Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. There were MANY big problems until Service Pack 2 was released on August 25, 2004.
So, the first 3 years of Windows XP were expensive to support because of problems that were not fixed until 2004. Now, only 3 years later, Microsoft is interfering even more with the use of Windows XP!!!
The interference began when Microsoft failed to release a service pack in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Now, not selling XP is an indication of Microsoft's intentions. Small companies may have installations of Windows XP, but not be able to buy more licenses. Forcing the sale of Windows Vista and then allowing "downgrades" inflates the apparent sales of Vista. If the past is any indication, expect numerous other deliberately generated hassles.
Is that acceptable for an OS? Three bad years and three good years?
Quote: "... I also feel my stomach turning upside down seeing what they did
with Vista as a whole."
As others have suggested, maybe it is better to skip Vista completely,
the non-drug method of curing stomach upset.
Dr. Death has arrived. After only 3 years, requiem for an OS:
Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death, ready to kill software prematurely that
customers want to use. He has decided that Windows XP will die soon: January 31, 2008.
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive
for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and
some of the fixes were not documented. The really major problems in Windows XP
stopped only after SP2 was released, on August 25, 2004.
That means we have gotten only 3 years of good use from Windows XP.
Rule number one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by
circumstances, never move to a new version of Windows until the second service
pack is released. Let other people have the grief.
(Someone said that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service
packs much more often. If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule
to "until the X service pack...")
It has been 3 years since WinXP Service Pack 2 was released, even
though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170
Megabytes of files, a difficult problem when there is no internet connection
or only a dial-up connection. The Windows XP updates of just August's Patch
Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes. Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing
an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using Windows XP.
New versions of Linux are released to make a better OS. New versions
of Microsoft Windows seem to have the purpose of 1) killing the old version
and 2) using more CPU power so that it is necessary to buy new hardware. When
you partner with Microsoft, you partner with a company that may sometimes
choose to be your enemy, in my opinion.
It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive. Microsoft's
adversarial behavior is expensive, too.
I agree that Flash ads are, in themselves, not evil. However, few people have
even the skills necessary to do good stationary graphics. Almost no one has
the ability to do moving pictures that tell a good advertising story,
apparently.
So the biggest effect of almost all Flash ads is annoyance. Pay money
to annoy prospective customers? That is a business method for those who want
to sink their companies.
Want an example? Look at the Nike web site. That site is so bad it puts an upper
limit on the intelligence of Nike top management. Or, maybe it puts an upper
limit on their age, which can't be more than 14, and emotionally damaged from
having a bad childhood.
With JavaScript turned off, there is nothing on the Nike web site,
just a blank screen. When you turn on JavaScript, you see... something
loading. It's Flash. A short video with loud sound begins playing. I don't
know the point of the video, but it is embarassingly without humanistic
sensibility. I suppose it tries to appeal to angry women by being anti-male.
That's Flash. Somewhat evil because it abandons web standards. More
evil because it is used stupidly to irritate prospective customers.
However, there have been numerous Slashdot stories that have been about companies looking for investors. It would be more comfortable if such stories would have a statement that no one at Slashdot or Slashdot's parent company took money to run the story.
Sure, but Segways are not good transportation, when compared to a bicycle, for most purposes. Segways cost about 30 times more and are VERY dangerous in conditions that normally exist outside, in my opinion.
Inside, they may have a use, if it is sensible to buy transportation that costs $6000 for one person's use inside.
Segways, and many things in modern U.S. society, use legal protection that that average person doesn't really understand. If people knew the meaning of the label, they would be far, far more careful. The label means, "If you are in the hospital, we don't have to care."
Apparently that protects Segway legally from the fact that it is VERY dangerous if you happen to hit something close to the diameter of its small wheels, like a hole or a rock.
I don't think the Segway owner should have a lot of credibility.
The problem is that there is a disconnection between the marketing department of most companies and the people who make the products. The marketing department makes the decisions about marketing, and those who do the work feel uncomfortable telling the marketing department that they don't like the ads.
Google: Do no evil.
is now changed to, "We want to be like the U.S. government."
Google: Do evil if it pays more.
In my opinion, this is the beginning of the end for Google, as the
founders lose touch with reality and fly around in their huge corporate jets.
If you want responsibility, don't depend on a billionaire to do the work.
Eventually, there will be a new search engine with no Flash ads, and
everyone will use that. Eventually, people will say, "Google? What's that?"
The new profit-making Mozilla will probably try to get the U.S.
government to ban NoScript and AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock.
The problem with ads is not that I don't like advertising. The problem
with ads is that they are nearly always stupid in some way. Some of the ads
IBM ran on Slashdot were more than stupid, they were embarassing.
Mostly, ads are written by people with absolutely NO interest in the
product they are selling. I'm guessing that more than 50% of ads include at
least some dishonesty. It is the ad makers that have given advertising a bad
name.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, your usefulness to the world is coming to
an end. Please find someone to carry on your original vision, and retire.
The parent comment was moderated "Troll", and several people have made disparaging comments.
However, this is how I figure it, and I'm serious, not joking: Slashdot kept the SCO issues and Groklaw's analysis of them in front of the eyes of a lot of Slashdot readers who were executives or knew executives, and in the normal course of discussing computer issues, created a culture of understanding SCO as not trustworthy.
As poor as the editing of Slashdot is sometimes, I don't know any better way to get computer-related news. If you know of a better way, please mention it.
I'm guessing that Slashdot contributed a lot in making the right thing happen concerning SCO. Slashdot got the message out to everyone, over and over again, helping deprive SCO of profit from confused executives.
Secret deals for largely secret projects costing largely secret amounts, and the taxpayer pays everything, blindly, or goes to jail. It's effectively a dictatorship of the Military-Industrial Complex, as President Eisenhower warned.
They've leveraged their synergistic enterprise solutions to achieve pervasive market recognition.
To type that, I got a keyboard out of trash. More efficient than scrubbing.
(This has been typical Slashdot male competition. Thank you for reading.)
Story about Michael Schrayer of Electric Pencil.
on
OpenOffice 2.3 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Electric Pencil!
In 1976 I was in a computer store owned by a friend, a very nice store
in an upscale area.
Someone walked in who I assumed would be asked to leave because he
looked so disreputable. He had poor skin and unkempt hair. If you had looked
in the dumpsters in that area you could not have found clothing as old and
trashy-looking as this man's. (That is not an exaggeration.) Back then you
would have called him a bum, because we didn't have homeless people in that
area until after Reagan was elected and had a chance to work his corruption.
After a while my friend came over to me, and I asked him why he didn't
ask the disreputable person to leave. He said, "That's Michael Schrayer, the
man who wrote Electric Pencil!. He may look poor, but he is at least a
millionaire."
Yes, it is relevant. Sun found a way to get a huge, HUGE amount of continuing bad publicity: Mismanage Java and OpenOffice development.
What should have been good publicity for Sun became bad publicity, largely. It's time for the tired old codgers of Sun management to retire, or at least take a year's vacation. It would be better if they were irrelevant, but unfortunately they are self-destructive.
MOD PARENT UP!!! Excellent contribution to the discussion!
The media often contributes by being dishonest and over-interpreting
results.
Most "scientific" papers aren't really scientific. The first clue is
that they are poorly written, suggesting that the writers want to hide their
poor contribution behind bad expression.
Slashdot editors often are fooled by "junk science", I notice. For
example, this article was fraudulent in my opinion: Imaging Breakthrough "Sees" Lung Disease.
The Slashdot article The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel [slashdot.org] has a
+5 moderated First Post that expresses the consensus of the comments on that
story: "first post to call bullshit!:: cough::" You know something
is wrong when even first posters complain about accuracy.
The Slashdot article Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy said that water was rare.
That's a stretch considering most of the surface of the planet is covered with
deep water. Maybe Slashdot editors had never heard of the Pacific ocean. Then
there's that small pond called the North and South Atlantic ocean.
Yes, yes, I agree with you. The EU doesn't understand poor Microsoft.
The EU thinks that Microsoft is a SOFTWARE company. Can you imagine that? Actually, Microsoft is an abuse company. Software is just a method of delivering abuse.
Abuse is Microsoft's core competency. If you accept that, then everything Microsoft does is entirely okay!
Okay, some of this may be an exaggeration for the purpose of joking, but maybe not.
How can anything that makes money be abuse? If someone is rich, they must be right, right?
"You think that a CEO of an investment firm should understand the nuances of computer security?"
My understanding is that Ameritrade is NOT an "investment firm". The company is a computer services firm. If you buy a stock, Ameritrade checks its own inventory that day, and likely sells you some of its own stock, which it keeps to avoid going somewhere else, which would be more expensive. That selling is just quick computer entries, debiting its own account and adding to the buyer's account.
In the same way, Amazon is not a book seller. It is an inventory company. Amazon does not read the books, it just stocks them.
So, if the Ameritrade CEO knows nothing about computer systems, as it seems from the statements on the web site, he knows nothing about his job.
Slashdot Mirror
The existence of Pirate Bay raises some serious issues. I don't know the answers.
But the situation makes me laugh.
Windows XP was released on October 25, 2001. There were MANY big problems until Service Pack 2 was released on August 25, 2004.
So, the first 3 years of Windows XP were expensive to support because of problems that were not fixed until 2004. Now, only 3 years later, Microsoft is interfering even more with the use of Windows XP!!!
The interference began when Microsoft failed to release a service pack in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Now, not selling XP is an indication of Microsoft's intentions. Small companies may have installations of Windows XP, but not be able to buy more licenses. Forcing the sale of Windows Vista and then allowing "downgrades" inflates the apparent sales of Vista. If the past is any indication, expect numerous other deliberately generated hassles.
Is that acceptable for an OS? Three bad years and three good years?
Quote: "... I also feel my stomach turning upside down seeing what they did with Vista as a whole."
As others have suggested, maybe it is better to skip Vista completely, the non-drug method of curing stomach upset.
Dr. Death has arrived. After only 3 years, requiem for an OS: Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death, ready to kill software prematurely that customers want to use. He has decided that Windows XP will die soon: January 31, 2008.
The huge number of bugs in Windows XP before SP2 was very expensive for us. If I remember correctly, Windows XP SP2 fixed more than 630 bugs, and some of the fixes were not documented. The really major problems in Windows XP stopped only after SP2 was released, on August 25, 2004. That means we have gotten only 3 years of good use from Windows XP.
Rule number one in dealing with Microsoft: Unless forced by circumstances, never move to a new version of Windows until the second service pack is released. Let other people have the grief.
(Someone said that rule will just cause Microsoft to release service packs much more often. If that happens, it may be necessary to change the rule to "until the X service pack...")
It has been 3 years since WinXP Service Pack 2 was released, even though updating Windows XP from an SP2 CD requires downloading more than 170 Megabytes of files, a difficult problem when there is no internet connection or only a dial-up connection. The Windows XP updates of just August's Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes. Microsoft seems to have delayed releasing an SP3 for Windows XP to try to discourage people from using Windows XP.
New versions of Linux are released to make a better OS. New versions of Microsoft Windows seem to have the purpose of 1) killing the old version and 2) using more CPU power so that it is necessary to buy new hardware. When you partner with Microsoft, you partner with a company that may sometimes choose to be your enemy, in my opinion.
It is not only the vulnerabilities that are expensive. Microsoft's adversarial behavior is expensive, too.
SgtChaireBourne, off topic: You asked to tell you what Domain Name Registrar I chose. I chose NameCheap.
Poor security makes money for Microsoft because Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster.
I agree that Flash ads are, in themselves, not evil. However, few people have even the skills necessary to do good stationary graphics. Almost no one has the ability to do moving pictures that tell a good advertising story, apparently.
So the biggest effect of almost all Flash ads is annoyance. Pay money to annoy prospective customers? That is a business method for those who want to sink their companies.
Want an example? Look at the Nike web site. That site is so bad it puts an upper limit on the intelligence of Nike top management. Or, maybe it puts an upper limit on their age, which can't be more than 14, and emotionally damaged from having a bad childhood.
With JavaScript turned off, there is nothing on the Nike web site, just a blank screen. When you turn on JavaScript, you see... something loading. It's Flash. A short video with loud sound begins playing. I don't know the point of the video, but it is embarassingly without humanistic sensibility. I suppose it tries to appeal to angry women by being anti-male.
That's Flash. Somewhat evil because it abandons web standards. More evil because it is used stupidly to irritate prospective customers.
Looks like an interesting company. The CEO and President are married.
However, there have been numerous Slashdot stories that have been about companies looking for investors. It would be more comfortable if such stories would have a statement that no one at Slashdot or Slashdot's parent company took money to run the story.
Sure, but Segways are not good transportation, when compared to a bicycle, for most purposes. Segways cost about 30 times more and are VERY dangerous in conditions that normally exist outside, in my opinion.
Inside, they may have a use, if it is sensible to buy transportation that costs $6000 for one person's use inside.
Segways, and many things in modern U.S. society, use legal protection that that average person doesn't really understand. If people knew the meaning of the label, they would be far, far more careful. The label means, "If you are in the hospital, we don't have to care."
See the Segway "Risk of Death" label.
Apparently that protects Segway legally from the fact that it is VERY dangerous if you happen to hit something close to the diameter of its small wheels, like a hole or a rock.
I don't think the Segway owner should have a lot of credibility.
I'm just using the Google founder's definition of evil. They used that insight to make their search engine by far the most popular.
I can't remember the name of the search engine I used before Google, but it was terrible with ad abuse.
The problem is that there is a disconnection between the marketing department of most companies and the people who make the products. The marketing department makes the decisions about marketing, and those who do the work feel uncomfortable telling the marketing department that they don't like the ads.
I didn't know that. I will try disabling FlashBlock.
However, there are times when you allow JavaScript with NoScript, and you still want to block Flash.
Google: Do no evil.
is now changed to, "We want to be like the U.S. government."
Google: Do evil if it pays more.
In my opinion, this is the beginning of the end for Google, as the founders lose touch with reality and fly around in their huge corporate jets. If you want responsibility, don't depend on a billionaire to do the work.
Eventually, there will be a new search engine with no Flash ads, and everyone will use that. Eventually, people will say, "Google? What's that?"
The new profit-making Mozilla will probably try to get the U.S. government to ban NoScript and AdBlock Plus and FlashBlock.
The problem with ads is not that I don't like advertising. The problem with ads is that they are nearly always stupid in some way. Some of the ads IBM ran on Slashdot were more than stupid, they were embarassing.
Mostly, ads are written by people with absolutely NO interest in the product they are selling. I'm guessing that more than 50% of ads include at least some dishonesty. It is the ad makers that have given advertising a bad name.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, your usefulness to the world is coming to an end. Please find someone to carry on your original vision, and retire.
The parent comment was moderated "Troll", and several people have made disparaging comments.
However, this is how I figure it, and I'm serious, not joking: Slashdot kept the SCO issues and Groklaw's analysis of them in front of the eyes of a lot of Slashdot readers who were executives or knew executives, and in the normal course of discussing computer issues, created a culture of understanding SCO as not trustworthy.
As poor as the editing of Slashdot is sometimes, I don't know any better way to get computer-related news. If you know of a better way, please mention it.
I'm guessing that Slashdot contributed a lot in making the right thing happen concerning SCO. Slashdot got the message out to everyone, over and over again, helping deprive SCO of profit from confused executives.
Secret deals for largely secret projects costing largely secret amounts, and the taxpayer pays everything, blindly, or goes to jail. It's effectively a dictatorship of the Military-Industrial Complex, as President Eisenhower warned.
Any amount for violence, little for making relationships.
The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is through violence.
Oops. I should have said 1977 or 78.
"They've leveraged their synergy?"
They've leveraged their synergistic enterprise solutions to achieve pervasive market recognition.
To type that, I got a keyboard out of trash. More efficient than scrubbing.
(This has been typical Slashdot male competition. Thank you for reading.)
Electric Pencil!
In 1976 I was in a computer store owned by a friend, a very nice store in an upscale area.
Someone walked in who I assumed would be asked to leave because he looked so disreputable. He had poor skin and unkempt hair. If you had looked in the dumpsters in that area you could not have found clothing as old and trashy-looking as this man's. (That is not an exaggeration.) Back then you would have called him a bum, because we didn't have homeless people in that area until after Reagan was elected and had a chance to work his corruption.
After a while my friend came over to me, and I asked him why he didn't ask the disreputable person to leave. He said, "That's Michael Schrayer, the man who wrote Electric Pencil!. He may look poor, but he is at least a millionaire."
Yes, it is relevant. Sun found a way to get a huge, HUGE amount of continuing bad publicity: Mismanage Java and OpenOffice development.
What should have been good publicity for Sun became bad publicity, largely. It's time for the tired old codgers of Sun management to retire, or at least take a year's vacation. It would be better if they were irrelevant, but unfortunately they are self-destructive.
I liked AmiPro, too. It had a MUCH more sensible menu system than Microsoft Word.
Who killed AmiPro? The executive who did that should be required to put it on his resume.
MOD PARENT UP!!! Excellent contribution to the discussion!
:: cough ::" You know something
is wrong when even first posters complain about accuracy.
The media often contributes by being dishonest and over-interpreting results.
Most "scientific" papers aren't really scientific. The first clue is that they are poorly written, suggesting that the writers want to hide their poor contribution behind bad expression.
Slashdot editors often are fooled by "junk science", I notice. For example, this article was fraudulent in my opinion: Imaging Breakthrough "Sees" Lung Disease.
The Slashdot article The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel [slashdot.org] has a +5 moderated First Post that expresses the consensus of the comments on that story: "first post to call bullshit!
The Slashdot article Hydrogen Won't Save Our Economy said that water was rare. That's a stretch considering most of the surface of the planet is covered with deep water. Maybe Slashdot editors had never heard of the Pacific ocean. Then there's that small pond called the North and South Atlantic ocean.
"Absolutely absurd."
Yes, yes, I agree with you. The EU doesn't understand poor Microsoft.
The EU thinks that Microsoft is a SOFTWARE company. Can you imagine that? Actually, Microsoft is an abuse company. Software is just a method of delivering abuse.
Abuse is Microsoft's core competency. If you accept that, then everything Microsoft does is entirely okay!
Okay, some of this may be an exaggeration for the purpose of joking, but maybe not.
How can anything that makes money be abuse? If someone is rich, they must be right, right?
"You think that a CEO of an investment firm should understand the nuances of computer security?"
My understanding is that Ameritrade is NOT an "investment firm". The company is a computer services firm. If you buy a stock, Ameritrade checks its own inventory that day, and likely sells you some of its own stock, which it keeps to avoid going somewhere else, which would be more expensive. That selling is just quick computer entries, debiting its own account and adding to the buyer's account.
In the same way, Amazon is not a book seller. It is an inventory company. Amazon does not read the books, it just stocks them.
So, if the Ameritrade CEO knows nothing about computer systems, as it seems from the statements on the web site, he knows nothing about his job.