The one "redeeming" feature of Word is that it can be trained to use the keys differently. I trained it to emulate the Amipro function keys.
But, unfortunately, its desire to run macros on load has been its biggest pain. "Word Macro" viruses are at the moment, a big pain. And unlike the old viruses under DOS, they're so painful to detect. In my sysadmin days, these trashed a lot of useful documents. A lot of hours suffering.
"Sorry, miss. Your document has been trashed. So you worked on it for two weeks. Oh well. Don't call us, because you use it at your own risk. Must be a hardware fault [Printer tables in Word are the biggest document trashers]. Anyway, thanks for the $600."
Amipro and Describe had features that irritate as well. They are less configurable. But the dodgy nature of word processing is making me drift towards QBasic, a home grown markup language and rtf output. Sad, really.
>95/98/me was dosshell.com renamed into win.exe. dosshell was a stripped down version of win1.0 (remember the neat little 8086 add on card they gave you with that?)
Dosshell is a enhanced mode version 3.0, actually. Win.com is just a loader for the Windows operating system. It picks the correct extender and kernel. The bulk of widows lives in WIN386.EXE, or DOSX.EXE. DOSX also comes with DOSSHELL. WIN386 fills the role of IO.SYS for Windows - loads the VxDs and then the shell. The one program that WIN386 was intended to run was KRNL386.EXE, which then loads the rest of Windows.
The base of Windows was intended to be a 32-bit DOS, with WIN386.EXE being DOS386.EXE. You can run command.com as krnl386.exe. In Windows 3.1, you can have a batch WINSTART.BAT. Make up a batch with the one line "command". This will start what is essentially a 32-bit DOS. If you run Win.com under this, you see some interesting messages:) Check out Shauram's "Undocumented DOS"
>Anyways NT is how MS does things right. VMS blows Dos, away. Remember, dos had that little 640k thing, VMS didn't. 3.51 was ok, 4.0 was a bit better. 2k was done right sans the recent wave of IIS exploits.
It's actually OS/2, right down to the hacked file system. It was originally meant to be called NT OS/2. The NT3.x boot sector was in fact the OS/2 1.3 boot sector, and the inbuilt OS/2 support, unlike the DOS support, in the main, bypasses the Win32 layer and goes down to the kernel. Have you wondered why, when MS was so villiating OS/2 in 1995, that NT should support OS/2 16-bit applications, even today.
So in reality, vers 3 of NT was vers 3. Version 1 and 2 were under the MS-OS/2 banner, which is referred to in the NT help system.
>WordPerfect is good, but not as good as Office2k.
Word perfect at the time was better than Word at that time. It was designed to work the way that office secretaries did. It was fast and clean on the limited word processors, and the version back then had a lot more grunt that the latest version of word has now. I mean, WP had spreadsheet functions in its tables. But MS's white-box placing of Word onto OEM pc's did a lot to kill the competitiveness of the other systems.
>I've seen a lot of open source projects go through 2 or 3 revisions, then they get dropped before they could even be considered a stable alpha.
It's just a matter of prospective, really. A stable alpha open-source thing is more stable than a gamma commercial release. The 32 bit file access in Windows 3.11 is alpha code. The reply for it was if it does not work, turn it off.
>MS is cool, that wouldnt happen to be a IE browser you're using would it:P
Yes, it is. But it's not my machine. it's more that MS has fixed sites so you can't get there unless you have IE.
>It's not MS's fault big blue stuck with their normal mentality of "we're big blue and invincable"
Big Blue lost an anti-trust case as well, and their behaviour since then has been strangled by the imposed conditions. The lessons of this and AT&T are guiding the MS remedy, actually.
MS owes their existance to some Judge telling Big Blue to outsource. They got the operating system contract for the PC. IBM were going to control the BIOS inhouse, but Compaq put paid to that. The rest is history.
> Tab is bound to something that most people find absolutely irritating.
The default install is for "Tab" and "Shift Tab" to shift the left indent. Tools|Options|Edit.
>Btw...how long do you think this conversation could go on for before we're killed due to archiving?
Over a week, I should imagine. I have another discussion going on at slashdot as well at this same time.
The trouble about using one word processor or OS is that you never get to see how the other guys do it. I have become a more capable Windows and Word user for having OS/2, AmiPro and Describe. It's not that these people make better products that MS, but they do things differently. Hey, yes this I,can be done. When you use other word processors, you get to see entirely different layouts, some of which are quite good. Here's a sample.
Amipro bound its style sheets to the function keys. This means that you can change the paragraph style as you type.
Describe has a tree of styles. This means that one style inherits its formats from another, eg chaning the font in the base style changes the font in dependant styles as well.
Describe allows styles for less than paragraphs. For example, you can create a style for "Head word" in a dictionary style entry.
There is a lot of things that MS still sadly lags in. For example, selecting a range is a single action, not a mulitple action. You can't drop an anchor, then go somewhere else, and drop an "end selection range". This allows for the selection of a range over a large area.
You can't easily adjust a selected range by nudging an end. You have to unselect the range, and make a new one. I know, the idea is silly idea, but when you start fiddling around with big areas, you will see its advantages. Can be done as an Edit Menu option. For example the Alt-Edit-Anchor/Select-Drop/Move/Clear woulddo the trick. The selected range is from Anchor to Select. The Drop and Clear sets and clears the end. The nudge moves it with the cursor and enter.
But by the time you want to fiddle the document to that sort of level, it's probably better looking at TeX.
The problem with computers is not that they're not capable of doing it, but communicating this to the user. For example, Describe's style sheet would be much harder to understand were it not shown in a dir style tree.
The problem with Microsoft is that they change the language on every version. You can reconfigure it easily, but there are lots of easy strokes, and it's hard to find the right "easy". This is what the main point of my arguement is.
Under the days before computers, copying and tracking was a costly process. This cost provided a dissentive to engage in these, and copyright and privacy laws were intended to finish it off.
Observing a particular action of you is of course not protected. To build a database of this on the other hand is time consuming, and attracts the attention of the law, eventually.
Likewise, pressing bootleg or pirate money, books or records.
Copying and tracking have become essentially free. The effect is that the laws of copyright and privacy struggle to deal with the ability to use computers to track and copy things.
At the moment, what is seriously lacking is some measure to deal with the correct use of copies, and who can legitimately copy things and for what.
To deal with "privacy" and "copyright" and "licensing" as separate issues is to miss the point.
Didn't MS try something like this with their channel placement thing a few years back?
I'm waiting to see who buys out the Blue Screen space: Can you imagine it if RedHat bought it out. "Well, another BlueScreen: Don't you wish you were on RedHat Linux today?"
But then I had to spend a week playing around with sectors on my home machine trying to recover the root directory, because Windows 95 thought it wasn't needed. Oh well.
You see, most of my time has been spent as a user, not an administrator. You can't reinstall data.
The other thing I find amusing, is that these people who push MS products preach about the latest hot fix, without realising that they're as old as the hills, even on the PC.
I mean, 4DOS has command line completion, popup directory history, command history, aliases &c since 1992. You can get some faulty file-name completion in Windows NT if you fiddle around in the registry. The reason that OS/2 users go on about their system is because it DOES so much more than Windows. And between DOS, Windows, OS/2 and Unix/Linux, and Mac there are whole different gardens of ideas growing. Keep it that way, and preserve and respect the differences.
"Live" spell checking is no different to the one offered by the menu functions. It just happens on each word closure or sentence completion. You can right-click on the word or sentence to see what it reckons a good thing, and this is how I use it. The fact that you are responding to an underline has broken the concentration, which is why I don't like it.
Star Office follows the Word menu, because it is intended to be bug compatable with Word. I would not be supprised if other programs do the same either. I mean, Word has a WP switch kit, and many people followed the Lotus menu system for spreadsheets. Still does not get around my earlier point that a separate task activity should be on the primary key.
The Windows and Menu key are so badly placed that they often pull focus away from the current program, yet people make out they're so wonderful.
As for file navigation. You can see even in this conversation, that different people have found different secrets for getting around the system. This is more to do with the buggy interface design, which makes this all less than obvious. With a little forethought, the Win95 interface can be made to do wonders, and be easily edited at one point only (ie you are not trashing it unintentionally).
Computer savvy people navigate in these ways because they don't know better, or it's too much trouble to set up, or for a host of reasons that all point to MS thinking everyone's a dummy who has no idea on file structure. Oh for the days of 3.1, when they did not do such stupid things.
Like, if you turn on the toolbar, you can change to higher directories in a drop and click action, or otherwise navigate with the mouse. But there's no "parent" icon in a folder. This is not obvious. You have to poke around in the properties to see this.
It can't all be blamed on the user, the interface sucks. Badly
I am not going to flame you on this. Your points are valid, and are worthy of comment.
The "live" checking does not autofix it, but if you right click on it, it does give suggestions that will be put in if you select it. That's what makes the F7 key so stupid. Autofix actually is a hazard if you regularly use double caps eg "JSmith said...". Tab is bound to something that most people find absolutely irritating. I know I have to fix their docs up.
Most of my typing is done straight in markup. That is, when I type this in bold, I go {control-B}this{control-B} or {b}this{/b}. Amipro had a clever idea of putting styles onto the function keys: so if I want a header, I press F7, and if I want a body, this is F2. The table is stored in the template.
With control-c, v, and x, the easy way to remember these is that x is sissors (cut), v is glue pen tip, and c is copy. That might help.
Spell checking a document, like printing it, is a separate activity, and not something you want activated on a wrong key stroke. Going Alt-T-S, especially if you watch the menus as you do it, is not a big ask, especially if the machine does a lot of paging as it does it.
As far as your data files go, I have found a way around this is to store them in one tree, and then create an icon with the command line "explorer.exe/n,/e,/root=d:\path,folder" does wonders for file management. You can change the icon view to "List", and arange by date to get the latest to the end. Whichever way, it's better than "Large icon". Also, the back space backs up the tree. Also counter intuitive, but consistant.
Yeah, I was too. Still am. OS/2 did not have that stupid 504MB limit when Windows and DOS did. So I can see 2G of hard drive under OS/2 and 2 * 504 under Windows.
Yeah, OS/2 crashes, it has bugs. I've seen its Black Screen. I've completely trashed it. But it is still way better than windows. The current OS/2 is still better than the current Windows.
> win3.1 came about the time of os/2
OS/2 had a lot more in it than Windows and DOS did. You forget that among the 28 disks was 10 for the inbuilt DOS/Windows emulator. Numbers of disks do not dictate usability in any case. It was at that time that most people did not have cdrom drives.
The latest version of OS/2 installs from an OS/2 session. In essence, you boot from the CDROM, and it loads a full GUI, where you can do things as if it were from the hard disk. One of the applications is to install it. Now THAT's user friendly. Link, you're not grubbing around with a command line interface and no gui.
> PC's got accepted in the house because you could play cool games on them. At the time (1992) we had typically 4MB ram, and Windows would gobble 2 of them. So you played under DOS. But then you start games from a DOS character menu.
>I agree, so what was your answer? Lemme guess, all MS right?
My current shop is MS. My former one was OS/2 server and PC-DOS stations.
>..., but happy for MS to send the same amount...
This is the same company that sent the lawyers around onto charities that were recycling PC's to underprivledged kids. Hmmm.
>>The other thing is that MS has been getting some very BAD publicity in relation to WTC. You see, the FlightSim is a fairly accurate representation of many cities, and provides a fairly easy way to learn your way around the skylines of a city. This point has not been lost on Sky TV.
Have not found a link for this: I saw it on the television.
>I mean jeesh Dos can't read HPFS.
Actually, you can load a driver for it, and read and write to it. Installable file systems started with DOS 4. It got a bad name because it took up a megabyte of ram when computers typically came with just 4 MB. NTFS is based on HPFS.
The sad thing is, to do anything useful with a Windows computer, you have to do it from DOS, and load NTFS drivers from there. Try Here for the goss. I can boot OS/2 with the proper drivers from floppy disks: this point is lost on most MS users.
>Again I go back to my point of a single vendor for all your products.
So why not Aptiva PC + OS/2 + Lotus Smartsuite, all from IBM:), or Sun box. Having all the products from the same user is not going to make users use style sheets, and not press return at the end of the line.
MS has no incentives to fix bugs unless they get bad publicity. The calculator thing from Win 3,0 was not fixed until Wall Street Journal ran a story on it. The bugs documented in the Tech data base from NT 3,1 still bug me under win 2K. But they now put some sort of web browser on it, which is pretty stupid if there's no wire to the net, or the thing's a server.
The real reason that people leave the single vendor option is that they're too expensive. Apple Macs never got a big share of the market because they were too expensive, and it was only that Compaq cloned the IBM BIOS that made the PC market competitive. The MS office suite is way overpriced compared to its competitors, but because they offer it as a cheap OEM option, things change. But I have seen Word and Excel trash documents beyond belief. And because the format is secret, it is not recoverable by anyone.
The same people who make this, I presume will willingly pay more for genuine Ford/GM parts for their car too...
>I did what I could. You really gotta quit makin personal presumtions about me and just stick to the debate OK?
Not you in particular. No, the big trouble since the seventies is this culture that the big boys will look after the big things in town. I mean, we don't have the culture that spawned greenpeace or the nuclear disarmemant any more. About the only things going for people involvement are TeamOS/2 and Linux
But the thing is you have to stop beating MS's drum. Sure they gave 10 million. And you going around saying this is giving them free publicity. Yes, MS waves the flag: look, aren't they good. It's 5 million in cash and 5 million in tech. I suppose that 5 mill is in street prices, not what they get. I mean, I could give out licences of my product, and say I am denating it at street prices.
The actions of MS deserves to be viewed with healthy cynicism.
>When I do my/. posts if i'm including links i'll use frontpage
I just type the mark up direct: {a href="url"}linkword{/a}. But then, I type most formatting and styling as I go. For this, Amipro had an intellegent use of the function keys as separate styles: F2-F9, F11, F12 were all different style keys, defined in the style sheet. Bold and Italics via ^B and ^I.
TeamOS/2 and Open Source are the two things where the people have stood up against the ivory towers and said something different. In both cases, where the people have spoken, they have done so wisely.
Both OS/2 and Linux have thriving communities because people care enough about them to make them work. People joining together to get a driver to work, or to replicate SMB addressing, or whatever.
The source is the force, because it's been eyeballed by people who have the problem, and people care enough to fix it today, not tomorrow, or next service pack. Linux patches come out a lot faster because it is open source. And because many people look over it and listen, it is now more robust than the commercial stuff.
And if you don't understand that, then you don't understand why Linux got to where it is without some company driving it. Windows and OS/2 and AIX had to be driven by companies. Linux is driven by the people.
Some thing that passes through my mind is that companies that make trucks are not really good at making cars, and vice versa.
MS had its roots in BASIC on small hobby computers. Much of what they have done since is summed up by their home-grown product: GeeWhizz Basic.
The network that they have now is based on IBM OS/2 Lan Server, which they got in code sharing arangements with IBM. I mean, the OS/2 1.3 help file still serves me well under NT4.
Their main contribution has to lay all sorts of flash in fanciful languages, purpose designed to ensure upgrades. Excel, for example, has had three entirely different languages in five years. Most people could not be bothered to learn the new language. A lot less macro writing happens now then in the days of Lotus 123 for DOS.
Mind you, it does not stop the script kiddies, who are learning the latest exploits.
Most MS products ship badly configured. Like, who would put a spell checker on a function key (F7), if spell checking is done live anyway. I mean, you either do it live because you have the juice, or you do it from the tools menu because you don't have the resources to run it all the time. Putting it on a function key is silly. Except to bring it up on sales promotions. "Yes, we have spell checker [press F7]".
So their network stuff is full of flashing chrome designed to sell the thing to executives, and the scripts that run this chrome is by this set up, already in a form ready for remote exploits. Yes, you can configure it, if you want to stuff around in the registry and hidden settings. But most people dont have the knowledge or time to do something that should be a default or available choice.
MS is a small system maker that is attempting to do big time: all they do is big time damage.
> Ok again I go back to my point of ease of use. If I remember correctly, warp had what.. 28 floppies?
Windows 98 has 71 floppies. Well, OS/2 was released when CD-ROMs were not common fare. At least I can boot onto OS/2 from floppies, and get full long file name support from the boot disk. No version of Windows does this.
By the way, fix pack 43 for OS/2 [Yes, IBM only discontinued support for OS/2 3.0 this year] is on 14 diskettes, or 25 megabites. Windows 2000 fix pack 2 is 110 megabites: you can't put it on a Zip disk. There was no final fixpack 7 for NT4. By this time, Windows 2K was out, and you should migrate to that.
>a pain in the $@$%* finding any software for it
It is because MS denied the other vendors pre-load boot space that cut the market. In the mid nineties, there was a paper print OS/2 Magazine, and perusing issues of that will clearly point to lots of places that sell software for it. I have gal civ and sim city 2000, both for OS/2.
>GUI's in general made PC's mainstream.
Again, you are wrong. It was Lotus 123 and Wordperfect, DBAse and XYZ Word, that brought the PC's into general application. GUIs were brought into acceptance by games. Windows did not really kick off until 1990 (Win 3,0), and 1992.
The GUI interface found in Windows &c was spread by games, and the Windows implementation follows that of OS/2 v 1.3. The Windows 3.1 programs are straight copies of the OS/2 1.3 ones. It even has the same bugs.
>I dont think so, alladin systems was mentioned, they were giving way less than 10mil, HP was mentioned for 3 mill. A few private donators were mentioned too. Like I said, put up or shut up linux.
Of course MS is not the only denotar. But this is the first time I heard of ANY other denotations. I heard of the MS one four times on the news.
>I don't really know if it was a PR thing either,
It's called flag waving: be a patriotic American and buy from us because we gave 10 millions. It happens over here all the time.
The other thing is that MS has been getting some very BAD publicity in relation to WTC. You see, the FlightSim is a fairly accurate representation of many cities, and provides a fairly easy way to learn your way around the skylines of a city. This point has not been lost on Sky TV.
>I don't know of a single person, male or female that was not brought to tears from the WTC pictures.
I do. There was a bigger disaster that affected way more lives in the same week, and no one raised an eyebrow, because it did not happen in the USA.
>>why can't you buy a computer at your local shop with OS/2, DRDOS, or BeOS on it, when these were big threats.
>Do you really know the answer? I think you're the sheltered one. It's all about the money.
Yes, it's all about Money. The price of a MS licence was considerably less if you promised to exclude competition. So no-one even got a lookin. Check out the DR-DOS case for details on this.
>Ok, do this for me, if you work in a cubical corral. Look over your cube and tell me the # of desktops running any of these "alternative" operating systems. Less than you could count on 1 hand? I thought so.
It's a silly company that runs more than one system on their network, be it DOS, Windows, OS/2 Linux, or Apple. Multi-OS networks dont gel in the workplace.
"Why Linux is losing the desktop war"
Tech support, of whatever flavour, do not as a rule, provide very good support. Its as much the fault of the user, who think the tech has nothing better than ask "silly" questions. Techs get frustrated and give out the "use the help/documentation" thing.
People, given the sort of help, generally do not make the investment with whateve they got, and as a result, just stay with the bad bunch. Most of the users I have encountered don't use their word processer any thing that wordpad could not do.
The only people who I have seen make a serious attack on the above was Team-OS/2. They actually did things, not only for OS/2, but any system.
>You should know all about 1 vendor solutions with your IBM background.
I do indeed. IBM have computer, OS/2, Lotus suite, &c, for OS/2. OK, why don't you see IBM boxes with OS/2 and Smartsuite, or even PC-DOS, like you used to: MS licencing prices. Enough said.
>>You must have lead a sheltered life.
>Was that a presumtion or were you farting from the mouth?
It was actually based on what you had said. I mean, you can't be really inspired to denote $5 money yourself to the WTC, but happy for MS to send the same amount (of time earnings), to the same thing.
I have been on help desks of one kind or another for 15 years. It pays to be cynical.
Were its goods so competitive, then why do they prevent other operators from competing. I mean, why can't you buy a computer at your local shop with OS/2, DRDOS, or BeOS on it, when these were big threats. Listen to the judge.
> Your not counting how much a good unix tech costs these days, not free.
Like MSCE's are free... Oh. We have a new version of windows out, step up and put another $8000 in, please. The thing has so many back doors and so forth, it's little wonder there are so many viruses wandering around.
> I just don't get it with you linux people. Have you ever in YOU LIFE been in either a Systems administrator or Lan Administrator position where you had to give support?
I am not a Linux person, I am an OS/2 person. Have you ever heard of Team-OS/2? Yes, I worked on a front line support position for many different systems for 15 years, and no, I don't say read the manual.
> No our power is from our taxes, thats why we have paved highways and a mighty military. It's why america is the one country everyone wants to come too.
And power comes from the people. You think that MS is a good guy because they give 30 minutes of their time for free publicity and stick their name in the news. If you gave $10 millions, they would just pass you over in the news.
> At least with my $189 purchase of XP it comes with some tech support.
So does my $80 box version of RedHat. I can choose to buy Redhat from Redhat, or get it off the magazine covers. If I buy it, I get some support.
> Linux was not responsible for mainstream geek acceptance. That honor goes to wintel.
It's actually DOS that gets the honour. All the standard fixes that people report about Windows don't actually work under Windows, but they do under DOS. Examples:
Delete the application and reinstall: Under DOS, the programs kept the initialisation data under its own directory, in Windows, this is in the registry. In fact, IE is uninstallable if the reinstall fails, and there are fragments of it in registry
There's plenty of people who use eg, OS/2, who will bash Linux and BeOS and whatever. It is obvious that you don't mix with the crowd, and also, people who use different operating systems had the sense and taste to get out of the shell.
I don't see Be, QNX, IBM (os/2), or anyone else out there blaming anything on MS.
IBM doesn't because they have a soft underbelly: they do make computers. The exec from Be did step up and say that MS is aggressive and not a fair competitor. You must have lead a sheltered life.
... every linux person I talked to about a problem I was having while learning...
Obviously have not heard of the three R's of Windows:
OS/2 2.0 came with WinOS2 v 3.0, and no supplied applets.
From vers 2.1 onwards, including eComStation, the version is based on Windows 3.1. Whatever the version is, the main Windows operating system lives in a few files (the dos extender, mainly). Kernel is a Windows program, GDI and User are apps that run under Kernel. But Windows is up and running before Kernel loads.
Win-OS/2 does not support the WinOldAp stuff (ie DOS boxes).
Note that Win-OS/2 actually is two different emulators. In one mode, it is a DOS program that runs like any other DOS program under OS/2. That is, it starts and runs like Windows under DOS, loading the shell and task manager specified in SYSTEM.INI.
In the seamless mode, it runs using the native OS/2 shell, task manager and clipboard. At this time there is no binary interface.
Of course it is more advanced than WINE &c, since IBM got hold of the original source code, and recompiled it.
It's nice that MS did denote 10 millions here and there. Makes good publicity, doesn't it. If you really want to be a patriot, you could use open source and denote $100 to the cause, rather than give someone else the money and let them donate it under their name.
How much did they give to underwrite airline insurance premiums that suddenly went up for this, which is where some of my taxes went to.
How much did they give to victims of failed companies.
No, MS donating money makes them look like goodies, and they donate it where it gives them an advantage. I mean, it's a fairly cheap ad for them: Yes, we are giving half an hour's profit, look at how good we are. Don't hurt us...
money for MS = protect monopoly
free Linux = money for people to spend.
Linux = saved money = power for the people
A Wallet Virus is a program that infects the wallet and drains it. For example, programs that have expensive addons. No guesses who are the prime exponents of this.
I did train a virus scanner to search for bloatware once, and managed to detect 198 files on my computer that was detected by the particular fporm of bloat.
One of the things about Win-OS/2 was that it was bug for bug compatible with Windows, even down to emulating the 3.11-3.10=0.00 bug in the calculator.
The sad thing about Windows bugs is that you don't need to go to the back door to do damage. There's enough to be seen to do it through the front door now.
Maybe SirCam did not work because when the damage was passed down to the underlying OS, Linux did not want to play ball: and isn't that WHY we run emulators....:)
I don't know the facts, and I am not a lawyer, but...
I seem to recall something about if you apply restrictions to the content of what passes through your channels, than you are giving what passes through the nod.
In the case of MS, by prohibiting particular content being made and published using their product, then they are leaving themselves open to aiding people who make, say, porn or hate pages, using Frontpage. And because their licences prohibit some content, then they are party to what is let through.
Hmmm - just a thought....
A fragmented enemy. Some thoughts.
on
A New Kind of War
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· Score: 1
The real issue is not the possession of might but that the nature of the enemy has changed. Let me explain.
In the days of WW2, cold war and so forth, there was an identifiable enemy: Germans, Japanese, Russians, Vietcong, &c. So the allied might could be applied against a country, and that the resultant war, bloody as they were, were fairly obvious. If you waved a US flag or a Nazi flag, you were fair game.
What we have now is a situation where one side can only attack units that have attacked. So where in WW2, you could attack the 6th German army because you were attacked by the 4th, this no longer applies.
Of course, this kind of attack is not new. The attack on labor unions over here follows much the same thing.
Another thing that is nearer to home, and less subtle, is Microsoft's legal rangles. You see, each of MS's attacks are carefully isolated before the attack. MS talks of the current case being about "browsers" and nothing to do with "data streaming" or "office applications". So what is being asked is that MS can procede full pace at all things, but the DOJ is being bound by what causes crimes.
In the case of unions, while each battle is between a specific union and company, legislation has prevented the unions from engaging in the supporting tactics that the companies are free to. So the unions, isolated in attacks, can not raise global issues. This does not stop the companies from doing the same.
In the case of terrorists, we are fighting isolated fragments of islam. There may be five, six, seven small operations going on, each with the capacity to attack, and we can not attack until attacked.
The real issue I see, is that we are dealing with a new kind of attack, by isolated parts of the enemy. We need to drain the darkness that these isolated parts operate under, and attack the grand total.
I'm not offering a solution here, but some different view: a crack in the wall to look through.
You can think of GWBasic as a toy assembeler language, which teaches the mode of thinking required for assembler. I borrowed assembler concepts to get around the fact that subroutines do not support subroutines.
You can get around no parameters by using accumulators or registers. These are just ordinary variables that a particular function finds and returns data. If you want to run the function on other variables, you need to move the data around yourself.
Functions can run at different levels. For example, processing an array needs a list function and an item function. One can have different list and item functions.
The trick is to ensure that not more than one function at each level is active at once.
It gets you into the habit of thinking about using a small arena wisely, and about optimising code.
As far as literate programing goes, I use a preprocessor that allows you to strip the basic code out of a text document. That is, one can write a lengthy text document on the subject, and use grep to write the table of contents and the output basic code. Because basic will order the lines as required, you can add and remove functionality by adding and removing chapters of the documentation. This is really interesting to see consequtive lines of a routine come from different chapters of a book... But it makes for tight well documented code. It is just that, like the accumulators, the chief switching routines are also carefully designed to support later insertions.
And one from this, sees why the people who wrote C/C++ wanted to move away from a single arena and single open code base...
QBasic is still in Windows NT4, WinNT2K, and all versions of OS/2, is on the Win9x disks under "old MSDOS".
There are three significant versions of it.
Version 1 comes with MSDOS 5.0, Windows NT4. It says it's MSDOS Editor, and does not support the QHELP interface.
Version 1.01 comes with PC-DOS 5.0, and all versions of OS/2 since 2.0, this says it's PC-DOS. It does not support the QHELP interface either.
Version 1.1 Comes with MS-DOS 6.x, Windows 9x. It supports the QHELP interface.
Apart from the BASIC interpertor, you can use it as an editor and as a help engine. The edit.com and help.com automatically launch it in these modes, the files are identical, except at the end, one says EDCOM and the other says QHELP. This is handy, because in Win9x, edit.com does not appear. But if you want to make it, you can do it. You can rename edit.com and help.com to anything you like, eg qbedit.com and help6.com. This might be needed if edit and help commands do something differet, as they do in 4DOS.
QHELP forces QBASIC to load the file in the help viewer mode, and load HELP.HLP.
EDCOM forces QBASIC to load itself as an editor, and access EDIT.HLP as the help file.
The thing with the command line is that you have to think more carefully about the data structures you use. This means that you already have applied the necessary pre-planning required.
The same thing can make BASIC programs work faster. In essence, one writes for Z=function(X,Y):
A1=X:A2=Y:GOSUB {function}:Z=A1
If you think about the functions you use, you can make, and where the output is placed, you can replace the one function with serveral functions.
Interestingly, the people who fiddle around with lots of little tools will split the problem into lots of smaller ones when a single larger tool would be faster. The tools are often on hand, and are faster to assemble than it is to write one big tool. The bigger tool should be looked at if one is doing lots of the same task. The reference for this is Knuth "Literate Programming".
The increase in productivity is because the CLI forces one to consider the data structures earlier, eg, up front, and this is the right thing to do.
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But, unfortunately, its desire to run macros on load has been its biggest pain. "Word Macro" viruses are at the moment, a big pain. And unlike the old viruses under DOS, they're so painful to detect. In my sysadmin days, these trashed a lot of useful documents. A lot of hours suffering.
"Sorry, miss. Your document has been trashed. So you worked on it for two weeks. Oh well. Don't call us, because you use it at your own risk. Must be a hardware fault [Printer tables in Word are the biggest document trashers]. Anyway, thanks for the $600."
Amipro and Describe had features that irritate as well. They are less configurable. But the dodgy nature of word processing is making me drift towards QBasic, a home grown markup language and rtf output. Sad, really.
The base of Windows was intended to be a 32-bit DOS, with WIN386.EXE being DOS386.EXE. You can run command.com as krnl386.exe. In Windows 3.1, you can have a batch WINSTART.BAT. Make up a batch with the one line "command". This will start what is essentially a 32-bit DOS. If you run Win.com under this, you see some interesting messages :) Check out Shauram's "Undocumented DOS"
>Anyways NT is how MS does things right. VMS blows Dos, away. Remember, dos had that little 640k thing, VMS didn't. 3.51 was ok, 4.0 was a bit better. 2k was done right sans the recent wave of IIS exploits.
It's actually OS/2, right down to the hacked file system. It was originally meant to be called NT OS/2. The NT3.x boot sector was in fact the OS/2 1.3 boot sector, and the inbuilt OS/2 support, unlike the DOS support, in the main, bypasses the Win32 layer and goes down to the kernel. Have you wondered why, when MS was so villiating OS/2 in 1995, that NT should support OS/2 16-bit applications, even today.
So in reality, vers 3 of NT was vers 3. Version 1 and 2 were under the MS-OS/2 banner, which is referred to in the NT help system.
>WordPerfect is good, but not as good as Office2k.
Word perfect at the time was better than Word at that time. It was designed to work the way that office secretaries did. It was fast and clean on the limited word processors, and the version back then had a lot more grunt that the latest version of word has now. I mean, WP had spreadsheet functions in its tables. But MS's white-box placing of Word onto OEM pc's did a lot to kill the competitiveness of the other systems.
>I've seen a lot of open source projects go through 2 or 3 revisions, then they get dropped before they could even be considered a stable alpha.
It's just a matter of prospective, really. A stable alpha open-source thing is more stable than a gamma commercial release. The 32 bit file access in Windows 3.11 is alpha code. The reply for it was if it does not work, turn it off.
>MS is cool, that wouldnt happen to be a IE browser you're using would it :P
Yes, it is. But it's not my machine. it's more that MS has fixed sites so you can't get there unless you have IE.
>It's not MS's fault big blue stuck with their normal mentality of "we're big blue and invincable"
Big Blue lost an anti-trust case as well, and their behaviour since then has been strangled by the imposed conditions. The lessons of this and AT&T are guiding the MS remedy, actually.
MS owes their existance to some Judge telling Big Blue to outsource. They got the operating system contract for the PC. IBM were going to control the BIOS inhouse, but Compaq put paid to that. The rest is history.
The default install is for "Tab" and "Shift Tab" to shift the left indent. Tools|Options|Edit.
>Btw...how long do you think this conversation could go on for before we're killed due to archiving?
Over a week, I should imagine. I have another discussion going on at slashdot as well at this same time.
The trouble about using one word processor or OS is that you never get to see how the other guys do it. I have become a more capable Windows and Word user for having OS/2, AmiPro and Describe. It's not that these people make better products that MS, but they do things differently. Hey, yes this I,can be done. When you use other word processors, you get to see entirely different layouts, some of which are quite good. Here's a sample.
There is a lot of things that MS still sadly lags in. For example, selecting a range is a single action, not a mulitple action. You can't drop an anchor, then go somewhere else, and drop an "end selection range". This allows for the selection of a range over a large area.
You can't easily adjust a selected range by nudging an end. You have to unselect the range, and make a new one. I know, the idea is silly idea, but when you start fiddling around with big areas, you will see its advantages. Can be done as an Edit Menu option. For example the Alt-Edit-Anchor/Select-Drop/Move/Clear woulddo the trick. The selected range is from Anchor to Select. The Drop and Clear sets and clears the end. The nudge moves it with the cursor and enter.
But by the time you want to fiddle the document to that sort of level, it's probably better looking at TeX.
The problem with computers is not that they're not capable of doing it, but communicating this to the user. For example, Describe's style sheet would be much harder to understand were it not shown in a dir style tree.
The problem with Microsoft is that they change the language on every version. You can reconfigure it easily, but there are lots of easy strokes, and it's hard to find the right "easy". This is what the main point of my arguement is.
Observing a particular action of you is of course not protected. To build a database of this on the other hand is time consuming, and attracts the attention of the law, eventually. Likewise, pressing bootleg or pirate money, books or records.
Copying and tracking have become essentially free. The effect is that the laws of copyright and privacy struggle to deal with the ability to use computers to track and copy things.
At the moment, what is seriously lacking is some measure to deal with the correct use of copies, and who can legitimately copy things and for what.
To deal with "privacy" and "copyright" and "licensing" as separate issues is to miss the point.
I'm waiting to see who buys out the Blue Screen space: Can you imagine it if RedHat bought it out. "Well, another BlueScreen: Don't you wish you were on RedHat Linux today?"
But then I had to spend a week playing around with sectors on my home machine trying to recover the root directory, because Windows 95 thought it wasn't needed. Oh well.
You see, most of my time has been spent as a user, not an administrator. You can't reinstall data.
The other thing I find amusing, is that these people who push MS products preach about the latest hot fix, without realising that they're as old as the hills, even on the PC.
I mean, 4DOS has command line completion, popup directory history, command history, aliases &c since 1992. You can get some faulty file-name completion in Windows NT if you fiddle around in the registry. The reason that OS/2 users go on about their system is because it DOES so much more than Windows. And between DOS, Windows, OS/2 and Unix/Linux, and Mac there are whole different gardens of ideas growing. Keep it that way, and preserve and respect the differences.
Star Office follows the Word menu, because it is intended to be bug compatable with Word. I would not be supprised if other programs do the same either. I mean, Word has a WP switch kit, and many people followed the Lotus menu system for spreadsheets. Still does not get around my earlier point that a separate task activity should be on the primary key.
The Windows and Menu key are so badly placed that they often pull focus away from the current program, yet people make out they're so wonderful.
As for file navigation. You can see even in this conversation, that different people have found different secrets for getting around the system. This is more to do with the buggy interface design, which makes this all less than obvious. With a little forethought, the Win95 interface can be made to do wonders, and be easily edited at one point only (ie you are not trashing it unintentionally).
Computer savvy people navigate in these ways because they don't know better, or it's too much trouble to set up, or for a host of reasons that all point to MS thinking everyone's a dummy who has no idea on file structure. Oh for the days of 3.1, when they did not do such stupid things.
Like, if you turn on the toolbar, you can change to higher directories in a drop and click action, or otherwise navigate with the mouse. But there's no "parent" icon in a folder. This is not obvious. You have to poke around in the properties to see this.
It can't all be blamed on the user, the interface sucks. Badly
The "live" checking does not autofix it, but if you right click on it, it does give suggestions that will be put in if you select it. That's what makes the F7 key so stupid. Autofix actually is a hazard if you regularly use double caps eg "JSmith said ...". Tab is bound to something that most people find absolutely irritating. I know I have to fix their docs up.
Most of my typing is done straight in markup. That is, when I type this in bold, I go {control-B}this{control-B} or {b}this{/b}. Amipro had a clever idea of putting styles onto the function keys: so if I want a header, I press F7, and if I want a body, this is F2. The table is stored in the template.
With control-c, v, and x, the easy way to remember these is that x is sissors (cut), v is glue pen tip, and c is copy. That might help.
Spell checking a document, like printing it, is a separate activity, and not something you want activated on a wrong key stroke. Going Alt-T-S, especially if you watch the menus as you do it, is not a big ask, especially if the machine does a lot of paging as it does it.
As far as your data files go, I have found a way around this is to store them in one tree, and then create an icon with the command line "explorer.exe /n,/e,/root=d:\path,folder" does wonders for file management. You can change the icon view to "List", and arange by date to get the latest to the end. Whichever way, it's better than "Large icon". Also, the back space backs up the tree. Also counter intuitive, but consistant.
Yeah, I was too. Still am. OS/2 did not have that stupid 504MB limit when Windows and DOS did. So I can see 2G of hard drive under OS/2 and 2 * 504 under Windows. Yeah, OS/2 crashes, it has bugs. I've seen its Black Screen. I've completely trashed it. But it is still way better than windows. The current OS/2 is still better than the current Windows.
> win3.1 came about the time of os/2
OS/2 had a lot more in it than Windows and DOS did. You forget that among the 28 disks was 10 for the inbuilt DOS/Windows emulator. Numbers of disks do not dictate usability in any case. It was at that time that most people did not have cdrom drives.
The latest version of OS/2 installs from an OS/2 session. In essence, you boot from the CDROM, and it loads a full GUI, where you can do things as if it were from the hard disk. One of the applications is to install it. Now THAT's user friendly. Link, you're not grubbing around with a command line interface and no gui.
> PC's got accepted in the house because you could play cool games on them. At the time (1992) we had typically 4MB ram, and Windows would gobble 2 of them. So you played under DOS. But then you start games from a DOS character menu.
>I agree, so what was your answer? Lemme guess, all MS right?
My current shop is MS. My former one was OS/2 server and PC-DOS stations.
>..., but happy for MS to send the same amount...
This is the same company that sent the lawyers around onto charities that were recycling PC's to underprivledged kids. Hmmm.
>>The other thing is that MS has been getting some very BAD publicity in relation to WTC. You see, the FlightSim is a fairly accurate representation of many cities, and provides a fairly easy way to learn your way around the skylines of a city. This point has not been lost on Sky TV.
Have not found a link for this: I saw it on the television.
>I mean jeesh Dos can't read HPFS.
Actually, you can load a driver for it, and read and write to it. Installable file systems started with DOS 4. It got a bad name because it took up a megabyte of ram when computers typically came with just 4 MB. NTFS is based on HPFS.
The sad thing is, to do anything useful with a Windows computer, you have to do it from DOS, and load NTFS drivers from there. Try Here for the goss. I can boot OS/2 with the proper drivers from floppy disks: this point is lost on most MS users.
>Again I go back to my point of a single vendor for all your products.
So why not Aptiva PC + OS/2 + Lotus Smartsuite, all from IBM :), or Sun box. Having all the products from the same user is not going to make users use style sheets, and not press return at the end of the line.
MS has no incentives to fix bugs unless they get bad publicity. The calculator thing from Win 3,0 was not fixed until Wall Street Journal ran a story on it. The bugs documented in the Tech data base from NT 3,1 still bug me under win 2K. But they now put some sort of web browser on it, which is pretty stupid if there's no wire to the net, or the thing's a server.
The real reason that people leave the single vendor option is that they're too expensive. Apple Macs never got a big share of the market because they were too expensive, and it was only that Compaq cloned the IBM BIOS that made the PC market competitive. The MS office suite is way overpriced compared to its competitors, but because they offer it as a cheap OEM option, things change. But I have seen Word and Excel trash documents beyond belief. And because the format is secret, it is not recoverable by anyone.
The same people who make this, I presume will willingly pay more for genuine Ford/GM parts for their car too ...
>I did what I could. You really gotta quit makin personal presumtions about me and just stick to the debate OK?
Not you in particular. No, the big trouble since the seventies is this culture that the big boys will look after the big things in town. I mean, we don't have the culture that spawned greenpeace or the nuclear disarmemant any more. About the only things going for people involvement are TeamOS/2 and Linux
But the thing is you have to stop beating MS's drum. Sure they gave 10 million. And you going around saying this is giving them free publicity. Yes, MS waves the flag: look, aren't they good. It's 5 million in cash and 5 million in tech. I suppose that 5 mill is in street prices, not what they get. I mean, I could give out licences of my product, and say I am denating it at street prices.
The actions of MS deserves to be viewed with healthy cynicism.
>When I do my /. posts if i'm including links i'll use frontpage
I just type the mark up direct: {a href="url"}linkword{/a}. But then, I type most formatting and styling as I go. For this, Amipro had an intellegent use of the function keys as separate styles: F2-F9, F11, F12 were all different style keys, defined in the style sheet. Bold and Italics via ^B and ^I.
Both OS/2 and Linux have thriving communities because people care enough about them to make them work. People joining together to get a driver to work, or to replicate SMB addressing, or whatever.
The source is the force, because it's been eyeballed by people who have the problem, and people care enough to fix it today, not tomorrow, or next service pack. Linux patches come out a lot faster because it is open source. And because many people look over it and listen, it is now more robust than the commercial stuff.
And if you don't understand that, then you don't understand why Linux got to where it is without some company driving it. Windows and OS/2 and AIX had to be driven by companies. Linux is driven by the people.
MS had its roots in BASIC on small hobby computers. Much of what they have done since is summed up by their home-grown product: GeeWhizz Basic.
The network that they have now is based on IBM OS/2 Lan Server, which they got in code sharing arangements with IBM. I mean, the OS/2 1.3 help file still serves me well under NT4.
Their main contribution has to lay all sorts of flash in fanciful languages, purpose designed to ensure upgrades. Excel, for example, has had three entirely different languages in five years. Most people could not be bothered to learn the new language. A lot less macro writing happens now then in the days of Lotus 123 for DOS. Mind you, it does not stop the script kiddies, who are learning the latest exploits.
Most MS products ship badly configured. Like, who would put a spell checker on a function key (F7), if spell checking is done live anyway. I mean, you either do it live because you have the juice, or you do it from the tools menu because you don't have the resources to run it all the time. Putting it on a function key is silly. Except to bring it up on sales promotions. "Yes, we have spell checker [press F7]".
So their network stuff is full of flashing chrome designed to sell the thing to executives, and the scripts that run this chrome is by this set up, already in a form ready for remote exploits. Yes, you can configure it, if you want to stuff around in the registry and hidden settings. But most people dont have the knowledge or time to do something that should be a default or available choice.
MS is a small system maker that is attempting to do big time: all they do is big time damage.
Windows 98 has 71 floppies. Well, OS/2 was released when CD-ROMs were not common fare. At least I can boot onto OS/2 from floppies, and get full long file name support from the boot disk. No version of Windows does this.
By the way, fix pack 43 for OS/2 [Yes, IBM only discontinued support for OS/2 3.0 this year] is on 14 diskettes, or 25 megabites. Windows 2000 fix pack 2 is 110 megabites: you can't put it on a Zip disk. There was no final fixpack 7 for NT4. By this time, Windows 2K was out, and you should migrate to that.
>a pain in the $@$%* finding any software for it
It is because MS denied the other vendors pre-load boot space that cut the market. In the mid nineties, there was a paper print OS/2 Magazine, and perusing issues of that will clearly point to lots of places that sell software for it. I have gal civ and sim city 2000, both for OS/2.
>GUI's in general made PC's mainstream.
Again, you are wrong. It was Lotus 123 and Wordperfect, DBAse and XYZ Word, that brought the PC's into general application. GUIs were brought into acceptance by games. Windows did not really kick off until 1990 (Win 3,0), and 1992.
The GUI interface found in Windows &c was spread by games, and the Windows implementation follows that of OS/2 v 1.3. The Windows 3.1 programs are straight copies of the OS/2 1.3 ones. It even has the same bugs.
>I dont think so, alladin systems was mentioned, they were giving way less than 10mil, HP was mentioned for 3 mill. A few private donators were mentioned too. Like I said, put up or shut up linux.
Of course MS is not the only denotar. But this is the first time I heard of ANY other denotations. I heard of the MS one four times on the news.
>I don't really know if it was a PR thing either,
It's called flag waving: be a patriotic American and buy from us because we gave 10 millions. It happens over here all the time.
The other thing is that MS has been getting some very BAD publicity in relation to WTC. You see, the FlightSim is a fairly accurate representation of many cities, and provides a fairly easy way to learn your way around the skylines of a city. This point has not been lost on Sky TV.
>I don't know of a single person, male or female that was not brought to tears from the WTC pictures.
I do. There was a bigger disaster that affected way more lives in the same week, and no one raised an eyebrow, because it did not happen in the USA.
>>why can't you buy a computer at your local shop with OS/2, DRDOS, or BeOS on it, when these were big threats.
>Do you really know the answer? I think you're the sheltered one. It's all about the money.
Yes, it's all about Money. The price of a MS licence was considerably less if you promised to exclude competition. So no-one even got a lookin. Check out the DR-DOS case for details on this.
>Ok, do this for me, if you work in a cubical corral. Look over your cube and tell me the # of desktops running any of these "alternative" operating systems. Less than you could count on 1 hand? I thought so.
It's a silly company that runs more than one system on their network, be it DOS, Windows, OS/2 Linux, or Apple. Multi-OS networks dont gel in the workplace.
"Why Linux is losing the desktop war"
- Tech support, of whatever flavour, do not as a rule, provide very good support. Its as much the fault of the user, who think the tech has nothing better than ask "silly" questions. Techs get frustrated and give out the "use the help/documentation" thing.
- People, given the sort of help, generally do not make the investment with whateve they got, and as a result, just stay with the bad bunch. Most of the users I have encountered don't use their word processer any thing that wordpad could not do.
- The only people who I have seen make a serious attack on the above was Team-OS/2. They actually did things, not only for OS/2, but any system.
>You should know all about 1 vendor solutions with your IBM background.I do indeed. IBM have computer, OS/2, Lotus suite, &c, for OS/2. OK, why don't you see IBM boxes with OS/2 and Smartsuite, or even PC-DOS, like you used to: MS licencing prices. Enough said.
>>You must have lead a sheltered life.
>Was that a presumtion or were you farting from the mouth?
It was actually based on what you had said. I mean, you can't be really inspired to denote $5 money yourself to the WTC, but happy for MS to send the same amount (of time earnings), to the same thing.
I have been on help desks of one kind or another for 15 years. It pays to be cynical.
What's wrong with spending money on the ones you love.... :)
Were its goods so competitive, then why do they prevent other operators from competing. I mean, why can't you buy a computer at your local shop with OS/2, DRDOS, or BeOS on it, when these were big threats. Listen to the judge.
> Your not counting how much a good unix tech costs these days, not free.
Like MSCE's are free... Oh. We have a new version of windows out, step up and put another $8000 in, please. The thing has so many back doors and so forth, it's little wonder there are so many viruses wandering around.
> I just don't get it with you linux people. Have you ever in YOU LIFE been in either a Systems administrator or Lan Administrator position where you had to give support?
I am not a Linux person, I am an OS/2 person. Have you ever heard of Team-OS/2? Yes, I worked on a front line support position for many different systems for 15 years, and no, I don't say read the manual.
> No our power is from our taxes, thats why we have paved highways and a mighty military. It's why america is the one country everyone wants to come too.
And power comes from the people. You think that MS is a good guy because they give 30 minutes of their time for free publicity and stick their name in the news. If you gave $10 millions, they would just pass you over in the news.
> At least with my $189 purchase of XP it comes with some tech support.
So does my $80 box version of RedHat. I can choose to buy Redhat from Redhat, or get it off the magazine covers. If I buy it, I get some support.
> Linux was not responsible for mainstream geek acceptance. That honor goes to wintel.
It's actually DOS that gets the honour. All the standard fixes that people report about Windows don't actually work under Windows, but they do under DOS. Examples:
- Delete the application and reinstall: Under DOS, the programs kept the initialisation data under its own directory, in Windows, this is in the registry. In fact, IE is uninstallable if the reinstall fails, and there are fragments of it in registry
There's plenty of people who use eg, OS/2, who will bash Linux and BeOS and whatever. It is obvious that you don't mix with the crowd, and also, people who use different operating systems had the sense and taste to get out of the shell.I don't see Be, QNX, IBM (os/2), or anyone else out there blaming anything on MS.
IBM doesn't because they have a soft underbelly: they do make computers. The exec from Be did step up and say that MS is aggressive and not a fair competitor. You must have lead a sheltered life.
Obviously have not heard of the three R's of Windows:
From vers 2.1 onwards, including eComStation, the version is based on Windows 3.1. Whatever the version is, the main Windows operating system lives in a few files (the dos extender, mainly). Kernel is a Windows program, GDI and User are apps that run under Kernel. But Windows is up and running before Kernel loads.
Win-OS/2 does not support the WinOldAp stuff (ie DOS boxes).
Note that Win-OS/2 actually is two different emulators. In one mode, it is a DOS program that runs like any other DOS program under OS/2. That is, it starts and runs like Windows under DOS, loading the shell and task manager specified in SYSTEM.INI.
In the seamless mode, it runs using the native OS/2 shell, task manager and clipboard. At this time there is no binary interface.
Of course it is more advanced than WINE &c, since IBM got hold of the original source code, and recompiled it.
What's wrong in spending money on us ...
How much did they give to underwrite airline insurance premiums that suddenly went up for this, which is where some of my taxes went to.
How much did they give to victims of failed companies.
No, MS donating money makes them look like goodies, and they donate it where it gives them an advantage. I mean, it's a fairly cheap ad for them: Yes, we are giving half an hour's profit, look at how good we are. Don't hurt us...
money for MS = protect monopoly
free Linux = money for people to spend.
Linux = saved money = power for the people
I did train a virus scanner to search for bloatware once, and managed to detect 198 files on my computer that was detected by the particular fporm of bloat.
The sad thing about Windows bugs is that you don't need to go to the back door to do damage. There's enough to be seen to do it through the front door now.
Maybe SirCam did not work because when the damage was passed down to the underlying OS, Linux did not want to play ball: and isn't that WHY we run emulators.... :)
I seem to recall something about if you apply restrictions to the content of what passes through your channels, than you are giving what passes through the nod.
In the case of MS, by prohibiting particular content being made and published using their product, then they are leaving themselves open to aiding people who make, say, porn or hate pages, using Frontpage. And because their licences prohibit some content, then they are party to what is let through.
Hmmm - just a thought ....
In the days of WW2, cold war and so forth, there was an identifiable enemy: Germans, Japanese, Russians, Vietcong, &c. So the allied might could be applied against a country, and that the resultant war, bloody as they were, were fairly obvious. If you waved a US flag or a Nazi flag, you were fair game.
What we have now is a situation where one side can only attack units that have attacked. So where in WW2, you could attack the 6th German army because you were attacked by the 4th, this no longer applies.
Of course, this kind of attack is not new. The attack on labor unions over here follows much the same thing.
Another thing that is nearer to home, and less subtle, is Microsoft's legal rangles. You see, each of MS's attacks are carefully isolated before the attack. MS talks of the current case being about "browsers" and nothing to do with "data streaming" or "office applications". So what is being asked is that MS can procede full pace at all things, but the DOJ is being bound by what causes crimes.
In the case of unions, while each battle is between a specific union and company, legislation has prevented the unions from engaging in the supporting tactics that the companies are free to. So the unions, isolated in attacks, can not raise global issues. This does not stop the companies from doing the same.
In the case of terrorists, we are fighting isolated fragments of islam. There may be five, six, seven small operations going on, each with the capacity to attack, and we can not attack until attacked.
The real issue I see, is that we are dealing with a new kind of attack, by isolated parts of the enemy. We need to drain the darkness that these isolated parts operate under, and attack the grand total.
I'm not offering a solution here, but some different view: a crack in the wall to look through.
You can get around no parameters by using accumulators or registers. These are just ordinary variables that a particular function finds and returns data. If you want to run the function on other variables, you need to move the data around yourself.
Functions can run at different levels. For example, processing an array needs a list function and an item function. One can have different list and item functions.
The trick is to ensure that not more than one function at each level is active at once.
It gets you into the habit of thinking about using a small arena wisely, and about optimising code.
As far as literate programing goes, I use a preprocessor that allows you to strip the basic code out of a text document. That is, one can write a lengthy text document on the subject, and use grep to write the table of contents and the output basic code. Because basic will order the lines as required, you can add and remove functionality by adding and removing chapters of the documentation. This is really interesting to see consequtive lines of a routine come from different chapters of a book... But it makes for tight well documented code. It is just that, like the accumulators, the chief switching routines are also carefully designed to support later insertions.
And one from this, sees why the people who wrote C/C++ wanted to move away from a single arena and single open code base...
You can get gorilla.bas &c in the supplemental MSDOS files for 6.x.
There are three significant versions of it.
Apart from the BASIC interpertor, you can use it as an editor and as a help engine. The edit.com and help.com automatically launch it in these modes, the files are identical, except at the end, one says EDCOM and the other says QHELP. This is handy, because in Win9x, edit.com does not appear. But if you want to make it, you can do it. You can rename edit.com and help.com to anything you like, eg qbedit.com and help6.com. This might be needed if edit and help commands do something differet, as they do in 4DOS.
The same thing can make BASIC programs work faster. In essence, one writes for Z=function(X,Y):
A1=X:A2=Y:GOSUB {function}:Z=A1
If you think about the functions you use, you can make, and where the output is placed, you can replace the one function with serveral functions.
Interestingly, the people who fiddle around with lots of little tools will split the problem into lots of smaller ones when a single larger tool would be faster. The tools are often on hand, and are faster to assemble than it is to write one big tool. The bigger tool should be looked at if one is doing lots of the same task. The reference for this is Knuth "Literate Programming".
The increase in productivity is because the CLI forces one to consider the data structures earlier, eg, up front, and this is the right thing to do.