You mean like the Mac that I own or Fedora which is the primary OS on my notebook?
" I'm also not going to accuse you of being a Microsoft shill, but busting out with a marketdroid line like "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS", well, it's hard for me to believe that you could be anything else."
Name another OS that has near-100% hardware support.
Linux has minimal commercial software support. I want applications like Photoshop, Sound Forge, and others to run on my system. Wine / CodeWeavers / VMWare aren't acceptable options.
OS X only runs on Apple hardware.
That's the thick of it. Name an OS that has both broad hardware support and lots of commercial support.
OS X is not a bad OS. Neither is Linux. That's why I have a Mac. That's why I run Linux (FC3) on my notebook. They serve the purpose well.
I'm posting this right now from Firefox on Ubuntu. I'm developing a Python/GTK applet to configure my Intel PRO/2200 wireless card (or any card that works with iwlist scanning).
It's not about the bloody OS! It's about the bloody platform. Linux does not have broad commercial software support, particularly in the areas of photo/video editing. OS X doesn't run on anything but Apple hardware (and, no, PearPC doesn't count).
There are lots of websites that talk about 'linux on the '. There are very few that talk about 'Windows on '. There is a reason for this - hardware support on Windows is pretty much a non-issue. There are very few hardware devices that *don't* work with Windows.
Software support isn't a problem either. Most OSS apps are available as Windows versions through the project (Firefox, Thunderbird, GAIM, Gimp, OpenOffice, AbiWord, Vi, XChat, and many more) or through Cygwin (BASH, SSH, hundreds of others).
Most Windows apps aren't available for Linux, though. That's not the fault of the 1000s of OSS programmers working on what goes into every Linux distro, it's just the way it is. It *is* a downside of Linux, though.
I'm not a Microsoft shill and I don't think that their products are perfect. But to deny that Windows is *the most* compatible, versitile desktop OS available is to deny the market itself. It's neither negative or positive for Windows, it's just the facts.
It's like Windows is an SUV, Mac OS is a hydrogen-powered vehicle, and Linux is a VW Jetta TDI.
Windows is big and clunky, and it has lots of problems. It can be used for pretty much anything, though - you can haul lots of people, or rocks. It also runs on fuel you can get anywhere.
Mac OS is slick and new, but, like the hydrogen car, it has special needs. Mac OS doesn't run on PCs. It does have pretty decent commercial software support, though.
Linux runs on most hardware (just like diesel is availble in most places), but sometimes it can have compatibility issues. It's not limited in functionality - but you have to look at OSS alternatives to your favorite software. There's no Picasa, but you can use gPhoto. There's no Windows Media Player, but xine does the trick 90% of the time. That's the way it is.
Pretending that Linux is perfect is unrealistic. Pretending that I am a Microsoft shill or that I don't use Fedora (almost every day - on my server and my notebook) or OS X 10.3 (regularly on my old G3 iMac, upgraded to 256MB) is just plain dumb.
Look at my posting history. I'm not some "noob" M$ apologist, and I'm not a marketing droid.
I just see things a bit differently. Right now, there is room for both Linux and Windows in my computing life. But when I want to bust out Half-Life 2, when I want to fire up Vegas and edit a movie, and when I want to use my USB laser printer, I want to use the only OS that lets me do that. That's why I run Windows. I'm unwilling to buy new hardware, unwilling to give up my games, and unwilling to throw out all my software.
If that makes me a Microsoft zealot, so be it. But if I'm a zealot, so are the other 300+ million users of Windows.
I've heard it a million times. What's Windows Longhorn going to be like.
Well, actually, it won't be too different from the Windows you're probably be using now.
That's because Windows XP is becoming Longhorn. No other major operating system has gone four years without a new release. Windows XP has been the longest lasting, most successful version of Windows ever.
It's amazing how much it has changed, though. Look at the wireless interface (two major revisions), the media player (two major revisions), the firewall, the web browser, the security center - even the kernel has had massive upgrades and changes.
The Security Center was a Longhorn feature. So were the changes in Internet Explorer. So was the.NET CLR 2.0. So was Avalon. So was DEP.
Literally dozens, if not hundreds of fetaures and enhancements that are part of XP were originally planned for Longhorn. Now we learn that Internet Explorer 7, Avalon, and.NET 2.0 will all be available for Windows XP.
If what we're seeing now is what Longhorn will be like, then I'm definately going to want Longhorn. XP SP2 is a dramatically smarter, more secure, better version of XP. Hopefully Longhorn will continue with that legacy and become the best Windows yet.
Of all the operating systems out there, Windows is the product I like the most. I've used OS X, many Linux distributions, and even quite a few "novelty" operating systems like QNX and BeOS. No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS.
"Joe is obviously incompetent, and keeping him around in a high position is going to jeopardize Bob's business."
Not necessarily. The fact that Joe's business isn't competitive doesn't necessarily mean that Joe isn't a capable manager. Other issues may have plagued the location.
A more likely example would be a major chain purchasing a local business and converting it ton one of their stores.
"Ok, so is there a difference between a "merger" and a "buyout"? "
It's a fine line.
"doesn't mean you want you want the idiots in management who got that company into its present shape"
In many mergers, the management of one company is indeed fired or reassigned to a different role.
That's the idea of a merger: you don't necessarily want *everything* that the other company has, just the good stuff. In the HP/Compaq example, the new company dropped a lot of products - HP's crappy desktop PCs went away, as did their servers (also bad), handhelds (arguably bad), and a number of other things.
In the case of Verizon, Verizon will drop MCI and/or Verizon systems, choosing the best. If American Airlines, for example, were to purchase United, you can bet that one of their two booking systems would be dropped, and that a big part of American's fleet would be retired (AA operates a lot of old MD-80 planes).
The point is this: it's not necessarily either company's fault that they are not profitable. It may be that there are simply too many players in the market. If two players are driving each other out of business, or if they have lost their competitive edge, it may make sense for them to pool their resources and see if they can stay afloat.
There's also a more buyout-like situation, like with MCI. One company that is doing well decides to buy a company that is not doing well. In Verizon's case, they are buying a huge data network along with the skills and equipment to maintain that network. Not a bad proposition for $6.6 billion.
"This sounds great in theory, but I for one have never seen it in practice. How's HP/Compaq doing these days?"
Actually, quite well. Neither HP nor Compaq could really offer competition to Dell, but the "new" HP is now the #1/#2 computer manufactuer in the world. They are profitable and are turning out good revenue.
"If crappy companies like MCI can't hack it, let them go under."
Just because MCI can't hack it doesn't mean that they don't have ASSETS. That's the point of buying a company - Verizon gets MCI's extensive data network, their qualified network staff, their equipment.
"What's wrong with bankruptcy?"
Nothing, except that often the company is valuable enough to be purchased. Take Iridium, for example - even though they went under, the 70+ satellites they had launched had tremendous value.
"Yes, a lot of airlines seem to be having problems these days. There's nothing wrong with that; the crappy ones, like United, deserve to go under."
United has an entire fleet of aircraft, trained mechanics, trained pilots, flight attendents, airport space.
Repeat after me: ASSETS.
Those assets have value. It would be foolish to simply auction them off. It's far smarter for United to be purchased by a company that can manage those assets properly.
"no one gains anything from a merger"
Except the people who work for that company and the people who use that company's resources. When the alternative is shutting down for good and liquidating the assets, a merger is an excellent way to help the company stay afloat.
Small Business Example:
I run Bob's Mexican. We have a trianed staff and make the best tacos in town. Joe runs Joe's Mexican. He has the best burritos in town.
Joe's Mexican can't stay afloat. So, I buy his business and turn it into a 2nd Bob's Mexican location. Joe becomes manager of the 2nd Bob's Mexican. We get his burrito recipie, his location, and his staff -- trained and ready to go.
It's called "synergy" - the whole system can operate better than the sum of the parts. It's not just a BS marketing term, you know. It's what happens during mergers.
HP didn't have an attractive server line. Compaq didn't have an attractive workstation line.
Together, they have incorporated the best of both of their products to create some really compelling products.
Look at the HP XW4200 - it's a really well engineered, affordable, high performance workstation. Neither HP nor Compaq had a product like that pre-merger.
80 billion in revenue and 20 billion in profit isn't exactly "hurting".
"So, on a Mac, it says "Install" instead of "Okay.""
Funny, it doesn't say "OK" on Windows XP SP2.
It says "Install". And the dialog doesn't even come up unless you click the "information bar" (a feature Firefox later ripped off) and choose "Install ActiveX Control".
Google owns that domain because of their search-by-number (T9 equivilent) service for mobile phones. It's easier to enter 466453 on a mobile phone than it is to enter "google".
"Worldcom has the numbers to survive. Compaq will never collapse under its own weight. Sega makes great games and a great 32 bit console, they will be around forever...."
Worldcom is still around, they just changed their name to MCI. Compaq merged with HP to form one of the largest computer companies in the world. Sega is a major player in independant development, particularly for mobile phones.
None of the companies you listed, except Enron, "died". The Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of 1995, and it won't be the Microsoft of 2015.
I have no doubts, though, that Microsoft will still be around in 2015.
"How Linux admins can easily administrate more machines per person-hour, due to the nature of Unix/Linux's remote administration (and don't even get me started on VNC or Terminal Services; they aren't scriptable, they aren't as bandwidth-effective, etc. etc. etc...), than Windows admins?"
They can't. If you'd ever used group policy, MMC, or the other numerous Windows administration tools, you would know that Windows administration doesn't mean "log in with VNC".
"The "hidden" costs of lost time due to (A) protecting against adware/spyware/malware/viruses/pop-ups, or (B) actually disinfecting machines that got infected anyhow."
I'll give you this one. I'd like to see a real study on this. Remember, though, that Linux-based companies must take many of the same measures to protect their businesses. At my company, we have a hardware-based firewall and antivirus solution (Sonicwall) that's pretty effective.
"The "hidden" costs of downtime due to buggy MS software. Sure, F/OSS stuff has bugs too, but when it does, at least the admin can try to fix them."
That's not at all realistic. Unless you're an admin at a *really* large organization, you probably don't have time to hunt down bugs in OSS apps. Not to mention that you have to track the changes unless you can get your fix accepted as a patch - and that requires even more work.
"When MS software is buggy, the admin is 100% at MS's mercy to fix the bug (since, being closed source, MS software is often 100% unfixable to anyone outside MS...)"
And, when OSS software is buggy, most people in the real world aren't going to run their own fork of RedHat to solve the problem. It's a logistical nightmare to develop and deploy patches without the help of your distro vendor. Unless you want to run a completely non-standard environment (try getting support from RedHat once you tell them that you changed some packages), you're SOL.
"The "hidden" costs of dealing with "hacked" IIS servers (vs. Apache)."
IIS 6 (http://secunia.com/product/1438/) has had far fewer security issues than Apache 2.0 (http://secunia.com/product/73/). It also has fewer unpatched issues. No reported issues for IIS 6.0 have allowed code execution. The only outstanding issue is one which could allow cross-site scripting with the web-based administration tool (e.g. a website could use Javascript to hijack the admin tool). This attack does not work if the administration is done on a system with the IE enhanced security configuration (on by default in Windows Server 2003).
You can complain all you want about IIS, but, as of version 6.0, it's a very capable, secure web server.
Personally, I think Microsoft purchased VPC because of their XBox division. XBox2 is going to be PowerPC based, and Microsoft probably wants backward compatibility with XBox. VPC is the perfect solution - it already has a fast x86-on-PowerPC emulation engine.
"Um, as you can see the same thing happens to any OS. The difference is that Gentoo does this: 1. write a patch to fix current version so users are safe, then 2. put fixed version in Portage when available, then 3. notify users with a Gentoo Linux Security Advisory. Microsoft does this: 1. let news about vuln spread, 2. wait for someone important to notice, 3. announce vuln, 4. wait a week to a month, 5. release patch, 6. give sheepish excuse."
Gentoo's method is unacceptable for corporate users.
Unless there is an exploit in the wild, it does no good to release the patch when corporate users are unlikely to apply it.
It is far better to have a one-month release cycle - as an IS admin, I check for new patches on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, test for compatibility, and roll them out in a timely manner.
With Gentoo's version, I'd end up patching once a month ANYWAY, because I can't spare time every week to test patches. The once-a-month schedule allows me to inform my manager that the 2nd Tuesday is "patch day" -- I spend the time needed to test & deploy patches, and we arrange for additional help to take over regular IS maintenence. We also have additional help the next day in case something doesn't go well with the patching.
In the event of a severe vulnerability (e.g. exploit in the wild), Microsoft releases a patch outside of the regular schedule and gives a security advisory. I can test the patch and apply it right away.
You can disagree with the one-month cycle, but it sure makes the jobs of people like me a lot easier.
"Clearly you have no actual systems admin experience. Auto-update is a fantastic way to automatically take down your whole corporate network. Occasionally one of the updates will be incompatible with something, like say... an ethernet driver. Now if you have that ethernet card in your machine, you're offline. Not a huge problem, but annoying. If you have that ethernet card in every machine in your 2,000 employee company... huge, gigantic, enormous problem."
Clearly you've never tried Software Update Services. You can redirect the auto-update URL (using group policy) to an internal server, which allows you to choose which updates you want to rollout and when you want to do so.
"Who says that users must type search.msn.com in their URL text entry field? Microsoft could modify the apps so that everything that doesn't look like a URL will be automatically redirected towards search.msn.com. It would be actually even easier for users to search stuff: just type in what you need and voila, MSN search spits out a page of results."
"Slashdot's HTML is such a joke, it can't really be considered a bonafide bug in Firefox's rendering engine."
Like hell it's not. Mozilla is failing to resize the table when new content is rendered.
It's a layout bug, pure and simple. It has been reported to Bugzilla and fixed in the latest Mozilla revs. Firefox 1.1 should have the fix in place.
When your software is broken, fix the problem. Don't blame it on "bad HTML". I'm glad that Mozilla is fixed, but, really, this bug should have been squashed *long ago*.
Slashdot Mirror
"what right does Microsoft have to force the user to run it under "Genuine Windows" only?"
Every right. They can code their software however they want to, provided that they are obeying the law.
HP has software that only runs on HP computers because of a BIOS check. This isn't any different.
" if you've really used OSX or Fedora"
You mean like the Mac that I own or Fedora which is the primary OS on my notebook?
"
I'm also not going to accuse you of being a Microsoft shill, but busting out with a marketdroid line like "No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS", well, it's hard for me to believe that you could be anything else."
Name another OS that has near-100% hardware support.
Linux has minimal commercial software support. I want applications like Photoshop, Sound Forge, and others to run on my system. Wine / CodeWeavers / VMWare aren't acceptable options.
OS X only runs on Apple hardware.
That's the thick of it. Name an OS that has both broad hardware support and lots of commercial support.
OS X is not a bad OS. Neither is Linux. That's why I have a Mac. That's why I run Linux (FC3) on my notebook. They serve the purpose well.
I'm posting this right now from Firefox on Ubuntu. I'm developing a Python/GTK applet to configure my Intel PRO/2200 wireless card (or any card that works with iwlist scanning).
It's not about the bloody OS! It's about the bloody platform. Linux does not have broad commercial software support, particularly in the areas of photo/video editing. OS X doesn't run on anything but Apple hardware (and, no, PearPC doesn't count).
There are lots of websites that talk about 'linux on the '. There are very few that talk about 'Windows on '. There is a reason for this - hardware support on Windows is pretty much a non-issue. There are very few hardware devices that *don't* work with Windows.
Software support isn't a problem either. Most OSS apps are available as Windows versions through the project (Firefox, Thunderbird, GAIM, Gimp, OpenOffice, AbiWord, Vi, XChat, and many more) or through Cygwin (BASH, SSH, hundreds of others).
Most Windows apps aren't available for Linux, though. That's not the fault of the 1000s of OSS programmers working on what goes into every Linux distro, it's just the way it is. It *is* a downside of Linux, though.
I'm not a Microsoft shill and I don't think that their products are perfect. But to deny that Windows is *the most* compatible, versitile desktop OS available is to deny the market itself. It's neither negative or positive for Windows, it's just the facts.
It's like Windows is an SUV, Mac OS is a hydrogen-powered vehicle, and Linux is a VW Jetta TDI.
Windows is big and clunky, and it has lots of problems. It can be used for pretty much anything, though - you can haul lots of people, or rocks. It also runs on fuel you can get anywhere.
Mac OS is slick and new, but, like the hydrogen car, it has special needs. Mac OS doesn't run on PCs. It does have pretty decent commercial software support, though.
Linux runs on most hardware (just like diesel is availble in most places), but sometimes it can have compatibility issues. It's not limited in functionality - but you have to look at OSS alternatives to your favorite software. There's no Picasa, but you can use gPhoto. There's no Windows Media Player, but xine does the trick 90% of the time. That's the way it is.
Pretending that Linux is perfect is unrealistic. Pretending that I am a Microsoft shill or that I don't use Fedora (almost every day - on my server and my notebook) or OS X 10.3 (regularly on my old G3 iMac, upgraded to 256MB) is just plain dumb.
Look at my posting history. I'm not some "noob" M$ apologist, and I'm not a marketing droid.
I just see things a bit differently. Right now, there is room for both Linux and Windows in my computing life. But when I want to bust out Half-Life 2, when I want to fire up Vegas and edit a movie, and when I want to use my USB laser printer, I want to use the only OS that lets me do that. That's why I run Windows. I'm unwilling to buy new hardware, unwilling to give up my games, and unwilling to throw out all my software.
If that makes me a Microsoft zealot, so be it. But if I'm a zealot, so are the other 300+ million users of Windows.
I've heard it a million times. What's Windows Longhorn going to be like.
.NET CLR 2.0. So was Avalon. So was DEP.
.NET 2.0 will all be available for Windows XP.
Well, actually, it won't be too different from the Windows you're probably be using now.
That's because Windows XP is becoming Longhorn. No other major operating system has gone four years without a new release. Windows XP has been the longest lasting, most successful version of Windows ever.
It's amazing how much it has changed, though. Look at the wireless interface (two major revisions), the media player (two major revisions), the firewall, the web browser, the security center - even the kernel has had massive upgrades and changes.
The Security Center was a Longhorn feature. So were the changes in Internet Explorer. So was the
Literally dozens, if not hundreds of fetaures and enhancements that are part of XP were originally planned for Longhorn. Now we learn that Internet Explorer 7, Avalon, and
If what we're seeing now is what Longhorn will be like, then I'm definately going to want Longhorn. XP SP2 is a dramatically smarter, more secure, better version of XP. Hopefully Longhorn will continue with that legacy and become the best Windows yet.
Of all the operating systems out there, Windows is the product I like the most. I've used OS X, many Linux distributions, and even quite a few "novelty" operating systems like QNX and BeOS. No OS, however, can truly compare with the compatibility and versatility of the world's most popular OS.
Yeah, that's right. I like Windows XP.
Try numbers mode. It works on my 3590.
"Joe is obviously incompetent, and keeping him around in a high position is going to jeopardize Bob's business."
Not necessarily. The fact that Joe's business isn't competitive doesn't necessarily mean that Joe isn't a capable manager. Other issues may have plagued the location.
A more likely example would be a major chain purchasing a local business and converting it ton one of their stores.
"Ok, so is there a difference between a "merger" and a "buyout"? "
It's a fine line.
"doesn't mean you want you want the idiots in management who got that company into its present shape"
In many mergers, the management of one company is indeed fired or reassigned to a different role.
That's the idea of a merger: you don't necessarily want *everything* that the other company has, just the good stuff. In the HP/Compaq example, the new company dropped a lot of products - HP's crappy desktop PCs went away, as did their servers (also bad), handhelds (arguably bad), and a number of other things.
In the case of Verizon, Verizon will drop MCI and/or Verizon systems, choosing the best. If American Airlines, for example, were to purchase United, you can bet that one of their two booking systems would be dropped, and that a big part of American's fleet would be retired (AA operates a lot of old MD-80 planes).
The point is this: it's not necessarily either company's fault that they are not profitable. It may be that there are simply too many players in the market. If two players are driving each other out of business, or if they have lost their competitive edge, it may make sense for them to pool their resources and see if they can stay afloat.
There's also a more buyout-like situation, like with MCI. One company that is doing well decides to buy a company that is not doing well. In Verizon's case, they are buying a huge data network along with the skills and equipment to maintain that network. Not a bad proposition for $6.6 billion.
"This sounds great in theory, but I for one have never seen it in practice. How's HP/Compaq doing these days?"
Actually, quite well. Neither HP nor Compaq could really offer competition to Dell, but the "new" HP is now the #1/#2 computer manufactuer in the world. They are profitable and are turning out good revenue.
"If crappy companies like MCI can't hack it, let them go under."
Just because MCI can't hack it doesn't mean that they don't have ASSETS. That's the point of buying a company - Verizon gets MCI's extensive data network, their qualified network staff, their equipment.
"What's wrong with bankruptcy?"
Nothing, except that often the company is valuable enough to be purchased. Take Iridium, for example - even though they went under, the 70+ satellites they had launched had tremendous value.
"Yes, a lot of airlines seem to be having problems these days. There's nothing wrong with that; the crappy ones, like United, deserve to go under."
United has an entire fleet of aircraft, trained mechanics, trained pilots, flight attendents, airport space.
Repeat after me: ASSETS.
Those assets have value. It would be foolish to simply auction them off. It's far smarter for United to be purchased by a company that can manage those assets properly.
"no one gains anything from a merger"
Except the people who work for that company and the people who use that company's resources. When the alternative is shutting down for good and liquidating the assets, a merger is an excellent way to help the company stay afloat.
Small Business Example:
I run Bob's Mexican. We have a trianed staff and make the best tacos in town. Joe runs Joe's Mexican. He has the best burritos in town.
Joe's Mexican can't stay afloat. So, I buy his business and turn it into a 2nd Bob's Mexican location. Joe becomes manager of the 2nd Bob's Mexican. We get his burrito recipie, his location, and his staff -- trained and ready to go.
It's called "synergy" - the whole system can operate better than the sum of the parts. It's not just a BS marketing term, you know. It's what happens during mergers.
HP didn't have an attractive server line. Compaq didn't have an attractive workstation line.
Together, they have incorporated the best of both of their products to create some really compelling products.
Look at the HP XW4200 - it's a really well engineered, affordable, high performance workstation. Neither HP nor Compaq had a product like that pre-merger.
80 billion in revenue and 20 billion in profit isn't exactly "hurting".
"So, on a Mac, it says "Install" instead of "Okay.""
Funny, it doesn't say "OK" on Windows XP SP2.
It says "Install". And the dialog doesn't even come up unless you click the "information bar" (a feature Firefox later ripped off) and choose "Install ActiveX Control".
Google owns that domain because of their search-by-number (T9 equivilent) service for mobile phones. It's easier to enter 466453 on a mobile phone than it is to enter "google".
They actually *do* have tracks from The Beatles, but only two. They didn't lie to you.
Even iTMS only has about 10 tracks - better than Napster but by no means comprehensive.
I don't know what your problem, but Hotmail works fine in both Mozilla (1.7.5) and Firefox (1.0) for me.
"Worldcom has the numbers to survive. Compaq will never collapse under its own weight. Sega makes great games and a great 32 bit console, they will be around forever...."
Worldcom is still around, they just changed their name to MCI. Compaq merged with HP to form one of the largest computer companies in the world. Sega is a major player in independant development, particularly for mobile phones.
None of the companies you listed, except Enron, "died". The Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of 1995, and it won't be the Microsoft of 2015.
I have no doubts, though, that Microsoft will still be around in 2015.
"its the houses fault for using dealer shoes rather than shuffling every time"
Shuffling every time would decrease the house edge compared to using a shoe with a cut-card.
"How Linux admins can easily administrate more machines per person-hour, due to the nature of Unix/Linux's remote administration (and don't even get me started on VNC or Terminal Services; they aren't scriptable, they aren't as bandwidth-effective, etc. etc. etc...), than Windows admins?"
They can't. If you'd ever used group policy, MMC, or the other numerous Windows administration tools, you would know that Windows administration doesn't mean "log in with VNC".
"The "hidden" costs of lost time due to (A) protecting against adware/spyware/malware/viruses/pop-ups, or (B) actually disinfecting machines that got infected anyhow."
I'll give you this one. I'd like to see a real study on this. Remember, though, that Linux-based companies must take many of the same measures to protect their businesses. At my company, we have a hardware-based firewall and antivirus solution (Sonicwall) that's pretty effective.
"The "hidden" costs of downtime due to buggy MS software. Sure, F/OSS stuff has bugs too, but when it does, at least the admin can try to fix them."
That's not at all realistic. Unless you're an admin at a *really* large organization, you probably don't have time to hunt down bugs in OSS apps. Not to mention that you have to track the changes unless you can get your fix accepted as a patch - and that requires even more work.
"When MS software is buggy, the admin is 100% at MS's mercy to fix the bug (since, being closed source, MS software is often 100% unfixable to anyone outside MS...)"
And, when OSS software is buggy, most people in the real world aren't going to run their own fork of RedHat to solve the problem. It's a logistical nightmare to develop and deploy patches without the help of your distro vendor. Unless you want to run a completely non-standard environment (try getting support from RedHat once you tell them that you changed some packages), you're SOL.
"The "hidden" costs of dealing with "hacked" IIS servers (vs. Apache)."
IIS 6 (http://secunia.com/product/1438/) has had far fewer security issues than Apache 2.0 (http://secunia.com/product/73/). It also has fewer unpatched issues. No reported issues for IIS 6.0 have allowed code execution. The only outstanding issue is one which could allow cross-site scripting with the web-based administration tool (e.g. a website could use Javascript to hijack the admin tool). This attack does not work if the administration is done on a system with the IE enhanced security configuration (on by default in Windows Server 2003).
You can complain all you want about IIS, but, as of version 6.0, it's a very capable, secure web server.
Those links don't provide any evidence at all to support your claim that Windows Media Player contains Quiktime code.
According to whom? A Google search didn't turn up anything interesting.
Justify your argument or stop spreading FUD.
Personally, I think Microsoft purchased VPC because of their XBox division. XBox2 is going to be PowerPC based, and Microsoft probably wants backward compatibility with XBox. VPC is the perfect solution - it already has a fast x86-on-PowerPC emulation engine.
You do know that Mitsubishi is a Japanese corporation, right?
And your friend is a dirty liar, too.
Wow! $350 for a QAM/ATSC tuner?
ATI's "HDTV Wonder" is 1/2 the price, $175.
Of course, it's PCI.
"Um, as you can see the same thing happens to any OS. The difference is that Gentoo does this: 1. write a patch to fix current version so users are safe, then 2. put fixed version in Portage when available, then 3. notify users with a Gentoo Linux Security Advisory. Microsoft does this: 1. let news about vuln spread, 2. wait for someone important to notice, 3. announce vuln, 4. wait a week to a month, 5. release patch, 6. give sheepish excuse."
Gentoo's method is unacceptable for corporate users.
Unless there is an exploit in the wild, it does no good to release the patch when corporate users are unlikely to apply it.
It is far better to have a one-month release cycle - as an IS admin, I check for new patches on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, test for compatibility, and roll them out in a timely manner.
With Gentoo's version, I'd end up patching once a month ANYWAY, because I can't spare time every week to test patches. The once-a-month schedule allows me to inform my manager that the 2nd Tuesday is "patch day" -- I spend the time needed to test & deploy patches, and we arrange for additional help to take over regular IS maintenence. We also have additional help the next day in case something doesn't go well with the patching.
In the event of a severe vulnerability (e.g. exploit in the wild), Microsoft releases a patch outside of the regular schedule and gives a security advisory. I can test the patch and apply it right away.
You can disagree with the one-month cycle, but it sure makes the jobs of people like me a lot easier.
"Clearly you have no actual systems admin experience. Auto-update is a fantastic way to automatically take down your whole corporate network. Occasionally one of the updates will be incompatible with something, like say... an ethernet driver. Now if you have that ethernet card in your machine, you're offline. Not a huge problem, but annoying. If you have that ethernet card in every machine in your 2,000 employee company... huge, gigantic, enormous problem."
Clearly you've never tried Software Update Services. You can redirect the auto-update URL (using group policy) to an internal server, which allows you to choose which updates you want to rollout and when you want to do so.
"Who says that users must type search.msn.com in their URL text entry field? Microsoft could modify the apps so that everything that doesn't look like a URL will be automatically redirected towards search.msn.com. It would be actually even easier for users to search stuff: just type in what you need and voila, MSN search spits out a page of results."
Guess what?
IE already works this way. Try it sometime.
They're way ahead of you.
"Slashdot's HTML is such a joke, it can't really be considered a bonafide bug in Firefox's rendering engine."
Like hell it's not. Mozilla is failing to resize the table when new content is rendered.
It's a layout bug, pure and simple. It has been reported to Bugzilla and fixed in the latest Mozilla revs. Firefox 1.1 should have the fix in place.
When your software is broken, fix the problem. Don't blame it on "bad HTML". I'm glad that Mozilla is fixed, but, really, this bug should have been squashed *long ago*.
"...and the very first link on the page (under "sponsored sites") is:"
So, apparently Microsoft is using the "sponsored sites" part of their search engine to promote their products.
WHY IS THIS A BIG DEAL AT ALL?
NBC advertises GE on their network all the time, and I can bet that they get the advertising at an extremely discounted rate, if not for free.
It's not like Microsoft is trying to pass it off as a legit result.
Yes, but if you spell it the US way:
"12 inches in centimeters"
MSN Search gives you the answer.
Yes, MSN Search does have that feature. It may not be as good as Google's version, but it's there.
You might try:
$ lynx -source http://search.msn.com/ | wc -c
3008
Doesn't seem too bad to me.
Of course, it doesn't prove your point using misleading data.