's getting. She's sick of constant root-level vulnerabilities being discovered and needing patching on her workstation. She knows all about not running spyware, about keeping the antivirus software updated, etc., but otherwise she's a polar opposite from me — she doesn't program, she just uses her computer for assorted "computery" tasks.
She's what you'd call a member of "the masses," and even she's ready to switch. It's not a question of "getting by" without Microsoft's software. It's a matter of people saying "holy shit this thing is so much faster / more stable / more useful without that Windows crap on it!" and realizing they've been fooled for years. I don't "get by" without Microsoft; I prosper without them.
And as an aside, plenty of specialized industrial software is still developed for and supported on platforms other than Windows. Show me a heart/vitals monitor in a hospital that runs anything from Microsoft on it. Visit HP's hardware testing labs and witness the Unix-driven measurement and control systems.
Read my stuff.
This is a quick fix for your problem:
Insert following as a sig. in your mail system "Our company do not allow MS-formatted documents due to security problems in MS-formats. All MS-formatted documents sent to us are trashed at the mail gateway.
Allowed formats: OpenDoc, PDF, TXT and RTF."
Same text on your website... and an autoresponder from the mailserver: "Your mail for mail@address.here contained a potentially dangerous file and have been trashed. Please send file in one of the allowed formats (OpenDoc, PDF, TXT, RTF)."
It is not nice but it works... and the mailflow decreases...
What sucks is that people get accustomed to doing things the Microsoft way. Let me illustrate with an example.
.NET framework. Only then will I be allowed to upload this data.
I have to communicate some textual data --- a small amount (less than a page) --- to a company. This company has hired a team of developers to produce a 50MB program to enter this data into their system. In order to use the program, I have to install a database and the
This, IMHO, is more along the lines of what the author is getting at. We should not be bitching about Microsoft VS Linux. We should be bitching that after decades of computing, we still haven't settled upon some kind of standard by which to communicate a mouthful of data in a form which everyone is capable of reading and editing.
In an age where we discuss quantum computing and space travel, this state of affairs is absolutely disgraceful.
I've just had to start connecting to an Exchange server using MS Outlook (I'm used to Exim and Thunderbird). It's handy to receive appointments directly into my calendar by email, but is it really "by email" then? It's another use of the same desktop application. And it seems rather strange that I receive an email about an appointment, but when I click "Accept", it stops being an email, and becomes an appointment - so I can't forward the agenda to a colleague who didn't receive the email, being one example I came across today. I'm still new to Exchange and Outlook, but it strikes me that these functions should (in principle) be reasonably straight-forward to break down into multiple applications (from the client-side and/or the server-side) but it's an ugly mess of functionality. First impressions (since I last met Exchange in 1998): Ugh. Horrid. Search functionality compared to Thunderbird ... well, I can't find it! Certainly noting as straightforward as Thunderbird - just grope through search options (once I found them!) and even with the "Advanced" search options, I can't find anything like Thunderbird (let alone Evolution, if I could tolerate it, which I can't) power of searching and sorting emails.
So there you go - a new-user's guide to Microsoft.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
That's a good MS promoter!
If it doesn't run on Windows, it's Jerry-rigged, and pushing companies to write cross-platform software would just be pushy.
Here's a little-known-fact about linux: Many major software manufacturers write software that runs on linux. The ones that don't, are doing it based on marketing strategies. If the market changed, so would their coding practices. As a business owner, I do not have the type of money to back up a Microsoft platform, and I also cannot justify using the software due to quality and corporate tie-ins. When I'm bigger, maybe I'll dig myself a hole and dive in head first (Microsoft said they already have it started for me whenever I feel like jumping).
Honestly, if Adobe made their software for Linux, then I would guess at least another 29 million people would switch over to linux. I just love how software like Blender 3d, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, Zend Studio, Star Office, MySQL, Oracle, Apache, PHP, and many many others all work on Windows and Linux, and oftentimes MacOSX, but lazy companies like Adobe/Macromedia, Autodesk, and most gaming companies choose to single out one or two platforms to target simply because of marketing strategies.
Microsoft has chosen time and time again to refuse to implement global standards simply because they want to lock people into using their software. Your post proves that their marketing strategy works.
Also keep in mind that hardware working with the operating system says more about the hardware manufacturers than the operating system. Microsoft has been known to strongarm hardware manufacturers to not create linux drivers, and many hardware manufacturers are just too lazy to work with the linux community.
So while Linux, being about half the age of windows, is still lacking in a few areas, it is still more stable and provides enough features for me to use. I still keep a windows box around at work for troubleshooting other users' microsoft office problems, and for running the Adobe Creative Suite, but you can bet I'll be formating every windows box I own as soon as Adobe releases Linux binaries. (considering how closely related OSX and Linux are, I still don't understand why they don't make a linux port)
In short, if industries really did shift to linux, companies that write software wouldn't hesitate to change as well. It is our fear of something different that keeps us on Windows, and keeps software developers from writing linux code, resulting in jerry-rigged solutions like Firefox, Thunderbird, PHP, Apache, Oracle Enterprise server, and others. (note the sarcasm)
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis