Slashdot Mirror
The Very Worst Uses of Windows
bigplrbear writes "I found an interesting article revealing the many places that Microsoft products reside, and what they're used for, ranging from elevators to ticket scanners."
From the article: "Thanks to VMWare Windows is spreading throughout the datacenter. And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel. While I have joined the chorus of security folks who rail against the Microsoft Monoculture I still cannot believe some of the uses for Windows. Some of them are just downright silly, some you may claim are criminally negligent." Note: I'm making no claim of criminal negligence!
Windows really doesn't belong here. Nor most places in a data center.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Well that would be great if Access was a database. We all know it's really just an Excel sheet with some crappy input validation.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
If you have more than a month uptime on a Windows system, you are not applying the patches correctly.
False. Patches that pose a realistic threat to servers are relatively rare. Most patches are local vulnerabilities like IE/ActiveX. If you are rebooting your servers every month just to install IE patches, you are a fucking moron.
I recently ran across a system at work (RedHat 5) that nobody bothered with because it always did it's job.
So what? There are plenty of documented cases of Win2k3 staying up for years at a time. You could have installed a Win2k3 server with IIS6 serving static and .asp web pages in 2003 with port 80 open on the local firewall and have it still be up today, with no externally exploitable security vulnerabilities.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
The article was trash. Subjective, factless, and ill informed.
Being a manager is hard enough without gitch religious trolls twitching their flaming tech tongues in a business vacuum. Hell no wonder they don't ask you all.
I'd add a counterpoint to, "There are no bad workers, only bad managers" that says, "There are no stupid managers, only ignorant teams." Meaning my manager's are as good as the facts, information, and delivery they receive.
Why are these old religious wars; tech v. phb, oss v. pss, win v. lin, so much fun?
Your assumption that I run an IT unit is false.
And your understanding of the scale of my responsibilities is also false. I don't have Bosses, I have a CEO. There is no one higher in the organization than him.
In fact, I don't really answer to him either. My contract is with the owner. I advise the CEO on directions to take and manage my unit in executing the initiatives my executive group comes up with.
So, thanks for playing - let the big boys do their work and you get back to your desk.
Your post history reads like an angry engineer who doesn't get recognized often enough for his incredible genius.
There is a reason no one asks you to lead anything worth a damn.
You give technical opinions to those who are ignorant. You train end users on a specific product. Whoop de fucking do. I pegged you, but you go ahead and put that into a perspective that makes you feel better.
And where did you get it into your head I don't think I have to learn?
The reality is that my team's understanding of international business as it relates to Asian markets trumps their ability to switch to a different user environment.
Rocking the boat for me isn't a matter of pissing off a few users, it's a matter of possibly losing a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal. It has the possibility of making a mistake in a trade agreement that gets my company in trouble for violating Federal Trade laws. In what I do, there are no calm waters.
As I posted before, I have reviewed the TCO for change over to a different user environment. The worth of my teams technical expertise is piss compared to 80 combined years first hand knowledge of business in the area. Now, go hire me more technically competent people with that skill set. Not so simple now.
The fact that you couldn't even imagine a scenario where business acumen would trump technical costs proves you don't know what you're talking about.
Now tell me, with a straight face, that the best way to guarantee international interoperability is to go open source. I don't control other peoples environments, but I do know they make 'em interoperable with Windows. I can't make that same claim for choose your favorite Linux distro.
Frankly, I respond to these trolls by ignorant posters because I'm tired of seeing a whole group of people classified as worthless based on a combination of their title and the huge lack of experience that technically minded people think their analytical skills make up for.
There is a very good reason my CIO doesn't fuck with me on this, and it's not because he thinks I'm an ignorant asshole.