What can you sell when everyone already owns your product... or at least pays for it? Maybe there's some deliberateness to the "every other version of Windows is horrible" stereotype... it's only become more pronounced lately.
Back when I was a CS student in the mid 80s, there was one guy who always used to brag about how long his programs were. I never understood why, but he's probably a director at Microsoft now.
Between GOG.com and Steam and Humble Bundle, etc. I've spent more on games in the past 2-3 years than the previous 10. I think PC Gaming is in a real renaissance right now. Of course, I play mostly old-school stuff...
If they would unleash Microsoft Research I bet they could come up with all kinds of cool stuff, but everything MR invents just sits there doing nothing because management doesn't want to innovate.
That's another flaw with many people who support Linux (and I'm a huge supporter of Linux, so I'm not a hater)... "It works fine for me, therefore you must have screwed it up."
There's probably something specific to his configuration that you don't use. You can't automatically blame the user. In fact, if you want to get any traction for any product, you can't blame the user even when it's the user's fault.
I'm not surprised. I mean these days a single app in Windows can easily be as big as the entire OS was 15 years ago. The complexity of that operating system is mind-boggling, and I'm speaking as someone who works on a project with almost two million lines of code.
They're Microsoft. Remember the "We're the Phone Company" skits on Saturday Night Live from the late 70s? It's the same thing. They are still a de facto monopoly and consumers have no choice to accept it.
You mean they replaced that schizophrenic Seattle monstrosity with what looks like urine-colored stained glass with flyspecks? Yeah, I'm impressed they found something even more unappealing than that "Down and Out in Seattle" bad acid trip.
I don't have a Microsoft account and I was able to install the preview. I can't speak for the final product, but one day Windows asked me if I wanted to install the 8.1 preview and I clicked "Yes". It took a ridiculously long time, and I had to reboot 3 times with more updates each time, but that was all there was to it.
I've found plenty of bugs, some persisting for years, in the various versions of Linux I've run over the years. However, I have always found that the solutions are available. Yes, sometimes they take a lot of work, but with Windows, a lot of times you just have to live with it.
The main reason I use Windows on my main laptop is because I like to run a lot of Window software that can't be run on Linux, or can't be run without hassles I don't want to deal with. Mostly games. Yes, I'm aware of alternatives, but I also have an environment and tools (including TCC and Multi-edit which have both been around for 25+ years) that I like and am very productive with. I like the Windows environment circa 2005 and as long as I can keep working that way, I will.
However, I've used Linux distros a lot... RedHat and SuSE back in the day, later Ubuntu and now Linux Mint. I like them a lot, too and would be happy to use them full-time if I chose to. Yes, there are hassles, and there are some really stupid things about them, but overall they are good.
Here's my take: It's not a matter of lacking quality control, or "not caring" but the fact that the PC ecology is so incredibly and vastly diverse that no one company can possibly cover all the corner cases.
Microsoft is bigger and (especially) richer than a lot of countries, and they do a pretty good job of it, but they can't cover it all either. Apple does a much better job, but they have a closed and extremely limited hardware ecosystem. Microsoft (along with Linux distro makers) try to make their software run on any piece of no-name discount hardware you can eke out from the back pages of Computer Shopper (is that still a thing?) and in the vast majority of cases, almost all of it works perfectly.
I'm down on MS for a lot of reasons, and I think they are overall, a very evil company, but I'll give them credit for their efforts and successes for maintaining hardware compatibility. I think they generally do it pretty well.
I also have to give a lot of credit to the Linux world. The kernel runs on an order of magnitude more diverse hardware than Windows, and desktop environments have taken up the nigh-impossible challenge of supporting as many kinds of hardware platforms (sometimes more because older hardware is often supported longer!) than Microsoft. Name a Linux organization that can put even a tenth of Microsoft's resources into their desktop and you might look at the Linux desktop experience a little differently.
In other words, I have a little more patience with the Linux desktop because it has gotten where it is by nothing more than a lot of hard work. There was no monopoly feeding it. There was no strong-arming OEMs to get it on every desktop. There were no dirty tricks used to put the competition out of business. There's no chromosomally-damaged chair-tossing troll telling me that it's the best thing possible and the only thing I should ever want. There's no vendor lock-in, no walled gardens, no sabotaging of third-party products, no deliberate breaking of backwards compatibility to force upgrades... the list goes on.
In that regard, I think Linux is the most honest and virtuous product out there. If the desktop has a few more problems here and there, I can forgive it.
I installed the 8.1 preview and I haven't noticed any difference (aside from it taking some 20 minutes to install it after downloading... is there some law that says every subsequent version of Windows must take 2-3 times longer to install updates?) .
Of course, I don't use any of the Angry Fruit Salad apps because they are all too slow and too limited and too ugly and completely inappropriate for the desktop. I never would have thought it, but with Metro, Microsoft has invented autistic software.
I've had a couple of problems with Classic Shell's start button since installing the 8.1 preview, but mostly it's working fine, and I'm sure the boffins at Classic Shell will sort out the problems in time. After all, their goal is usability and functionality.
Meanwhile, for the many years I can't find _any_ justification for anything's Microsoft done with Windows except "help support our monopoly".
Really, the Windows 8 changes (i.e., "Metro" or whatever it's called now (my vote is "Angry Fruit Salad")) were thoroughly and broadly criticized long before it ever shipped, but they forced it on us anyway. And most users just accept it because to the average non-technical computer user, computers are arbitrary and capricious and the only thing you can do is just "deal with it". In other words, Microsoft's biggest accomplishment is to condition people that software is its nature horrible. Of course, they have hardly done this alone, but they are a primary cause.
"ill mannered Uncle Fester internally furious at being fired and taking revenge on the others by trying to cost them as much as possible on the way out the door"
It could be argued by the very cynical he's been doing that for 10+ years.
I must admit I have extreme dislike for Microsoft. I merely distrust Google. I'm kind of indifferent to Apple because I don't use, nor am I directly affected by their existence. If you want to join that cult, that's your business.
They had to be good games, because they certainly couldn't rely on flashy graphics. There is still an active community for Chip's Challenge, an open-source implementation of it, even today.
Slashdot Mirror
I am wondering about Tin Cook of Apple.
I really want to make an Iron Chef joke here, but I can't think of one.
Not only that, but rogues, renegades, edginess and fast pace just screams, "We don't know how to write interesting conversations!"
Besides, I thought JJTrek was created to fill that niche...
What can you sell when everyone already owns your product... or at least pays for it? Maybe there's some deliberateness to the "every other version of Windows is horrible" stereotype... it's only become more pronounced lately.
Back when I was a CS student in the mid 80s, there was one guy who always used to brag about how long his programs were. I never understood why, but he's probably a director at Microsoft now.
Between GOG.com and Steam and Humble Bundle, etc. I've spent more on games in the past 2-3 years than the previous 10. I think PC Gaming is in a real renaissance right now. Of course, I play mostly old-school stuff...
Or maybe he's tired of the grind and just went back to drinking all day like he did in college. [shrug]
If they would unleash Microsoft Research I bet they could come up with all kinds of cool stuff, but everything MR invents just sits there doing nothing because management doesn't want to innovate.
My mind glossed over that concept until you painted such a vivid picture. Now you owe me a new one. Thanks.
Yes, but adjacent pixels of the same color weigh less!
That's another flaw with many people who support Linux (and I'm a huge supporter of Linux, so I'm not a hater)... "It works fine for me, therefore you must have screwed it up."
There's probably something specific to his configuration that you don't use. You can't automatically blame the user. In fact, if you want to get any traction for any product, you can't blame the user even when it's the user's fault.
Maybe someone at MS thought "RTM" means "Retard Turbo Mode".
I'm not surprised. I mean these days a single app in Windows can easily be as big as the entire OS was 15 years ago. The complexity of that operating system is mind-boggling, and I'm speaking as someone who works on a project with almost two million lines of code.
They're Microsoft. Remember the "We're the Phone Company" skits on Saturday Night Live from the late 70s? It's the same thing. They are still a de facto monopoly and consumers have no choice to accept it.
And I think all three of them post here.
[raises hand sheepishly] Yo.
You mean they replaced that schizophrenic Seattle monstrosity with what looks like urine-colored stained glass with flyspecks? Yeah, I'm impressed they found something even more unappealing than that "Down and Out in Seattle" bad acid trip.
Apparently ugly is the new pretty at Microsoft.
I don't have a Microsoft account and I was able to install the preview. I can't speak for the final product, but one day Windows asked me if I wanted to install the 8.1 preview and I clicked "Yes". It took a ridiculously long time, and I had to reboot 3 times with more updates each time, but that was all there was to it.
I've found plenty of bugs, some persisting for years, in the various versions of Linux I've run over the years. However, I have always found that the solutions are available. Yes, sometimes they take a lot of work, but with Windows, a lot of times you just have to live with it.
The main reason I use Windows on my main laptop is because I like to run a lot of Window software that can't be run on Linux, or can't be run without hassles I don't want to deal with. Mostly games. Yes, I'm aware of alternatives, but I also have an environment and tools (including TCC and Multi-edit which have both been around for 25+ years) that I like and am very productive with. I like the Windows environment circa 2005 and as long as I can keep working that way, I will.
However, I've used Linux distros a lot... RedHat and SuSE back in the day, later Ubuntu and now Linux Mint. I like them a lot, too and would be happy to use them full-time if I chose to. Yes, there are hassles, and there are some really stupid things about them, but overall they are good.
Here's my take: It's not a matter of lacking quality control, or "not caring" but the fact that the PC ecology is so incredibly and vastly diverse that no one company can possibly cover all the corner cases.
Microsoft is bigger and (especially) richer than a lot of countries, and they do a pretty good job of it, but they can't cover it all either. Apple does a much better job, but they have a closed and extremely limited hardware ecosystem. Microsoft (along with Linux distro makers) try to make their software run on any piece of no-name discount hardware you can eke out from the back pages of Computer Shopper (is that still a thing?) and in the vast majority of cases, almost all of it works perfectly.
I'm down on MS for a lot of reasons, and I think they are overall, a very evil company, but I'll give them credit for their efforts and successes for maintaining hardware compatibility. I think they generally do it pretty well.
I also have to give a lot of credit to the Linux world. The kernel runs on an order of magnitude more diverse hardware than Windows, and desktop environments have taken up the nigh-impossible challenge of supporting as many kinds of hardware platforms (sometimes more because older hardware is often supported longer!) than Microsoft. Name a Linux organization that can put even a tenth of Microsoft's resources into their desktop and you might look at the Linux desktop experience a little differently.
In other words, I have a little more patience with the Linux desktop because it has gotten where it is by nothing more than a lot of hard work. There was no monopoly feeding it. There was no strong-arming OEMs to get it on every desktop. There were no dirty tricks used to put the competition out of business. There's no chromosomally-damaged chair-tossing troll telling me that it's the best thing possible and the only thing I should ever want. There's no vendor lock-in, no walled gardens, no sabotaging of third-party products, no deliberate breaking of backwards compatibility to force upgrades... the list goes on.
In that regard, I think Linux is the most honest and virtuous product out there. If the desktop has a few more problems here and there, I can forgive it.
I installed the 8.1 preview and I haven't noticed any difference (aside from it taking some 20 minutes to install it after downloading... is there some law that says every subsequent version of Windows must take 2-3 times longer to install updates?) .
Of course, I don't use any of the Angry Fruit Salad apps because they are all too slow and too limited and too ugly and completely inappropriate for the desktop. I never would have thought it, but with Metro, Microsoft has invented autistic software.
I've had a couple of problems with Classic Shell's start button since installing the 8.1 preview, but mostly it's working fine, and I'm sure the boffins at Classic Shell will sort out the problems in time. After all, their goal is usability and functionality.
Meanwhile, for the many years I can't find _any_ justification for anything's Microsoft done with Windows except "help support our monopoly".
Really, the Windows 8 changes (i.e., "Metro" or whatever it's called now (my vote is "Angry Fruit Salad")) were thoroughly and broadly criticized long before it ever shipped, but they forced it on us anyway. And most users just accept it because to the average non-technical computer user, computers are arbitrary and capricious and the only thing you can do is just "deal with it". In other words, Microsoft's biggest accomplishment is to condition people that software is its nature horrible. Of course, they have hardly done this alone, but they are a primary cause.
"ill mannered Uncle Fester internally furious at being fired and taking revenge on the others by trying to cost them as much as possible on the way out the door"
It could be argued by the very cynical he's been doing that for 10+ years.
I must admit I have extreme dislike for Microsoft. I merely distrust Google. I'm kind of indifferent to Apple because I don't use, nor am I directly affected by their existence. If you want to join that cult, that's your business.
They had to be good games, because they certainly couldn't rely on flashy graphics. There is still an active community for Chip's Challenge, an open-source implementation of it, even today.
Meh. Chip's Challenge is where it's at. And Jezzball. :-)
Those were great games.
Cults of personality rarely outlive the personality.
I felt that way about iTunes many years before Jobs was gone. I'm sorry to hear it's gotten worse.