"What makes XP so terrible to technically knowledgeable people? The ease with which software may be installed and configured."
I have never seen an XP limited user be able to install software. The problem is that the default user has administrator privileges, as I explain in the section One of Microsoft's methods of making money: Provide safety methods only professionals are likely to know. I regard that as intentional abuse by Microsoft.
Security fixes are fixes to defects in software. Support is different, I agree. Now the U.S. government will be paying its support organizations and companies as it always has, and Microsoft, also, because only Microsoft has the original code.
For external information, use another network. There are ways of making networks extremely secure, even if there are security vulnerabilities in an operating system. I will add a discussion of that to my article.
"Windows XP does not support any encryption that's still considered secure."
Not only is it not secure, it has been EXTREMELY buggy. People have lost their files to Microsoft's encryption bugs. Also, the U.S. government believes it can force executives to do anything it says, and keep that secret from taxpayers.
It is best to use only GPG and TrueCrypt for encryption, or other open source software. Open source software is much more difficult to manipulate.
MightyMartian, I want to be a MightyEarthman. It is my opinion that many of Microsoft's practices are abusive. There is a long history: Search for "Satan" in my article.
U.S. taxpayers should pay Microsoft to make fixes for the U.S. government, but not get those fixes themselves?
Microsoft is "under no obligation to support" Windows XP? Fixing defects in sloppy coding is NOT "support". Almost all security vulnerabilities are caused by sloppy coding.
Under no obligation? Microsoft makes its own rules. Unfortunately, people have come to believe that software companies have no obligations to their customers. Does that seem correct to you?
Microsoft is already planning to do with Windows 7 what it did with Windows XP. Five years and 9 months from now, Windows 7 users should pay more? Again?
"Software... has ongoing discovery of security vulnerabilities that require maintenance from the vendor."
Almost all vulnerabilities are caused by sloppy coding. Should only users be responsible for Microsoft's extreme sloppiness? Can software vendors profit if their software has defects?
Microsoft has issued 2,722 fixes for Windows XP. Is it still full of defects? See the section History of Windows XP.
"... the last update on April 8th is good for at least May 8th right?"
Updates already issued will still be available. I read somewhere that updates are still available for Windows 98.
I agree; I also get tired of Microsoft's abuse of its customers. Go to my article and search for "Satan". How does it happen that the media allows Microsoft's abuse?
And, you can always use AutoPatcher to put all updates on your computer.
"Upgrading tens of thousands of systems with a myriad of specialized software isn't as easy as upgrading your home computer."
Thanks for the realistic statement. ALL of the media articles I have read have been wildly out of touch.
Somehow, maybe because public relations agencies advertise his philanthropy, Bill Gates is now considered a good person. Not so many years ago, Gates was often called "Satan". For quotes, search for "Satan" in my article about Windows XP: Windows XP did not instantly become unsafe on April 8, 2014.
Governments and
big corporations are often influenced by people with no technical
knowledge. Because of their ignorance, governments have already paid
Microsoft probably more than it costs to fix the few security defects found each
year. However, the taxpayers of those governments will not be allowed to have the fixes. "End of life" is a way for Microsoft to make more money.
It's like Toyota told all owners of older Toyota vehicles that the
vehicles are unsafe now and owners must buy new vehicles or pay millions
of dollars to keep them. Except its worse: Software doesn't have
mechanical wear.
This article contains tips about how to use any version of Microsoft Windows safely that can be shared with people you want to help. Unnecessary computer maintenance is an ugly way to make money.
You didn't seem to realize that you are agreeing with what I said.
What I said is that Costco may be justified in its actions, but that what we seem to know is that Costco management is not handling the public relations well.
1) We don't know what actually happened between Costco and the testing facilities and suppliers. Even though samples were tested, there could be a concern that there were problems in the food that was not tested. Costco has not handled the public relations about this incident in a sensible manner: Costco officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
2) Costco has become poorly managed since James Sinegal is no longer CEO.
Ten years ago, Costco was wonderful. It was easy to make decisions about buying anything we saw at Costco, because someone else had been careful to stock only reputable products, products that people would buy if they had done serious research. Now we have to do our own research.
Costco employees still praise James Senegal. They sometimes criticize the poor quality of items that Costco now stocks.
"... we have a system that carefully controls how much shampoo you can bring in your carry-on luggage, yet is completely incapable of responding if someone steals an entire aircraft."
$14 million, apparently. See this WSJ article: Symantec Fires CEO Steve Bennett.
How will he live? Should we donate some money to keep him off the street?
Have you called Symantec in the last 2 years? Or gotten emails from Symantec support? My experience was that everyone with whom I talked was amazingly disfunctional. That's what the Symantec CEO meant when he said,
"Our system is just broken".
Symantec has contracts with the U.S. government. People in the U.S. government don't seem to me to understand much about the technology. I'm guessing the contracts are a waste of tax money.
Mozilla Foundation
Top 21 Excuses
for Not Fixing the
Firefox Memory and CPU Hogging bugs
These are actual excuses given at one time or
another. They are not all the excuses, just the top 20.
1) Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build. [The same memory and CPU
hogging bug has been reported many, many times over a period of TEN
years.]
2) Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important. [The bug
eventually causes Firefox to take 100% of the power of one CPU, and makes Windows 7 unusable, even after
Firefox is killed. The bug affects the heaviest users of Firefox, those who do a lot of research online.]
3) Yes, this bug exists, but it is not a common occurrence. [Numerous users
have reported the bug. See the links.]
4) Works for me. [The bug is complicated to reproduce, so the developers did
a simplified test, which didn't show the bug.]
5) No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report,
they would know that there is often no TalkBack report, because the bug crashes
TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated. TalkBack does not
generate a report if Firefox is hogging the CPU. TalkBack cannot generate a
report if the bug takes 100% of the CPU time.]
6) If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. [They
didn't bother to reproduce the bug using the detailed information
provided.]
7) This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is
invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
8) You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the
same use does not crash any version of Chrome or Opera.]
9) I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, he didn't read it or
think about it.]
10) You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself.
[Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem,
and we may fix it.]
11) Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
12) If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be
trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instability is
beginning to be reported in media such as Information Week. See the links to
magazine articles in this Slashdot comment: Firefox is the most unstable program in common
use [slashdot.org].]
13) Your problem is probably caused by using extensions. [These are extensions
advertised on the Firefox and Mozilla web site, and recommended.]
14) Your problem is probably caused by a corrupt profile. [The same bug has
been reported many times over a period of five years. One of the reports
discusses an extensive test in both Linux and Windows that used a completely
clean installation of the operating systems, not just a clean profile. The CPU
hogging bug and instability was just as severe.]
15) If you are technically knowledgeable, you can spend several hours (or
days) trying to discover the problem: Standard diagnostic - Firefox [mozillazine.org].
[Firefox has "Standard Diagnostics". It has become accepted that some users
will have severe problems. !!! ]
16) I won't actually read the (many) bug reports, but I will give you some
complicated technical speculation. [This pretends to be helpful but, on
investigation, is shown to have nothing to do with the bugs.]
17) It's understandable that Firefox developers become defensive when users
report so many problems. [Translation: Firefox management is childlike, not adult.]
18) To spend smart developers' time going over reports of bugs generated by
analysis tools would be a waste. [There have been 3 analysis tools recently
used to find Firefox bugs, and many have been found: 1) A special tool
designed by a Firefox developer. 2) Software by Coverity. 3) Klocwork's
K
Exactly. You are working on researching one problem, but during that time are asked to look into 6 other issues.
Firefox is now (v 27.01) more unstable that it was before, and it has always been the most unstable program in common use.
Try the Pale Moon version of Firefox. Mozilla Foundation is run by a lawyer with no technical experience. The Pale Moon people seem more knowledgeable. Also, there is a 64-bit version of Pale Moon.
Firefox crash statistics:
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/home/products/Firefox/versions/27.0
(Mozilla Foundation does not allow direct links from Slashdot.)
Many crashes do not start the Crash Reporter. Those statistics show only the crashes that do.
It is VERY necessary to be excellent at non-verbal communication. The little we know about the communication indicates that Julie Ann Horvath was angry and already thinking about leaving before the angry incidents, of which there were apparently MANY.
If you are at all involved with women from the U.S. culture, you should be aware that the woman culture in the U.S. is going through some very unhappy decades. If you want to learn more about that, you could read the book Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles. The woman who wrote it is angry toward her family and toward a man in Africa who hosts volunteers. She is also angry with an elephant that doesn't like her. Later in the book, after many pages of calling her host a "Neanderthal" she is sexually attracted to her host. Typical confusion.
You said, "Uh, yeah, whatever. I thnk not." That's verbal and partly non-verbal communication. It shows disrespect for the person with whom you are communicating. It indicates that you feel disrespect and that you think only you know the answers.
I'm guessing that you don't do well with women in the U.S. culture. When they feel crazy, they don't want to be with someone who thinks that it is okay to be crazy. They want help.
According to Horvath: "I met her and almost immediately the conversation that I thought was supposed to be causal turned into something very inappropriate. She began telling me about how she informs her husband's decision-making at GitHub, how I better not leave GitHub and write something bad about them, and how she had been told by her husband that she should intervene with my relationship to be sure I was 'made very happy' so that I wouldn't quit and say something nasty about her husband's company because 'he had worked so hard.' "
(Should be "casual".) These things seem like a reasonable opinion:
1) A lot happened that Julie Ann Horvath is not mentioning. It is impossible to judge the situation with the small amount of information, especially since it comes from only one person.
2) The major incident mentioned in the TechCrunch story involves 2 women.
GitHub says it is investigating the matter: "We're looking into this."
3) TechCrunch damaged its reputation by acting as though the story is extremely important when clearly the TechCrunch writer knows only one side. That story calls into question whether TechCrunch is adequately edited. Can we trust TechCrunch to be sure stories are reported accurately? Or is TechCrunch the Fox News of technology?
4) Many companies have a somewhat unhealthy social environment. Most men would just get a job elsewhere. At present, a woman can claim that there was discrimination against her, and people will say that the problems can be understood as men against women.
5) A book about feminism a woman friend gave me many years ago said, "In Italy feminism is pro-female. In the U.S. feminism is anti-male." The way the story in reported seems to indicate that Julie Ann Horvath was using the company as a target for her anger, anger that was there long before she joined the company.
Yes. Someone makes this comment every time, for the last 9 years, since version 1.0.
Most people don't open a lot of windows and tabs at the same time. The people who do that are usually those doing serious research. For example, what to do about the changes in Google Voice coming in May, 2014?
The problem is much worse when many windows and tabs are open under the Windows OS and Windows is hibernated several times.
Slashdot Mirror
"What makes XP so terrible to technically knowledgeable people? The ease with which software may be installed and configured."
I have never seen an XP limited user be able to install software. The problem is that the default user has administrator privileges, as I explain in the section One of Microsoft's methods of making money: Provide safety methods only professionals are likely to know. I regard that as intentional abuse by Microsoft.
Security fixes are fixes to defects in software. Support is different, I agree. Now the U.S. government will be paying its support organizations and companies as it always has, and Microsoft, also, because only Microsoft has the original code.
For external information, use another network. There are ways of making networks extremely secure, even if there are security vulnerabilities in an operating system. I will add a discussion of that to my article.
"Windows XP does not support any encryption that's still considered secure."
Not only is it not secure, it has been EXTREMELY buggy. People have lost their files to Microsoft's encryption bugs. Also, the U.S. government believes it can force executives to do anything it says, and keep that secret from taxpayers.
It is best to use only GPG and TrueCrypt for encryption, or other open source software. Open source software is much more difficult to manipulate.
MightyMartian, I want to be a MightyEarthman. It is my opinion that many of Microsoft's practices are abusive. There is a long history: Search for "Satan" in my article.
U.S. taxpayers should pay Microsoft to make fixes for the U.S. government, but not get those fixes themselves?
We must recognize and counteract abuse.
Microsoft is "under no obligation to support" Windows XP? Fixing defects in sloppy coding is NOT "support". Almost all security vulnerabilities are caused by sloppy coding.
Under no obligation? Microsoft makes its own rules. Unfortunately, people have come to believe that software companies have no obligations to their customers. Does that seem correct to you?
Microsoft ... just said that they are done providing free repairs.
They are not repairs. They are defects caused by sloppy coding.
Do a Google search for General Motors recalls. General Motors pays.
Microsoft is already planning to do with Windows 7 what it did with Windows XP. Five years and 9 months from now, Windows 7 users should pay more? Again?
"Software ... has ongoing discovery of security vulnerabilities that require maintenance from the vendor."
Almost all vulnerabilities are caused by sloppy coding. Should only users be responsible for Microsoft's extreme sloppiness? Can software vendors profit if their software has defects?
Microsoft has issued 2,722 fixes for Windows XP. Is it still full of defects? See the section History of Windows XP.
"... the last update on April 8th is good for at least May 8th right?"
Updates already issued will still be available. I read somewhere that updates are still available for Windows 98.
I agree; I also get tired of Microsoft's abuse of its customers. Go to my article and search for "Satan". How does it happen that the media allows Microsoft's abuse?
And, you can always use AutoPatcher to put all updates on your computer.
That's not my point. My point is that Microsoft is already calling Windows 7 an out-of-date product. See my article for more about that: Windows XP did not instantly become unsafe on April 8, 2014,
"Upgrading tens of thousands of systems with a myriad of specialized software isn't as easy as upgrading your home computer."
Thanks for the realistic statement. ALL of the media articles I have read have been wildly out of touch.
Somehow, maybe because public relations agencies advertise his philanthropy, Bill Gates is now considered a good person. Not so many years ago, Gates was often called "Satan". For quotes, search for "Satan" in my article about Windows XP: Windows XP did not instantly become unsafe on April 8, 2014.
"... until they can get Windoze 7 deployed by probably the end of the year..."
By the end of the year, Microsoft will have already stopped selling Windows 7.
Windows XP did not instantly become unsafe on April 8, 2014, the date Microsoft calls the "end of life" for Windows XP.
Governments and big corporations are often influenced by people with no technical knowledge. Because of their ignorance, governments have already paid Microsoft probably more than it costs to fix the few security defects found each year. However, the taxpayers of those governments will not be allowed to have the fixes. "End of life" is a way for Microsoft to make more money.
It's like Toyota told all owners of older Toyota vehicles that the vehicles are unsafe now and owners must buy new vehicles or pay millions of dollars to keep them. Except its worse: Software doesn't have mechanical wear.
This article contains tips about how to use any version of Microsoft Windows safely that can be shared with people you want to help. Unnecessary computer maintenance is an ugly way to make money.
You are agreeing with what I said. You said it with more details.
You didn't seem to realize that you are agreeing with what I said.
What I said is that Costco may be justified in its actions, but that what we seem to know is that Costco management is not handling the public relations well.
The underlying story may be this:
1) We don't know what actually happened between Costco and the testing facilities and suppliers. Even though samples were tested, there could be a concern that there were problems in the food that was not tested. Costco has not handled the public relations about this incident in a sensible manner: Costco officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
2) Costco has become poorly managed since James Sinegal is no longer CEO.
Ten years ago, Costco was wonderful. It was easy to make decisions about buying anything we saw at Costco, because someone else had been careful to stock only reputable products, products that people would buy if they had done serious research. Now we have to do our own research.
Costco employees still praise James Senegal. They sometimes criticize the poor quality of items that Costco now stocks.
"... we have a system that carefully controls how much shampoo you can bring in your carry-on luggage, yet is completely incapable of responding if someone steals an entire aircraft."
"What severance package?"
$14 million, apparently. See this WSJ article: Symantec Fires CEO Steve Bennett. How will he live? Should we donate some money to keep him off the street?
Have you called Symantec in the last 2 years? Or gotten emails from Symantec support? My experience was that everyone with whom I talked was amazingly disfunctional. That's what the Symantec CEO meant when he said, "Our system is just broken".
Symantec has contracts with the U.S. government. People in the U.S. government don't seem to me to understand much about the technology. I'm guessing the contracts are a waste of tax money.
Mozilla Foundation
Top 21 Excuses
for Not Fixing the
Firefox Memory and CPU Hogging bugs
These are actual excuses given at one time or another. They are not all the excuses, just the top 20.
1) Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build. [The same memory and CPU hogging bug has been reported many, many times over a period of TEN years.]
2) Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important. [The bug eventually causes Firefox to take 100% of the power of one CPU, and makes Windows 7 unusable, even after Firefox is killed. The bug affects the heaviest users of Firefox, those who do a lot of research online.]
3) Yes, this bug exists, but it is not a common occurrence. [Numerous users have reported the bug. See the links.]
4) Works for me. [The bug is complicated to reproduce, so the developers did a simplified test, which didn't show the bug.]
5) No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report, they would know that there is often no TalkBack report, because the bug crashes TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated. TalkBack does not generate a report if Firefox is hogging the CPU. TalkBack cannot generate a report if the bug takes 100% of the CPU time.]
6) If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. [They didn't bother to reproduce the bug using the detailed information provided.]
7) This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
8) You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the same use does not crash any version of Chrome or Opera.]
9) I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, he didn't read it or think about it.]
10) You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself. [Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem, and we may fix it.]
11) Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
12) If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instability is beginning to be reported in media such as Information Week. See the links to magazine articles in this Slashdot comment: Firefox is the most unstable program in common use [slashdot.org].]
13) Your problem is probably caused by using extensions. [These are extensions advertised on the Firefox and Mozilla web site, and recommended.]
14) Your problem is probably caused by a corrupt profile. [The same bug has been reported many times over a period of five years. One of the reports discusses an extensive test in both Linux and Windows that used a completely clean installation of the operating systems, not just a clean profile. The CPU hogging bug and instability was just as severe.]
15) If you are technically knowledgeable, you can spend several hours (or days) trying to discover the problem: Standard diagnostic - Firefox [mozillazine.org]. [Firefox has "Standard Diagnostics". It has become accepted that some users will have severe problems. !!! ]
16) I won't actually read the (many) bug reports, but I will give you some complicated technical speculation. [This pretends to be helpful but, on investigation, is shown to have nothing to do with the bugs.]
17) It's understandable that Firefox developers become defensive when users report so many problems. [Translation: Firefox management is childlike, not adult.]
18) To spend smart developers' time going over reports of bugs generated by analysis tools would be a waste. [There have been 3 analysis tools recently used to find Firefox bugs, and many have been found: 1) A special tool designed by a Firefox developer. 2) Software by Coverity. 3) Klocwork's K
Exactly. You are working on researching one problem, but during that time are asked to look into 6 other issues.
Firefox is now (v 27.01) more unstable that it was before, and it has always been the most unstable program in common use.
Try the Pale Moon version of Firefox. Mozilla Foundation is run by a lawyer with no technical experience. The Pale Moon people seem more knowledgeable. Also, there is a 64-bit version of Pale Moon.
Firefox crash statistics:
https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/home/products/Firefox/versions/27.0
(Mozilla Foundation does not allow direct links from Slashdot.)
Many crashes do not start the Crash Reporter. Those statistics show only the crashes that do.
It is VERY necessary to be excellent at non-verbal communication. The little we know about the communication indicates that Julie Ann Horvath was angry and already thinking about leaving before the angry incidents, of which there were apparently MANY.
If you are at all involved with women from the U.S. culture, you should be aware that the woman culture in the U.S. is going through some very unhappy decades. If you want to learn more about that, you could read the book Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles. The woman who wrote it is angry toward her family and toward a man in Africa who hosts volunteers. She is also angry with an elephant that doesn't like her. Later in the book, after many pages of calling her host a "Neanderthal" she is sexually attracted to her host. Typical confusion.
You said, "Uh, yeah, whatever. I thnk not." That's verbal and partly non-verbal communication. It shows disrespect for the person with whom you are communicating. It indicates that you feel disrespect and that you think only you know the answers.
I'm guessing that you don't do well with women in the U.S. culture. When they feel crazy, they don't want to be with someone who thinks that it is okay to be crazy. They want help.
(Should be "casual".) These things seem like a reasonable opinion:
1) A lot happened that Julie Ann Horvath is not mentioning. It is impossible to judge the situation with the small amount of information, especially since it comes from only one person.
2) The major incident mentioned in the TechCrunch story involves 2 women.
3) TechCrunch damaged its reputation by acting as though the story is extremely important when clearly the TechCrunch writer knows only one side. That story calls into question whether TechCrunch is adequately edited. Can we trust TechCrunch to be sure stories are reported accurately? Or is TechCrunch the Fox News of technology?
4) Many companies have a somewhat unhealthy social environment. Most men would just get a job elsewhere. At present, a woman can claim that there was discrimination against her, and people will say that the problems can be understood as men against women.
5) A book about feminism a woman friend gave me many years ago said, "In Italy feminism is pro-female. In the U.S. feminism is anti-male." The way the story in reported seems to indicate that Julie Ann Horvath was using the company as a target for her anger, anger that was there long before she joined the company.
That's my experience, also. Version 20 was considerably more stable than the latest version 27.01.
Yes. Someone makes this comment every time, for the last 9 years, since version 1.0.
Most people don't open a lot of windows and tabs at the same time. The people who do that are usually those doing serious research. For example, what to do about the changes in Google Voice coming in May, 2014?
The problem is much worse when many windows and tabs are open under the Windows OS and Windows is hibernated several times.