Your post, here, today, has convinced me to get a second slashdot account for responding to the lies, since speaking the *truth* in a forum like this will get yourself modded down into oblivion to the likes of the trolls.
I'm not a Microsoft apologist or Linux zealot. I use the best tool for the job, and what you have posted here is false.
If you know how to do x on linux, you know it. But on Windows, it'll probably be in a different dialog box each time you get a new version.
Whether you are talking about the OS or third party software I don't know, but since there is always goign to be shitty third party software (closed source and open source) written for every major OS, I'll assume you are talking about the OS. The basic control elements have been the same since Windows 95. They changed it in Windows XP, but it takes all of 10 seconds to switch the theme to classic and everything is as it was. I've used RedHat for years, and any time I load a new version, something has changed. Granted, all of the CLI stuff is the same (pretty much the same on Microsoft, too), but (often useless) GUI tools in the default install seem to change.
And they'll rearrange the control panel again. And they'll rearrange the start menu again.
Those "Start Menus" and "Control Panels" change all the time in Linux distros depending on what exactly you install. They don't change hardly at all with each release of Windows. Sure you might need to learn where something new once in a while, but Linux is far more guilty of this than any Microsoft OS offering. I mean, config files are in different places in different distros! And they're all Linux! Oh, yeah I suppose profiles are kept in a different place Windows 2000 and after, but the user doesn't need to hunt down where some config file is to change some obscure option on some software. Or get a second NIC running.
Today I watched an experienced contractor, a Windows programmer and MCSE, look blankly at the WindowsXP start menu for almost half a minute, wondering what he needed to do to get the control panel (despite using it all the time in Windows2000).
Fuck. Wow. I have no response. Is he a moron? Is he blind? It's right there. Again, classic mode, if you really need it. Maybe he should try a google search to find that stuff out? That's what you end up doing with Linux anyway.
Yes, we just reformatted a load of WindowsXP machines to put Windows2000 on them. It's just that unbearable...
Let me guess, the MCSE contractor said to do it? Did he bill you hours for it? You just got taken to task. Maybe you should have used a little bit of scripting to reset all of those XP machines to classic mode? Problem solved.
I'm irritated. I had a not very tech savvy friend look at your post. He was confused, because, in his words,
"Windows hasn't really changed that much since Windows 95. Except that my computer doesn't crash anymore under Windows 2000."
What would happen when the new version of Windows would only set up an internet connection through an approved MS/AOL online service?
A mass exodus to Apple or Linux. That's what I'd do for my organization, and I have the power to make it happen. I wonder if Microsoft knows how close some of us are to switching like that? Their credibility is hanging by a thread, and the only thing keeping us from dumping them is how many products of theirs we use and the costs associated with retraining. There are those of us that can make the case to managers that will listen. Once the dollars add up, people are quick to change.
We keep hearing, almost daily, that such and such company is moving to Apple, or that some country's government across the big pond is moving to Linux. It almost seems like the house of cards is beginning to fall. Albeit, slowly, but here and there, it's starting.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah
on
Why iPod Can't Save Apple
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I think it's a quote from the American actor and comedian Steven Wright.
I don't want a downfall. I want a slow spiral into irrelevance. As much as people might not want to think so, Microsoft as a corporation is tied to the US economy.
If they die quickly, it will hurt the economy. If they go down slow, with other solutions from other companies picking up the slack all the way down, it might be better for everyone.
Once upon a time we needed people to pump gas and operate elevators because it was sorta difficult. Once it got down to punching buttons, those jobs went bye-bye.
I agree, but when these technologies became automated, we still needed people to fix them when they broke. We still do to this day.
It's impossible to build an unbreakable system, since human error is a trait we all share. We can make it really difficult to break by implementing decent QA (which is kinda rare, but that's another discussion), but there are always things that can go wrong.
The folks whose machines are that vulnerable probably need a little "housekeeping" help...
I went over to the house of one of the "higher up" people in my organization to set up some VPN software on her Windows 2000 computer. She had no virus software, no firewall, a cable connection, and left her computer on all of the time without patching. Needless to say, her laptop was completely compromised. Oddly enough, the hard drive was being defragged every day and some sort of background running software firewall had been installed. The attacker had actually secured her box and was doing routine maintenance!
Is there anybody anywhere in North America selling a GSM phone that isn't locked to a provider?
I'm uninformed. What is this locking? A google search turns up all sorts of pages about locking the keypad on phones, which I doubt is what's being discussed here.
Are there any good sites that explain the global options, carriers, what phones work with which carriers, etc?
There are more trees in the US than when we got here. Take your pick of who "we" is. Maybe those people in your tree-hugging hippie movie should have planted a few more trees like we did.
The best thing any kid could learn is to not accept everything they read or hear as fact. Blocking this site is a disservice to that end.
If I had my way, I would give unrestricted access to the web (with a browser with popup blocking to avoid those porn storms) for my users. Probably still restrictive in elementary labs, but once the kids hit secondary, they'd be able to go anywhere, since they already can at home. Teachers in my district do teach the kids about reliable sources, in particular on the internet, since it is so widely used now. Unfortunately, if I don't block these sites, we lose funding. We are required to have a CIPA approved filter blocking "inappropriate" material from the web. If we don't, we lose money, which is a bad thing.
However, there is a ray of hope shining through. While CIPA requires a safety policy that addresses "Access by minors to "inappropriate matter" on the Internet", exactly what that material is is determined by the district. So the material that needs to be blocked according to CIPA is
Obscene
Child pornography
Harmful to minors
So a district theoretically could have a fairly lax filtering policy. As a part of our state mandated tech plan, we'll be reassessing our web filtering policy this summer. Hopefully we can become less restrictive in what we block; I just need to do some political maneuvering to make sure I get the policy I want.:-p
The best thing any kid could learn is to not accept everything they read or hear as fact. Blocking this site is a disservice to that end.
If I had my way, I would give unrestricted access to the web (with a browser with popup blocking to avoid those porn storms) for my users. Unfortunately, if I don't block these sites, we lose funding. We are required to have a CIPA approved filter blocking "undesireable" and "inappropriate" material from the web. If we don't, we lose money, which is a bad thing.
Google, on the other hand, has no fact checking ability. And, making things worse, for Google to fact check itself would ruin all of the reasons why people would want to use it in the first place.
I agree. I was contacted to block a website through our school district web filter.
It's purely a hate/descrimination web site and the domain name is owned by a known white supremacist organization. But the kids that find sites like these view them as if they are fact! Kids don't do a whois search. It doesn't even enter into their minds that someone would post misleading and false information on the web. A simple Google search turns up all sorts of "information" that points to this "factual" website.
Part of me needs to block it, but kids need to see this stuff too, otherwise they'll leave school and suddenly vast swaths of the web are now "unhidden" and they won't know what to believe. Maybe I don't give kids enough credit, but it's a troubling thought that our censorship of the web might be doing more harm in the long run, and I'm a part of that.
I'd say that at least half of the nurses-in-training I know have experimented with Kazaa and other music piracy services, and are usually loaded down with 5 to 10 bad...spyware installs.
Sounds like a return to the 60's, except that the STDs won't last a lifetime.
This rhetoric is tired. The only "Windoze" servers that won't run for over a year are kept up by incompetent admins. I know because my MS Windows 2000 systems have been up for over a year. Find another argument.
but rather were upgrading to their high end dualie xeon systems -- they run very reliably, and very fast
I concur. I've got a dual Xeon 2.6 GHz (Dell) for use at work, and it's almost like the thing cannot be bogged down. I've tried. It just tools along blisteringly fast. It never goes down. I felt bad because I had to restart Windows to install a Java update (of all things) and lost my half year of Windows XP uptime. : (
Although, one of our Dell reps was out at WinHEC this year, and he said that those Opteron systems were really tight.
Absolutely true, but the damage to be done by public opinion is not in the courts, but rather in the IT spending budgets.
Fortunately for some of us, we have management that will actually listen to us. My boss trusts me that we have nothing to fear. Of course, we are a public school district, so we wouldn't exactly be first on their list. Companies suing school districts leaves a bad taste in the public's mouth. Microsoft is big enough to do it. SCO is not.
Hey SCO! I use Linux at work! Sue me! Children are exposed to Linux here! Sue me!
Are you sure? The school district I work for recently put in a fiber network to connect all our buildings together. It's less expensive in the long run to do that than pay for leased lines, and much faster as well. Now, a metro area might not see the same return on it that a school district would, but still. It's all about the ROI. We'll have made our money spent for it back in 5 years, and after that it's all saved money.
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I'm not a Microsoft apologist or Linux zealot. I use the best tool for the job, and what you have posted here is false.
If you know how to do x on linux, you know it. But on Windows, it'll probably be in a different dialog box each time you get a new version.
Whether you are talking about the OS or third party software I don't know, but since there is always goign to be shitty third party software (closed source and open source) written for every major OS, I'll assume you are talking about the OS. The basic control elements have been the same since Windows 95. They changed it in Windows XP, but it takes all of 10 seconds to switch the theme to classic and everything is as it was. I've used RedHat for years, and any time I load a new version, something has changed. Granted, all of the CLI stuff is the same (pretty much the same on Microsoft, too), but (often useless) GUI tools in the default install seem to change.
And they'll rearrange the control panel again. And they'll rearrange the start menu again.
Those "Start Menus" and "Control Panels" change all the time in Linux distros depending on what exactly you install. They don't change hardly at all with each release of Windows. Sure you might need to learn where something new once in a while, but Linux is far more guilty of this than any Microsoft OS offering. I mean, config files are in different places in different distros! And they're all Linux! Oh, yeah I suppose profiles are kept in a different place Windows 2000 and after, but the user doesn't need to hunt down where some config file is to change some obscure option on some software. Or get a second NIC running.
Today I watched an experienced contractor, a Windows programmer and MCSE, look blankly at the WindowsXP start menu for almost half a minute, wondering what he needed to do to get the control panel (despite using it all the time in Windows2000).
Fuck. Wow. I have no response. Is he a moron? Is he blind? It's right there. Again, classic mode, if you really need it. Maybe he should try a google search to find that stuff out? That's what you end up doing with Linux anyway.
Yes, we just reformatted a load of WindowsXP machines to put Windows2000 on them. It's just that unbearable...
Let me guess, the MCSE contractor said to do it? Did he bill you hours for it? You just got taken to task. Maybe you should have used a little bit of scripting to reset all of those XP machines to classic mode? Problem solved.
I'm irritated. I had a not very tech savvy friend look at your post. He was confused, because, in his words,
"Windows hasn't really changed that much since Windows 95. Except that my computer doesn't crash anymore under Windows 2000."
A mass exodus to Apple or Linux. That's what I'd do for my organization, and I have the power to make it happen. I wonder if Microsoft knows how close some of us are to switching like that? Their credibility is hanging by a thread, and the only thing keeping us from dumping them is how many products of theirs we use and the costs associated with retraining. There are those of us that can make the case to managers that will listen. Once the dollars add up, people are quick to change.
We keep hearing, almost daily, that such and such company is moving to Apple, or that some country's government across the big pond is moving to Linux. It almost seems like the house of cards is beginning to fall. Albeit, slowly, but here and there, it's starting.
Some of his better known quotes are here.
My favorite has to be, "Ever notice how it's a penny for your thoughts, yet you put in your two-cents? Someone is making a penny on the deal!"
Why? It has a screen for video. That's why.
What if we could get Linux to run on it? I'd buy one instead of an iPod.
If they die quickly, it will hurt the economy. If they go down slow, with other solutions from other companies picking up the slack all the way down, it might be better for everyone.
I agree, but when these technologies became automated, we still needed people to fix them when they broke. We still do to this day.
It's impossible to build an unbreakable system, since human error is a trait we all share. We can make it really difficult to break by implementing decent QA (which is kinda rare, but that's another discussion), but there are always things that can go wrong.
I went over to the house of one of the "higher up" people in my organization to set up some VPN software on her Windows 2000 computer. She had no virus software, no firewall, a cable connection, and left her computer on all of the time without patching. Needless to say, her laptop was completely compromised. Oddly enough, the hard drive was being defragged every day and some sort of background running software firewall had been installed. The attacker had actually secured her box and was doing routine maintenance!
Behold.
Beano.
This is similar to the classic quote:
'If a tree falls in a forest, and no one's around to hear it, and it falls on a mime, does anyone care?' - Gary Larson, The Far Side
I'm uninformed. What is this locking? A google search turns up all sorts of pages about locking the keypad on phones, which I doubt is what's being discussed here.
Are there any good sites that explain the global options, carriers, what phones work with which carriers, etc?
There are more trees in the US than when we got here. Take your pick of who "we" is. Maybe those people in your tree-hugging hippie movie should have planted a few more trees like we did.
The only countries that will starve are the ones that refuse to adapt to new technology.
Time to use genetically modified food. Don't like it? Die of malnutrition. Resistance is futile.
If I had my way, I would give unrestricted access to the web (with a browser with popup blocking to avoid those porn storms) for my users. Probably still restrictive in elementary labs, but once the kids hit secondary, they'd be able to go anywhere, since they already can at home. Teachers in my district do teach the kids about reliable sources, in particular on the internet, since it is so widely used now. Unfortunately, if I don't block these sites, we lose funding. We are required to have a CIPA approved filter blocking "inappropriate" material from the web. If we don't, we lose money, which is a bad thing.
However, there is a ray of hope shining through. While CIPA requires a safety policy that addresses "Access by minors to "inappropriate matter" on the Internet", exactly what that material is is determined by the district. So the material that needs to be blocked according to CIPA is
Obscene
Child pornography
Harmful to minors
So a district theoretically could have a fairly lax filtering policy. As a part of our state mandated tech plan, we'll be reassessing our web filtering policy this summer. Hopefully we can become less restrictive in what we block; I just need to do some political maneuvering to make sure I get the policy I want. :-p
If I had my way, I would give unrestricted access to the web (with a browser with popup blocking to avoid those porn storms) for my users. Unfortunately, if I don't block these sites, we lose funding. We are required to have a CIPA approved filter blocking "undesireable" and "inappropriate" material from the web. If we don't, we lose money, which is a bad thing.
I agree. I was contacted to block a website through our school district web filter.
www.martinlutherking.org
It's purely a hate/descrimination web site and the domain name is owned by a known white supremacist organization. But the kids that find sites like these view them as if they are fact! Kids don't do a whois search. It doesn't even enter into their minds that someone would post misleading and false information on the web. A simple Google search turns up all sorts of "information" that points to this "factual" website.
Part of me needs to block it, but kids need to see this stuff too, otherwise they'll leave school and suddenly vast swaths of the web are now "unhidden" and they won't know what to believe. Maybe I don't give kids enough credit, but it's a troubling thought that our censorship of the web might be doing more harm in the long run, and I'm a part of that.
No.
I need to post to slashdot from the bar while I drink. I won't accept anything less.
Sounds like a return to the 60's, except that the STDs won't last a lifetime.
This rhetoric is tired. The only "Windoze" servers that won't run for over a year are kept up by incompetent admins. I know because my MS Windows 2000 systems have been up for over a year. Find another argument.
Untrue.
I'm using a dual Xeon system right now with Windows XP Pro as my OS. It fucking screams. I'm not disappointed in the slightest with it.
I concur. I've got a dual Xeon 2.6 GHz (Dell) for use at work, and it's almost like the thing cannot be bogged down. I've tried. It just tools along blisteringly fast. It never goes down. I felt bad because I had to restart Windows to install a Java update (of all things) and lost my half year of Windows XP uptime. : (
Although, one of our Dell reps was out at WinHEC this year, and he said that those Opteron systems were really tight.
Fortunately for some of us, we have management that will actually listen to us. My boss trusts me that we have nothing to fear. Of course, we are a public school district, so we wouldn't exactly be first on their list. Companies suing school districts leaves a bad taste in the public's mouth. Microsoft is big enough to do it. SCO is not.
Hey SCO! I use Linux at work! Sue me! Children are exposed to Linux here! Sue me!
But with any sort of T1 you have an SLA that states a certain amount of uptime, usually above 99%. This offering has none of that guaranteed uptime.
If we die, and something happens to our "soul", does it matter whether it is destroyed or irretrievable with respect to our reality?
Not really, but we'd sure like to know.
Are you sure? The school district I work for recently put in a fiber network to connect all our buildings together. It's less expensive in the long run to do that than pay for leased lines, and much faster as well. Now, a metro area might not see the same return on it that a school district would, but still. It's all about the ROI. We'll have made our money spent for it back in 5 years, and after that it's all saved money.