Microsoft, Amazon, AOL, and the U.S. Defense Department will merge to form a new company: MAAD.
The new company will be the most abusive company in the history of the world. It will sell deliberately defective products so you will need to upgrade, show no respect for your privacy, spam you with porno invitations, and, if you complain, bomb your country.
Caucasians are from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. That region is the origin of white people. In northern Iran there are people who are whiter than anyone you commonly see in Europe or the U.S.
Since they come from southern Asia, it is not surprising that Caucasians can be found in many places in Asia.
Lack of Technical Support -- Microsoft has a large
technical support department, but my experience and that of many others with
whom I've talked is that Microsoft cannot answer difficult questions. I know
someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a
$300,000,000 a year company, and he found MS technical support useless. They
didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the
reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed
and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly.
That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason my friends and I don't get help from Microsoft
is that we don't call to ask easy questions. No doubt Microsoft provides help
to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many
many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once
a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after
4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support
representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions
about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of
them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did,
however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I
wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I
called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a
typical quality to them. To me it seems that many of the most difficult
problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just
don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able
to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic
Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy,
response time, and cost of support..." I liked this article because it is the
only one I've read which exactly mirrors my experience with Microsoft.
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a
painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is
extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It
is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system.
If they deliver a good operating system, that will be the last operating
system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers
they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to
care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive.
The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that
Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is titled Court's Findings of
Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was
that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S.
Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large
companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in
my opinion.
No one, apparently, has gathered all the abuses in one place. If that were
done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to stay away from Microsoft. Stay
away from habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft
technical support could answer my questions, I don't like their arrogant
manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU
community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important
person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing.
I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is
possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community
cannot answer, but they will usually be extemely friendly while they are
discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is
like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it,
maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put
back doors into its software, so that the U.s. can more easily spy? You don't
know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document gives importance to Red
Hat's 10-Q disclaimer. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the
article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer
says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's
operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of
minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to
do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes
I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft
Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense
against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you
know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much
better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast
food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and
makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they find that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk
they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school.
They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000
doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the
system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail
environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and
the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once
you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. In a
retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware.
Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers
of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces.
Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to
support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers
to Microsoft's article. I would like to see a comprehensive list. If we can
get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against
Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write
comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints
are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that
Microsoft receives little effective criticism.
Michael Jennings
Futurepower Computer Systems
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.
Tel: (503) 233-7820
Fax: (419) 781-4606
E-Mail: mikejen@hevanet.com
E-Mail: Futurepower@MailAndNews.com
Futurepower is a registered trademark.
Copyright 2001 by Michael Jennings.
Let's answer Microsoft's criticism. -- I'd like to see an article that discusses the Linux side of the issues mentioned by Microsoft.
Lack of Technical Support -- For example, I have found Microsoft technical support useless. I know someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a $300,000,000 a year company, and he also found MS technical support useless. Microsoft's technical support representatives didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly. That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason I don't get help from Microsoft is that I don't call to ask easy questions. I'm sure that Microsoft provides help to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after 4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did, however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
I liked the article published by the Boston Mac User's Group (BMUG) about who is better at answering Microsoft product technical support calls: Microsoft Technical Support, or The Psychic Friends Network? You can read it at Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a typical quality to them. It seems that many of the most difficult problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support..." I liked this article because it is the only one I've read which exactly mirrors my experience with Microsoft.
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system. If Microsoft delivers a good operating system, that will be the last operating system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive. The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is on the web in the Court's Findings of Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S. Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in my opinion. (You can see more information about the antitrust cases against Microsoft at United States v. Microsoft, Antitrust Case Filings.)
No one, apparently, has gathered all Microsoft's abuses in one place. If that were done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to avoid Microsoft. Avoid habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft technical support representatives could answer my questions, I don't want to be forced to experience their arrogant manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing. I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community cannot answer, but they will usually be extremely friendly while they are discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it, maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put back doors into its software, so that the U.S. can more easily spy? You don't know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document pretends that Red Hat's 10-Q disclaimer is important. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they discover that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school. They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000 doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. Microsoft's statements about upgrading often are not based on reality. My experience has been that there are few operating system upgrades.
In a retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware. Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces. Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers to Microsoft's article. I would like to see comprehensive answers. If we can get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that Microsoft receives little criticism that would be effective with non-technical people.
It amazes me that this post is rated only 1, while the original post is rated 5.
Anyhow that's exactly right: It is a standard layer of abstraction.
In countries that have uncertain power, the UPS is needed 20 times a day. The UPS provides surge protection and power to bridge short outages for several devices, not just the monitor and computer.
Uninformed moderating like this makes it necessary to browse at a low level, so as not to miss important comments.
CD-R blanks are made with cyanine dyes, not cyanide, as I said earlier.
The materials are cheap. The article implies that there are plenty of CD-making machines. The article says that the royalties have dropped. There is therefore no reason to predict that CD-R prices will rise.
If you want to find out what kind of dyes your CD-R blanks use, there is a program that supplies this information, and manufacturer and capacity. The program is free. To get it:
1) Go to http://www.cdpage.com/
2) Click on Software Archives
3) Click on CD-R Identifier. The program will download.
Unzip the archive and run the program. Click on the UPPER icon to display information about your CD-R. The CD-R does not need to be blank.
"Software rental is a bad idea for the same reason ASPs are a bad idea: you're giving up control of something fundamental to someone who has interests other than yours."
When two of the most abusive companies in the U.S. fight, it is like a science
fiction film: The 50-meter gorilla battles the giant ant from outer space.
But why? Why can't the gorilla and the ant live together in peace?
Do you ever ask yourself why people devote their lives to fighting?
Microsoft is driven by a powerful conflict of interest. If Microsoft delivers
a good operating system, it will be the last operating system most people buy.
But why not just finish the job? Why not deliver a good operating system, and
then do something else? Why does a man who has billions of dollars want to
devote his life to fighting? Why does a man who has billions of dollars want
to devote his life to sneakiness and abusiveness? Why is it necessary to try
to take over the world when you already own more than you can possibly use?
It is not as though the price of hamburgers will ever rise so much that Bill
Gates won't be able to afford one. He is certainly not defending himself from
any real threat.
When the 50-meter gorilla fights the giant ant, it is best to stay as far away
from the battle as possible.
The giant ant will probably kill the 50-meter gorilla. Microsoft's income is
rapidly disappearing. Most people will stay with the computers they already
have. The computers are far from perfect, but they do the job. It is possible
to live with having to restart your computer 5 times a day.
The giant ant has fixed monthly income from subscribers, and rapidly lowering
monthly costs, because of cheaper, more efficient technology. If AOL bought
Time Warner, it can buy other huge companies, also.
But people are rapidly becoming aware that a local Internet service provider
is almost always better than AOL. In an educated world, AOL would not exist.
So, after the giant ant kills the 50-meter gorilla, the ant will die of natural
causes.
But it is unfortunate that all of us have to suffer because of stupid fighting.
The method of communicating described WILL interfere with other communications. Think about it; it is more electromagnetic radiation. Of course it interferes.
The FCC WILL regulate it. It is the Federal Communications Commission, not the Federal Spectrum Commission.
The U.S. chose not to develop people here, but to take the best people from other countries.
Would it have worked out so badly to depend on our own citizens, and solve whatever problems arose? These are problems that needed solving anyway. When we bring people in from outside we turn our back on our own country.
And, we cripple the other country. How can another country improve, when some of its most intelligent people are away and unavailable?
The article is excellent. The topic most important to me on Slashdot is the progress of Open Source development.
It's interesting to get a glimpse into the inner workings of what apparently is one of the most socially important and socially advanced endeavors in the world today. Open Source development is an example of humankind working in a truly cooperative way for the benefit of all of us.
I am quoting "The Pain and the Pleasure of Perl", a section of the article "Simple CGI Scripting" by Leo Laporte. This article is linked below the featured article, which is an interview with the creator of Perl.
This is the full quote: "Perl is an ungainly hodgepodge of a language that is hard to learn, hard to use well, and devilishly difficult to maintain."
I have very little experience with Perl, but the quote seems reasonable to me. The language seems very confused and confusing.
I'm honestly interested. I'm trying to decide if I should put time into learning Perl, or is Python really better, or something else.
This seems to be a case where the moderation system failed. My comment is scored at 0, but the replies to my comment have perhaps a total of 15 points. The result is that the very useful replies are hidden unless the reader changes his or her threshold from the default of 1 to 0.
"There is skill and dedication involved here, even if it's not to the level of those who author the tools. I think by trying to belittle the perpetrators, people are really just trying to make the problem seem much less severe than it actually is, and thereby make themselves feel better."
VERY well said. If all teenagers were smart enough to run DoS attacks, this would be such a different world as to be unrecognizable.
Hackers do us a favor by showing the security holes, the things that need fixing.
The root problem is social: 1) Women have babies that they do not have the psychological and financial resources to care for. 2) Children who aren't cared for become people who have a lot of inner conflict. 3) Some people with inner conflict choose to make their conflict a problem for others. 4) People who haven't been cared for often have children who also aren't cared for, causing the social process to repeat.
The key sentence in the article "Ain't no network strong enough" is:
"Schneier sympathizes; he admits that depression forced him to cease working on the manuscript for over a year."
This is not an article about computers; it is an article about a man's problem with depression. Mr. Schneier cannot admit to himself directly that he has inner conflict, so he is using computer security as a symbol of his conflict.
Open BSD (http://www.openbsd.org/) advertises: "Three years without a remote hole in the default install! Only one localhost hole in two years in the default install!" This result has been achieved by auditing the source code.
Windows 98 is not an example of hopelessness of computer security; it is an example of the business model of a monopoly. Microsoft makes more money if it provides buggy software; the bugs give users a reason to upgrade to a new, slightly less buggy version.
Extremely rapid progress is being made in computer security; it is incorrect to paint a picture of hopelessness.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft, Amazon, AOL, and the U.S. Defense Department will merge to form a new company: MAAD.
The new company will be the most abusive company in the history of the world. It will sell deliberately defective products so you will need to upgrade, show no respect for your privacy, spam you with porno invitations, and, if you complain, bomb your country.
I like it. Even if you only use gestures to back up one page, it is much faster.
Caucasians are from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia. That region is the origin of white people. In northern Iran there are people who are whiter than anyone you commonly see in Europe or the U.S.
Since they come from southern Asia, it is not surprising that Caucasians can be found in many places in Asia.
Map of the Caucasus
The article below responds to a paper by Microsoft that criticizes Linux. Microsoft's criticism is discussed in Linux Today: Microsoft Germany Article Regarding Linux Disadvantages
Answering Microsoft's Criticism of Linux
Lack of Technical Support -- Microsoft has a large technical support department, but my experience and that of many others with whom I've talked is that Microsoft cannot answer difficult questions. I know someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a $300,000,000 a year company, and he found MS technical support useless. They didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly. That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason my friends and I don't get help from Microsoft is that we don't call to ask easy questions. No doubt Microsoft provides help to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after 4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did, however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
I liked the article published by the Boston Mac User's Group (BMUG) titled: Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network: Which Provides Better Support for Microsoft Products?
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a typical quality to them. To me it seems that many of the most difficult problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support ..." I liked this article because it is the
only one I've read which exactly mirrors my experience with Microsoft.
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system. If they deliver a good operating system, that will be the last operating system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive. The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is titled Court's Findings of Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S. Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in my opinion.
No one, apparently, has gathered all the abuses in one place. If that were done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to stay away from Microsoft. Stay away from habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft technical support could answer my questions, I don't like their arrogant manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing. I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community cannot answer, but they will usually be extemely friendly while they are discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it, maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put back doors into its software, so that the U.s. can more easily spy? You don't know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document gives importance to Red Hat's 10-Q disclaimer. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they find that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school. They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000 doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. In a retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware.
Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces. Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers to Microsoft's article. I would like to see a comprehensive list. If we can get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that Microsoft receives little effective criticism.
Michael Jennings
Futurepower Computer Systems
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.
Tel: (503) 233-7820
Fax: (419) 781-4606
E-Mail: mikejen@hevanet.com
E-Mail: Futurepower@MailAndNews.com
Futurepower is a registered trademark.
Copyright 2001 by Michael Jennings.
Let's answer Microsoft's criticism. -- I'd like to see an article that discusses the Linux side of the issues mentioned by Microsoft.
Lack of Technical Support -- For example, I have found Microsoft technical support useless. I know someone who headed the system administration at the headquarters of a $300,000,000 a year company, and he also found MS technical support useless. Microsoft's technical support representatives didn't know why SQL Server was failing, and they could not discover the reason.
In my extensive experience with Microsoft, since the days before PCs existed and we had the CP/M OS, Microsoft has only answered one question correctly. That was a question about a C compiler problem.
Obviously, part of the reason I don't get help from Microsoft is that I don't call to ask easy questions. I'm sure that Microsoft provides help to many of its customers who are novices.
I have called Microsoft technical support about operating system problems many times, and they have NEVER been able to solve the problems, although once a technical support representative and I worked out a solution together, after 4 difficult hours.
Once about four years ago I talked to a friendly Microsoft technical support representative. He was very knowledgeable. I had a written list of questions about Windows. He was able to give me no answers. He just laughed at some of them and said he wouldn't know how to begin finding the solution. He did, however, provide me with some very useful information concerning problems I wasn't currently having. I remember this representative so clearly because I called expecting the usual Microsoft roughness, and he was friendly.
I liked the article published by the Boston Mac User's Group (BMUG) about who is better at answering Microsoft product technical support calls: Microsoft Technical Support, or The Psychic Friends Network? You can read it at Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network
Look at the problems mentioned in the BMUG article. They seem to me to have a typical quality to them. It seems that many of the most difficult problems with Microsoft products are ones that come from programmers who just don't care about doing a good job.
Neither Microsoft Technical Support nor The Psychic Friends Network were able to answer any of the questions, but the BMUG article says: "... the Psychic Friends Network has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support
I think I would find the BMUG article more humorous if it weren't about such a painful subject.
Microsoft's Flawed Business Model -- The Microsoft business model is extremely flawed because it is heavily influenced by conflict of interest. It is in Microsoft's financial interest NEVER to deliver a good operating system. If Microsoft delivers a good operating system, that will be the last operating system most of its customers will buy.
Microsoft is a huge company, much bigger than most of the retail customers they might serve. If you have a problem, chances are they are too large to care.
Microsoft's Abusiveness -- Microsoft has a history of being abusive. The U.S. Justice Department court case pending against Microsoft found that Microsoft was extremely abusive. This document is on the web in the Court's Findings of Fact. What surprised me about the 207 pages of descriptions of abuses was that it didn't mention the abuses that I thought were most important. The U.S. Justice Department mostly focused on Microsoft's mistreatment of large companies. But Microsoft's mistreatment of small users is more destructive, in my opinion. (You can see more information about the antitrust cases against Microsoft at United States v. Microsoft, Antitrust Case Filings.)
No one, apparently, has gathered all Microsoft's abuses in one place. If that were done, we would have an important way to show why Open Source/GNU is better.
Abusiveness is one of the biggest reasons to avoid Microsoft. Avoid habitual abusers if you don't want to be abused. Even if Microsoft technical support representatives could answer my questions, I don't want to be forced to experience their arrogant manner. I don't want to have to accept abuse to get something I want.
Contrast Microsoft's abusiveness with the friendliness of the Open Source/GNU community. One Sunday about 8 AM, I sent an e-mail message to an important person in the community, requesting information for an article I was writing. I was surprised to get a complete answer less than 3 hours later. It is possible that you have a problem that people in the Open Source/GNU community cannot answer, but they will usually be extremely friendly while they are discussing it.
Closed source software is like sausage. -- Closed source software is like sausage. You don't know what's in it. If you did know what was in it, maybe you wouldn't want it. Has the U.S. government forced Microsoft to put back doors into its software, so that the U.S. can more easily spy? You don't know and you may never know.
Disclaimer Nonsense -- The Microsoft document pretends that Red Hat's 10-Q disclaimer is important. But look at Microsoft's disclaimer at the end of the article. It is much more sweeping: MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Basically, this disclaimer says that Microsoft does not have to be honest.
Microsoft Windows Encourages Playing. -- A huge problem with Microsoft's operating systems in a retail environment is that there are large numbers of minimum wage workers who like to play with the OS. Sometimes I have arrived to do system maintenance and found that the cursor has become a spider. Sometimes I have found systems that have been re-configured to allow exploits. Microsoft Windows 2000 may have a lot of security features, but it has no defense against someone who knows the passwords. If you know retail environments, you know that there will be times that the passwords are compromised. It is much better to have an OS that does not look familiar and does not invite playing.
Here is a typical scenario. Joe and John are night shift workers at a fast food restaurant. Joe is senior at 23. He makes $8.50 per hour. John is 19 and makes $7.65 per hour. They often find themselves bored when business is slow.
One night they discover that the store manager has left his desk open. In his desk they find a list of passwords.
Joe and John have both had computers since the early years of high school. They decide to try to load a game one of them has at home. But Windows 2000 doesn't work well with some games. The game doesn't run, but they leave the system in an unstable state.
Retail hardware is very standard and conservative. -- In a retail environment, you want a fixed solution. You buy the hardware and software, and the two work together as a unit until you buy new hardware and software. Once you make it work, chances are there will be no need for big changes. Microsoft's statements about upgrading often are not based on reality. My experience has been that there are few operating system upgrades.
In a retail environment, you try to buy very standard hardware. Usually this hardware interacts in a manner that is well behind the frontiers of technology. For example, receipt printers use very standard interfaces. Yes, Microsoft has more drivers, but in a retail environment you won't need to support the latest game.
This is just a short list. -- This is just a very short list of answers to Microsoft's article. I would like to see comprehensive answers. If we can get a team together to write one, I will help.
If I were Red Hat's marketing manager, I would have no trouble selling against Microsoft. Unfortunately, Red Hat does not have a strong marketing department.
Microsoft receives little effective criticism. -- People who write comments on Slashdot often complain about Microsoft. But, since the complaints are usually brief and not well documented, the aggregate result is that Microsoft receives little criticism that would be effective with non-technical people.
Let's do a more thorough benchmark, and include NTFS.
If someone wants to do this, I will write the article about the results.
It amazes me that this post is rated only 1, while the original post is rated 5.
Anyhow that's exactly right: It is a standard layer of abstraction.
In countries that have uncertain power, the UPS is needed 20 times a day. The UPS provides surge protection and power to bridge short outages for several devices, not just the monitor and computer.
Uninformed moderating like this makes it necessary to browse at a low level, so as not to miss important comments.
The article says:
1) Customer lists the features that the software must provide.
2) Programmers break the features into stand-alone tasks and estimate the work needed to complete each task.
The article assumes that the customer is perfect. There are several steps missing in between 1 and 2:
1b) The customer only supplied 40 to 60 percent of the needed information.
1c) The customer is not clear about his needs, and provided some information that is misleading.
If you take into account missing steps like these, the methods required to manage change considerably.
CD-R blanks are made with cyanine dyes, not cyanide, as I said earlier. The materials are cheap. The article implies that there are plenty of CD-making machines. The article says that the royalties have dropped. There is therefore no reason to predict that CD-R prices will rise.
If you want to find out what kind of dyes your CD-R blanks use, there is a program that supplies this information, and manufacturer and capacity. The program is free. To get it:
1) Go to http://www.cdpage.com/
2) Click on Software Archives
3) Click on CD-R Identifier. The program will download.
Unzip the archive and run the program. Click on the UPPER icon to display information about your CD-R. The CD-R does not need to be blank.
The article implied that there was already an over-capacity of factories. CDs are cheap because the equipment that produces them is automatic
I should have said that the cyanide bond is a single bond.
This summer there will be a shortage of Carbon and Nitrogen molecules joined together with a double bond.
Does this sound likely?
If there is no shortage of the raw materials, then why would there be a shortage of final product?
Without more explanation, this story must be considered to be lacking in foundation.
Note that the story says the royalties have gone down.
This subsciption scheme is just a symptom of a larger illness.
Microsoft is a rapidly dying company.
Well said:
"Software rental is a bad idea for the same reason ASPs are a bad idea: you're giving up control of something fundamental to someone who has interests other than yours."
When two of the most abusive companies in the U.S. fight, it is like a science fiction film: The 50-meter gorilla battles the giant ant from outer space.
But why? Why can't the gorilla and the ant live together in peace?
Do you ever ask yourself why people devote their lives to fighting?
Microsoft is driven by a powerful conflict of interest. If Microsoft delivers a good operating system, it will be the last operating system most people buy.
But why not just finish the job? Why not deliver a good operating system, and then do something else? Why does a man who has billions of dollars want to devote his life to fighting? Why does a man who has billions of dollars want to devote his life to sneakiness and abusiveness? Why is it necessary to try to take over the world when you already own more than you can possibly use?
It is not as though the price of hamburgers will ever rise so much that Bill Gates won't be able to afford one. He is certainly not defending himself from any real threat.
When the 50-meter gorilla fights the giant ant, it is best to stay as far away from the battle as possible.
The giant ant will probably kill the 50-meter gorilla. Microsoft's income is rapidly disappearing. Most people will stay with the computers they already have. The computers are far from perfect, but they do the job. It is possible to live with having to restart your computer 5 times a day.
The giant ant has fixed monthly income from subscribers, and rapidly lowering monthly costs, because of cheaper, more efficient technology. If AOL bought Time Warner, it can buy other huge companies, also.
But people are rapidly becoming aware that a local Internet service provider is almost always better than AOL. In an educated world, AOL would not exist.
So, after the giant ant kills the 50-meter gorilla, the ant will die of natural causes.
But it is unfortunate that all of us have to suffer because of stupid fighting.
There were two big mistakes in the article:
The method of communicating described WILL interfere with other communications. Think about it; it is more electromagnetic radiation. Of course it interferes.
The FCC WILL regulate it. It is the Federal Communications Commission, not the Federal Spectrum Commission.
The U.S. chose not to develop people here, but to take the best people from other countries.
Would it have worked out so badly to depend on our own citizens, and solve whatever problems arose? These are problems that needed solving anyway. When we bring people in from outside we turn our back on our own country.
And, we cripple the other country. How can another country improve, when some of its most intelligent people are away and unavailable?
A headset with a low-pass filter in the leads and a ferrite core surrounding the leads, will, if properly designed, be completely radiation-free.
The article is excellent. The topic most important to me on Slashdot is the progress of Open Source development.
It's interesting to get a glimpse into the inner workings of what apparently is one of the most socially important and socially advanced endeavors in the world today. Open Source development is an example of humankind working in a truly cooperative way for the benefit of all of us.
I am quoting "The Pain and the Pleasure of Perl", a section of the article "Simple CGI Scripting" by Leo Laporte. This article is linked below the featured article, which is an interview with the creator of Perl.
This is the full quote: "Perl is an ungainly hodgepodge of a language that is hard to learn, hard to use well, and devilishly difficult to maintain."
I have very little experience with Perl, but the quote seems reasonable to me. The language seems very confused and confusing.
I'm honestly interested. I'm trying to decide if I should put time into learning Perl, or is Python really better, or something else.
This seems to be a case where the moderation system failed. My comment is scored at 0, but the replies to my comment have perhaps a total of 15 points. The result is that the very useful replies are hidden unless the reader changes his or her threshold from the default of 1 to 0.
"There is skill and dedication involved here, even if it's not to the level of those who author the tools. I think by trying to belittle the perpetrators, people are really just trying to make the problem seem much less severe than it actually is, and thereby make themselves feel better."
VERY well said. If all teenagers were smart enough to run DoS attacks, this would be such a different world as to be unrecognizable.
Hackers do us a favor by showing the security holes, the things that need fixing.
The root problem is social: 1) Women have babies that they do not have the psychological and financial resources to care for. 2) Children who aren't cared for become people who have a lot of inner conflict. 3) Some people with inner conflict choose to make their conflict a problem for others. 4) People who haven't been cared for often have children who also aren't cared for, causing the social process to repeat.
The key sentence in the article "Ain't no network strong enough" is:
"Schneier sympathizes; he admits that depression forced him to cease working on the manuscript for over a year."
This is not an article about computers; it is an article about a man's problem with depression. Mr. Schneier cannot admit to himself directly that he has inner conflict, so he is using computer security as a symbol of his conflict.
Open BSD (http://www.openbsd.org/) advertises: "Three years without a remote hole in the default install! Only one localhost hole in two years in the default install!" This result has been achieved by auditing the source code.
Windows 98 is not an example of hopelessness of computer security; it is an example of the business model of a monopoly. Microsoft makes more money if it provides buggy software; the bugs give users a reason to upgrade to a new, slightly less buggy version.
Extremely rapid progress is being made in computer security; it is incorrect to paint a picture of hopelessness.