They have failed, at least with me. I know about it and won't touch anything from the major players because it is DRM'd; and when "Trusted Computing hardware ships, I won't touch that, either. I'm already loooking at box-makers who ship Linux or FreeBSD boxes. "Window Media Edition" is Windows Slavery Edition in my book.
It would almost be different if albums and movies were being sold at a rational price, but they're not and that's that. (I guess tons of heavy drugs and armies of crack-whores cost a lot.) Around 95-99% of their products are crap. Frankly, I hope Disney & the rest of the MPAA and the RIAA all go tits up. In other words, I wish for them, what they wish for us.
Looking at that video of Ballmer (again) led me to realize that he looks a lot like another famous, bald, overweight second-banana: Mussolini, Il Duce.
My company started to switch from WordPerfect to Word a couple of years back because the agencies we contract with demanded the product in Word. Our reports run to hundreds of pages and include images and tables, as well as text. We are still using WordPerfect. (I'd cheerfully pay for a copy that worked with Linux or FreeBSD to use at home-are you listening, Corel?). Personally, I've never had a happy experience with Word (Excel isn't bad) and for my money the "Help" system in Office is less than worthless.
After re-reading your post and my own, I am quite embarassed. Either I responded to the wrong parent or am simply brain-dead. I tend to suspect the latter. You have my apologies.
Google out-competed MS for Lee's services, now MS is trying to win in court what it was impotent to stop as a business.
BTW, where do you live?-I never want to go there. Killing and threats of killing are not considered legitimate business plans here, in fact they are illegal. You are going to say that Ballmer was being figurative. Are you sure? MS believes it is above the law-immune-and has every reason to do so. "Immunity corrupts, absolute immunity corrupts absolutely."
An here's the opposite extreme absurdity: because people can think copyrighted ideas -and even patented ones- should they not all be lobotomized to protect all that sacred IP? Why not set a shining example by being lobotomized first, Mr. IP-Is-Sacred?
The TPM-loving media and hardware makers have my permission to shove their products where the sun doesn't shine and rotate. This is all about DRM and strangling whats's left of the competition amongst MS competitors on the Windows platform (e.g. Word Perfect, game software, Google, Yahoo, etc.)--for now, Linux and UNIX later. They could save themselves the expense, I wouldn't walk across the street for unlimited free copies of any or all MS, RIAA or MPAA products.
To a mom or pop who is 50 and just wants to send email, it is a waste, they would be better off paying the $100 to Microsoft for Windows.
Watch it, Pookie. I learned to use Linux at 52; to install and use FreeBSD the next year. My mom who was 73 had no trouble using my Linux installation to do research on line when she visited, despite having never used anything but Windows. The learning time to use GUI interfaces seems about the same to me: a few hours. CLIs do take longer (DOS, bash or whatever), but are no longer mandatory for someone who just wants to surf, send & receive e-mail, light word processing.
Incidentally, the first Linux I used, Mandrake 8.1, did a better job of detecting my hardware than XP. In fact it worked "out of the box" which XP did not, as I had to install sound and video drivers, and later a driver for my modem as MS's kept crashing my box. Debian just works, Mandrake just works. SuSE just works. Mepis just works. Ubuntu just works. Puppy just works. XP just flopped, so I dumped it and got serious about Linux.
As a home user, the real deal for me is not cost. I have spent more money on various Linux distros than on MS. It's about having a say in what goes on my box and what stays. Have another look at the MS EULA. Use MS and they have the last word: they can delete and add software, delete and add files, and for any reason whatsoever. Beyond that, they can share that right to anyone they want to. Click "I agree" to the MS EULA and it become MS's computer. Screw that. YMMV.
Jim Allchin claimed that releasing Windows source code would create a national security risk. Shortly thereafter MS gave PR of China access to... Windows source code. This seems to reduce to four possible states:
1) Allchin was telling the truth, and MS has committed treason against the United States.
2) Allchin was telling the truth, but MS tried to pass off phony-baloney code to China.
3) Allchin was lying, and because his statement was part of the most recent MS anti-trust trial in the US, he perjured himself.
4) Allchin is delusional.
Take your pick. Allchin has a reputation for being honest, therefore # 1 is attractive. MS has a reputation for back-stabbing business partners and prospective partners. Is MS actually too afraid of the US government to betray it? Dubious, they aren't afraid of business partners, like IBM. And, it an old saw that the US has the best government that money can buy. The outcome of the last anti-trust case suggests that not only are Congress and bureaucrats for sale, so is the DOJ and Federal Judiciary. #2 is also attractive, and consistent with a lot of MS' past behaviour. They may think the Chinese are fools. #3 is less attractive, because of Allchin's reputation; on the other hand MS seems to have nothing to fear from getting caught lying, as the deal with the phony crash video presented in the last anti-trust trial revealed. #4 is a possibility, it seems to me that a lot of MS folk and the Windows true believers are delusional: "Hey Charlie Brown, I'll hold the football, you come and kick it! This time it'll be different!" I'm no shrink, however, in my experience, those who trade in lies enough eventually can no longer tell the difference between what is true and what is false.
Yep. MS would not be trying if they they did not think that they can control the outcome. At the least, there is a poisoned pill somewhere. OSDL needs to examine the "terms" very carefully and have both developers and lawyers do it.
If MS were serious about "co-operation" would they not open up their APIs?
He also wants definitions in the bill changed so that companies would be able to e-mail information about new products and services to customers, even if they had opted out of receiving e-mail about other services they had bought from the company in the past.
So under Mr. Microsoft's proposal SPAMMERS could continue to SPAM us under the pretense of a new or changed product: changing the product typeface on the label from 37 point type to 39 point type, or the backgroung color of the box from pale brown to yellow. What a load of Longhorn-crap.
All this time I've thought that my "Inbox" was being hammered by no good, scum-sucking, bottom-feeding slimeballs. But according to Mr. Microsoft I've just been selfishly refusing to participate in the "amazing vehicle of e-marketing."
Come to think of it it can be amazing, miraculous even. How else could I get offers for full versons of XP Pro ("SP2") and Office Pro for less than the upgrade price of either? I had simply concluded they were copyright-infringing IP thieves. What a silly penguin I am. So do XP Pro and Office run on Debian or FreeBSD?
So when can we expect to see all of MS's officers, employee and stockholder e-mail addresses posted publicly on the Net... to further the
"amazing vehicle of e-marketing?"
Both the Gnome and KDE desktops have assistive technology,as you may find at Gnome and at KDE. Whether either would be of any or sufficient help to you, I cannot say. What's loaded on my Debian system has at least one check-off for terminal/CLI stuff in addition to the graphic desktop. Best wishes to you in your present and future endeavors.
Perhaps the worst is that the Librarian is being held responsible for someone else's actions. In that case it shouldn't stop there but continue up to the City Council & mayor. Are they not responsible, too? What about the judge who released him, the probation officer and the lawyers? They didn't prevent this either.
Valparaiso, which is is nearby, is known locally as Val-P. Beyond that, it lacks a distinct personality, being more of a bedroom suburb of Eglin AFB, rather than a real town. Most people combine it with Nicevile, as it is hard to say where one ends & the other starts, & refer to them as the Twin Cities. Siamese twins, at that. Despite the presence of Eglin, they both have a hostility to "gentlemen's clubs," as well. Or maybe that's Niceville... it is hard to tell them apart.
You are to be commended for overcoming your challenges. Some do not. It's not clear to me how a pyhsical challenge could be considered a learning disability. Few people were more challenged than Helen Keller or Stephen Hawking--and yet they are considered giants, and rightly so. Their ability to learn must dwarf my own who have had no serious problems not caused by my own choices.
Be that as it may, what do you find offensive about my comment? Re-reading my post, it seems clear to me that it was not aimed at people with learning disabilities, but at the fear implicit in the post I was responding to, the fear of learning something new. Also, there really are people with serious learning disabilities. Should we pretend there are not? Finally, assuming that I were the boorish ass you seem to have concluded I am, why would you give a crap what a boorish ass thinks, anyway?
Frankly, I don't give a crap what you use IE, Windows,.., the whole MS stack. I don't care. You guys are asking us to trust you. Trust MS! MS's history is one of lies, bullying, and treachery. What kind of morons do you think we are? Talk is cheap. If you want to change our perception, change your behaviour. And in the implausible event you do... don't expect our perceptions to change overnight, or in a year, or even five years. Show us.
I read down through all your comments in this segment. Dead on. Hilf may be an honest, decent guy, but MS is not honest or decent. They have a long history of deception and treachery. Only a fool trusts a liar or a liar's flunky.
Talk is cheap. Lets see some honest and decent actions from MS for 10 or 20 years... then and only then would it be reasonable to entertain the fantasy that MS is responsible and trustworthy rather than sociopathic.
Before your hear bleeds to death for poor, unappreciated, misunderstood, downtrodden MS, allow me to note their driver did not work. Period. Aside from that, I see no reason for the alleged O/S to have a temper tantrum, because I installed something not made by some tin MS god. Or would you care to assert that hardware makers don't know how to write drivers for their own kit?
Actually, I'm grateful to MS for making XP the POS it is. It was so frustrating that it drove me to try something else (see my sig). Now I have something, secure, stable, unobtrusive (as opposed to in-your-face) that allows me to get work done instead of baby-sit the alleged O/S.
Everyone who uses computers gets is exposed to Windows, whether they want to be or not. Anyone who uses Linux from one of the GUIs will have no problem with Windows. Those who can't use Linux from KDE or Gnome won't have a prayer of being able to use Windows, either and are likely to have some kind of serious learning disability.
What you are asserting is equivalent to saying that learning another language won't be employable. The truth is quite the opposite. Now, what are you really afraid of?
Yep, quintessential Microsoft: "let's poison every well and burn every field we don't own. And neither they nor their sock-puppets can understand why people hate their guts.
As for the hardware vendors writing drivers, one would hope so... However, it may not be possible to have Lamehorn/Vista load it. Before I gave up on Windows as a waste of time, XP had a SCREAMING HISSY over loading a hardware-maker's driver, 'cos it wasn't MS-signed. (Yes, it worked just fine, thank you.)
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They have failed, at least with me. I know about it and won't touch anything from the major players because it is DRM'd; and when "Trusted Computing hardware ships, I won't touch that, either. I'm already loooking at box-makers who ship Linux or FreeBSD boxes. "Window Media Edition" is Windows Slavery Edition in my book.
It would almost be different if albums and movies were being sold at a rational price, but they're not and that's that. (I guess tons of heavy drugs and armies of crack-whores cost a lot.) Around 95-99% of their products are crap. Frankly, I hope Disney & the rest of the MPAA and the RIAA all go tits up. In other words, I wish for them, what they wish for us.
Looking at that video of Ballmer (again) led me to realize that he looks a lot like another famous, bald, overweight second-banana: Mussolini, Il Duce.
My company started to switch from WordPerfect to Word a couple of years back because the agencies we contract with demanded the product in Word. Our reports run to hundreds of pages and include images and tables, as well as text. We are still using WordPerfect. (I'd cheerfully pay for a copy that worked with Linux or FreeBSD to use at home-are you listening, Corel?). Personally, I've never had a happy experience with Word (Excel isn't bad) and for my money the "Help" system in Office is less than worthless.
After re-reading your post and my own, I am quite embarassed. Either I responded to the wrong parent or am simply brain-dead. I tend to suspect the latter. You have my apologies.
Google out-competed MS for Lee's services, now MS is trying to win in court what it was impotent to stop as a business.
BTW, where do you live?-I never want to go there. Killing and threats of killing are not considered legitimate business plans here, in fact they are illegal. You are going to say that Ballmer was being figurative. Are you sure? MS believes it is above the law-immune-and has every reason to do so. "Immunity corrupts, absolute immunity corrupts absolutely."
An here's the opposite extreme absurdity: because people can think copyrighted ideas -and even patented ones- should they not all be lobotomized to protect all that sacred IP? Why not set a shining example by being lobotomized first, Mr. IP-Is-Sacred?
The TPM-loving media and hardware makers have my permission to shove their products where the sun doesn't shine and rotate. This is all about DRM and strangling whats's left of the competition amongst MS competitors on the Windows platform (e.g. Word Perfect, game software, Google, Yahoo, etc.)--for now, Linux and UNIX later. They could save themselves the expense, I wouldn't walk across the street for unlimited free copies of any or all MS, RIAA or MPAA products.
MS seems to be saying that Lee is their slave. YMMV
Good luck Geoffry. This is the nightmare we all feared the most.--Jim from NW FL.
Incidentally, the first Linux I used, Mandrake 8.1, did a better job of detecting my hardware than XP. In fact it worked "out of the box" which XP did not, as I had to install sound and video drivers, and later a driver for my modem as MS's kept crashing my box. Debian just works, Mandrake just works. SuSE just works. Mepis just works. Ubuntu just works. Puppy just works. XP just flopped, so I dumped it and got serious about Linux.
As a home user, the real deal for me is not cost. I have spent more money on various Linux distros than on MS. It's about having a say in what goes on my box and what stays. Have another look at the MS EULA. Use MS and they have the last word: they can delete and add software, delete and add files, and for any reason whatsoever. Beyond that, they can share that right to anyone they want to. Click "I agree" to the MS EULA and it become MS's computer. Screw that. YMMV.
Jim Allchin claimed that releasing Windows source code would create a national security risk. Shortly thereafter MS gave PR of China access to ... Windows source code. This seems to reduce to four possible states:
1) Allchin was telling the truth, and MS has committed treason against the United States.
2) Allchin was telling the truth, but MS tried to pass off phony-baloney code to China.
3) Allchin was lying, and because his statement was part of the most recent MS anti-trust trial in the US, he perjured himself.
4) Allchin is delusional.
Take your pick. Allchin has a reputation for being honest, therefore # 1 is attractive. MS has a reputation for back-stabbing business partners and prospective partners. Is MS actually too afraid of the US government to betray it? Dubious, they aren't afraid of business partners, like IBM. And, it an old saw that the US has the best government that money can buy. The outcome of the last anti-trust case suggests that not only are Congress and bureaucrats for sale, so is the DOJ and Federal Judiciary. #2 is also attractive, and consistent with a lot of MS' past behaviour. They may think the Chinese are fools. #3 is less attractive, because of Allchin's reputation; on the other hand MS seems to have nothing to fear from getting caught lying, as the deal with the phony crash video presented in the last anti-trust trial revealed. #4 is a possibility, it seems to me that a lot of MS folk and the Windows true believers are delusional: "Hey Charlie Brown, I'll hold the football, you come and kick it! This time it'll be different!" I'm no shrink, however, in my experience, those who trade in lies enough eventually can no longer tell the difference between what is true and what is false.
Yep. MS would not be trying if they they did not think that they can control the outcome. At the least, there is a poisoned pill somewhere. OSDL needs to examine the "terms" very carefully and have both developers and lawyers do it.
If MS were serious about "co-operation" would they not open up their APIs?
All this time I've thought that my "Inbox" was being hammered by no good, scum-sucking, bottom-feeding slimeballs. But according to Mr. Microsoft I've just been selfishly refusing to participate in the "amazing vehicle of e-marketing."
... to further the
"amazing vehicle of e-marketing?"
Come to think of it it can be amazing, miraculous even. How else could I get offers for full versons of XP Pro ("SP2") and Office Pro for less than the upgrade price of either? I had simply concluded they were copyright-infringing IP thieves. What a silly penguin I am. So do XP Pro and Office run on Debian or FreeBSD?
So when can we expect to see all of MS's officers, employee and stockholder e-mail addresses posted publicly on the Net
Worms, viruses, spyware etc. Nor do MSss opressive EULAs carry any weight. Give my regards to Bill & Steve, Mr/Ms. AC.
Both the Gnome and KDE desktops have assistive technology,as you may find at Gnome and at KDE. Whether either would be of any or sufficient help to you, I cannot say. What's loaded on my Debian system has at least one check-off for terminal/CLI stuff in addition to the graphic desktop. Best wishes to you in your present and future endeavors.
Jim
Perhaps the worst is that the Librarian is being held responsible for someone else's actions. In that case it shouldn't stop there but continue up to the City Council & mayor. Are they not responsible, too? What about the judge who released him, the probation officer and the lawyers? They didn't prevent this either.
... it is hard to tell them apart.
Valparaiso, which is is nearby, is known locally as Val-P. Beyond that, it lacks a distinct personality, being more of a bedroom suburb of Eglin AFB, rather than a real town. Most people combine it with Nicevile, as it is hard to say where one ends & the other starts, & refer to them as the Twin Cities. Siamese twins, at that. Despite the presence of Eglin, they both have a hostility to "gentlemen's clubs," as well. Or maybe that's Niceville
You are to be commended for overcoming your challenges. Some do not. It's not clear to me how a pyhsical challenge could be considered a learning disability. Few people were more challenged than Helen Keller or Stephen Hawking--and yet they are considered giants, and rightly so. Their ability to learn must dwarf my own who have had no serious problems not caused by my own choices.
Be that as it may, what do you find offensive about my comment? Re-reading my post, it seems clear to me that it was not aimed at people with learning disabilities, but at the fear implicit in the post I was responding to, the fear of learning something new. Also, there really are people with serious learning disabilities. Should we pretend there are not? Finally, assuming that I were the boorish ass you seem to have concluded I am, why would you give a crap what a boorish ass thinks, anyway?
Frankly, I don't give a crap what you use IE, Windows, .., the whole MS stack. I don't care. You guys are asking us to trust you. Trust MS! MS's history is one of lies, bullying, and treachery. What kind of morons do you think we are? Talk is cheap. If you want to change our perception, change your behaviour. And in the implausible event you do ... don't expect our perceptions to change overnight, or in a year, or even five years. Show us.
Bingo!
I read down through all your comments in this segment. Dead on. Hilf may be an honest, decent guy, but MS is not honest or decent. They have a long history of deception and treachery. Only a fool trusts a liar or a liar's flunky.
Talk is cheap. Lets see some honest and decent actions from MS for 10 or 20 years... then and only then would it be reasonable to entertain the fantasy that MS is responsible and trustworthy rather than sociopathic.
Before your hear bleeds to death for poor, unappreciated, misunderstood, downtrodden MS, allow me to note their driver did not work. Period. Aside from that, I see no reason for the alleged O/S to have a temper tantrum, because I installed something not made by some tin MS god. Or would you care to assert that hardware makers don't know how to write drivers for their own kit?
Actually, I'm grateful to MS for making XP the POS it is. It was so frustrating that it drove me to try something else (see my sig). Now I have something, secure, stable, unobtrusive (as opposed to in-your-face) that allows me to get work done instead of baby-sit the alleged O/S.
Everyone who uses computers gets is exposed to Windows, whether they want to be or not. Anyone who uses Linux from one of the GUIs will have no problem with Windows. Those who can't use Linux from KDE or Gnome won't have a prayer of being able to use Windows, either and are likely to have some kind of serious learning disability.
What you are asserting is equivalent to saying that learning another language won't be employable. The truth is quite the opposite. Now, what are you really afraid of?
Yep, quintessential Microsoft: "let's poison every well and burn every field we don't own. And neither they nor their sock-puppets can understand why people hate their guts.
As for the hardware vendors writing drivers, one would hope so... However, it may not be possible to have Lamehorn/Vista load it. Before I gave up on Windows as a waste of time, XP had a SCREAMING HISSY over loading a hardware-maker's driver, 'cos it wasn't MS-signed. (Yes, it worked just fine, thank you.)