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Apple vs Microsoft Both Copycats
jdbartlett writes "Yesterday, we read Paul Thurrott's response to Apple's Leopard preview. In his TechBlog, Jim Thompson trims Thurrott's bloated opinion piece and presents an alternative take on four major new features, admitting that each may have been inspired but certainly not by Microsoft. Thompson ignores 6 features; some (Core Animation, Accessibility improvements) needed no defense, but perhaps not all Thurrott's points were invalid."
Who haven't had a chance to read it, you can see my lengthy response Thurrott at http://apple.krillrblog.com./ Its the main article there.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
GUI is not very good for visually impaired. After all, it is called a "Graphical User Interface". What may be better than all the voice over and dodgy braille support is regular text interface to most used application. This is where Unix and Linux excel and neither Windows nor OS X can match this.
For example, in Debian you can have a text only interface with a spreadsheet (sc), word processor (text editor like emacs + latex if needed) and lots of database software. Mutt for email. All command line. All with transparent braille support. All working with a voice readers. No problems.
There are interoperability problems with Excel and other GUI stuff, but TUI (Text User Interface) is far superior for someone without or little sight.
If someone has a degenerative eye disease such that they will lose all of their sight in the future, I would recommend getting familiar with the console and not waste money on magnifiers and other such things as these will become less and less effective.
So Gates has been trying to poach away our OS X programmers. This started a few years ago, I guess when they first realized that Vista was in trouble. Natch our guys just laughed when they got the calls. I mean, they're working in heaven. You think they're gonna go shovel pigshit in Redmond? Plus, uh, even with backdating, you might have noticed that Microsoft options aren't exactly the road to wealth anymore. But anyhoo. Gates kept trying. You gotta hand that to him, he's a persistent little frigger. So finally I said, What the hell, let's frig with these guys. So we let two of our guys go to Microsoft, just to find out what's going on. We made a big deal like we didn't want them to go, threatened to sue Microsoft, just to make it look real. But secretly we kept them on our payroll and told them, Just stay there for a year or whatever and find out what they're doing. So they report back and tell us that Gates sat them down on day one and told them he wanted them to steal our IP from OS X and put it into Vista cause they know Vista is never gonna work, it's too tangled up, too complicated, whatever. So they go, Sure, Bill, we'll gladly steal from Apple and give all of its code to you, sure, whatever. But instead they go in there and start planting friggin bombs everywhere. I mean these are really smart guys and the poor clueless Microsoft dudes can't figure out what's going wrong with their stupid OS and why it keeps crashing. And whenever they ask, Our guys go, Hey, that's Unix, that's how it's supposed to work, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet or whatever. Ha! Brilliant!
Then, like two months ago, or whenever they announced that Vista is gonna slip into 2007 -- and believe me, we're talking waaaaay into 2007 -- I set up a meeting with Gates and I'm like, Dude, I've got OS X working on an Intel processor. Why don't you just drop this piece of crap Vista code base and just roll over to OS X? Forget the OS business and move up the stack into ERP apps or whatever. I mean, I've got it right here, Unix based, solid as a friggin rock, nice user interface, all wrapped up with a bow on it, I've even ported it to Intel for you, I mean what more do I have to do? It's like I'm teetering next to you at the bar in my miniskirt and high heels and opening one button after another on my blouse and telling you, Dude, I am soooooo wasted, let's go to your place and take some Roofies -- and you just don't friggin get it! I mean, you've got thousands of drones slaving away trying to make a knock-off of my operating system! Why? I'll friggin give it to you, okay? Or not quite give but you know. The dollars can work themselves out, as my friend Michael Ovitz (who totally loves our new MacBook Pro) likes to say. Gates just sat there rocking back and forth in his chair and then said in this really low voice that he was gonna stick to Windows. I thought maybe he was gonna cry. Because it was clear that he knew how frigged he is. I mean, he's seen the code. He knows it won't run. I swear, I felt almost sorry for him. Almost.