Oracle's online systems are as dinosaur as the company. Taking literally 30 seconds to "load" a web page... Take them out the back and finish them off.
When I went to buy my first flat screen TV 6 months ago with a $1000 budget I took my time, read a lot of reviews and made a lot of trips to stores to see the models in person.
At first I was aiming for LCD - there was a Samsung Series 6 LCD, 40" for $1000. But in seeing the "cheaper" LCDs without the full motion control they are frustrating to watch. Everything is too sharp, the movements on the TV don't look real - it's like the thing with humanoid robots standing out hugely to us as the get near human appearance.
All of the LCDs in this price range are like this - even a lot of the more expensive models appear the same to me. (I'm a fan of Samsung) The only Samsungs to not have this were the Series 8 and 9 which were ridiculously out of my price range.
So instead I had a look at Plasma Screens and am very happy with my Samsung Series 6 51" Plasma for $700. The colours are great and feels more "alive", none of the over sharp picture but still looks 100% watching 1080 and such and (not that I use any of it) has all the 3D, Smart TV BS.
Suffice to say low end Plasmas (from actual manufacturers) will give a better TV experience than a similar priced LCD and you'll probably get to upgrade to a larger size and get more features.
Simple. If you smoke or drink you're not covered for public healthcare. Fuck, include obese patients as well and make an onus on doctors to records advising patients to drop their weight.
The problem there is the US allowing drug companies to advertise prescription medicine.
Seriously, how fucking stupid can a country be than to let drug companies tell consumers to ask their doctor for medicine?!? I couldn't believe when I found that out.
But if I were a struggling developer or such and had a patent troll try this on me, with the only option to defend myself at my cost with no real hope of getting money back, I'd be very inclined to instead find the people behind this and make it very clear they wouldn't see a cent.
Why has this not happened yet? I want to see that news story, just to send a message to the rest of these vampires.
How about instead of sitting there watching it process you just block your own access to viewing this 15 second delay and ignore it. Just don't care about it. Pretend it doesn't happen and your mail just arrived in your inbox.
I can see no situation where email being delays by 15 seconds is going to cause a an issue.
And also what are you talking about can't buy a PC with anything but Windows 8? I just bought 15 laptops from Dell 2 days ago and all will arrive with Windows 7. Nothing special at all, not even discussed with my account manager their. Last 3 orders since Windows 8 have all been the same.
Just because you walk into whatever department store and only see Windows 8 doesn't mean that the only reality.
From the Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Downgrade Rights PDF available here:
Rights to OEM versions of system software are granted in the OEM License Terms. The OEM License Terms for Windows 8 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, and Windows Vista Ultimate operating systems grant downgrade rights. See the full text of the OEM License Terms for the specific downgrade rights
So please tell me why you need to purchase anything? If you buy a PC with Windows 8 then install Windows 7 and call Microsoft Activation and advise you have downgraded to Windows 7 as allowed as part of the OEM licensing agreement and would like their assistance in activating.
One person at £32k is still cheaper than 10 people at £320k and given that they have a lot of computers at different sites they damn well should (and for what it's worth do) have staff trained in remote deployment and the software and infrastructure to do it. They just opted to send people around physically instead.
Sorry I thought you had no understanding and actually though the process was going around with a CD, not utilizing GP or SCCM or Altiris or Landesk etc. That's actually pretty shocking that they don't employ something like SCCM, Microsoft give pretty decent discounts to Government as well.
That's why you have a support team. For when these things don't work.
Nope. You plan and test all these things, then test with a few users initially, then fix issues, then test again, maybe fix more issues, then test and if OK you deploy. Slowly deploy as well lol.
No reasons large enough to justify the expenditure at a time when they're making cuts axing meaningful jobs that could've otherwise been saved. The staff could just as well have got by on 2007 for a few more years until 2013 came out or the next version again even and 99% of the staff would have never even noticed the difference or seen any change in productivity.
2010 is the next version. No corporate anywhere is moving to Windows 8/Office 2013. We actually had a third party software purchased by the CEO turn around and say we need all 2010... Despite my protest of this sounding completely retarded the CEO said it had to happen so we made it happen. My experience in this deployment to only hundreds of PCs is what made me jump at your post saying just walk around with a CD.
I do agree though that unless there was a definite requirement there are of course more pressing things - some people do get a hard on for IT lol.
Oh, and of course they hired a bunch of people on £32k a year to install it, because of course you need people paid a 23% premium over the national average wage in a relatively cheap part of the country to stick a CD in and click next next next a few times
Except you would pay someone that wage to come in and deploy to your PCs via an automated method, especially if your current IT has no experience with that product. Not to mention testing compatibility of addons, retraining, reconfiguring settings or GPOs to match your requirements with the new version etc. For instance: Word 2010 by default uses different paragraph spacing than 2007, you probably want to ensure your Office Programs are saving in your companies default extension (doc or docx) and in the required location (each user may have a mapped "user drive" that you want to be the default save location).
And there are reasons to upgrade that improve the user experience (you at least have the ribbon on every product in 2010, not a mix like 2007) and IT Support (2010 DOES have less issues than 2007).
But don't worry, just keep straw manning to success.
Why can't we have more stories like this? Why does it always have to be something political or an advertisement for a product or the usual MS bashing stories? This title alone is more interesting than any "news" story I've seen on Slashdot in the last year.
An interesting thought. When we're sick we continually blow our noses and try clear out as much of the mucus as possible. Perhaps the habits of nose blowing and picking are what causes us to get sick most of the time in the first place - our nose detects a virus and starts producing mucus to fight it off, we blow our nose removing the barrier to infection? Perhaps when we're sick we need to let our bodies do the work and let the mucus sit there sort of thing.
I agree on static devices Linux "Just Works ^tm" but even on your own example of Android it's a headache. I have a Samsung Galaxy S 2, my work provided phone is an iPhone 4 and my partner has a Nokia Windows 7.5 phone of some kind. Of all 3 the Android phone is BY FAR the buggiest and most least user friendly. It consistently locks up at random times, GPS is still innacurate as shit at times and things are just no where near as smooth.
My partner who is not at all technical has at no point ever asked for help doing something on Windows phone - previously on her LG Android POS it was constant issues and "how do I do x again?". Kinda exactly like my Linux on desktop experiences!
Also I'm no MS Fanboy - I'm the first to attack them on many things and there phone OS is still not near OK I.E. There Sharepoint app requires some non default BS security enabled on your server, but download any Sharepoint App on Android or IOS and no issues, Just Works. They also don't get the Just Works idea sometimes, but the Linux Community on desktop don't at all.
Pain in the ass? Microsoft provide better documentation, both from an enterprise and consumer level, than any other vendor for how to change these type of things. Your igorance is not shared. As for gouging - not one single point of yours I've quoted involves any financial costs.
Users should never see a PC until both Windows and Office is activated. Your IT Support have not done their job correctly - they were slightly correct in saying talk to your tech support. Sometimes Microsoft do have problems with their activation system (when calling) - I'll give you that one. I'd say call back later or some BS but I know what it's like to be say onsite somewhere and needing it done now. For the 99% of the time though the system is pretty good - a lot better than other vendors activation systems/BS.
And because Slashdot seems to either impose some kind of miniscule undocumented character limit or something is broken here's part 2:
how they try to force me into bing
They set the default home page as their own search page? Surprised? Or that the default search is Bing? What's the default search in Chrome? Again, easily changed, they never try to force or change your choice if you change it and controllable via Policy across multiple PCs.
how they try to obsolete older versions like XP - even though it works perfectly fine on older PC's
You had over 10 years, you knew how long they would support it from day 1. All they're doing is stopping security updates - no ones saying you can't keep using it. Please give me another OS that will have been supported for 13 years.
There's balloon popups and Security Centre/Action Centre that both can be disabled very easily via either Control Panel or Policy across multiple PCs as required. I see a popup saying your AV is out of date, that you have no AV or that you should setup a backup as a good thing for home users - in a business it's not and thus disabled via policy. Tell me I'm wrong.
talking nagging paper-clips
I think last version where this came on as default was 2003? You're really using a 10 year old slight annoyance that again could be very easily disabled via settings in Office or Policy as your argument against MS?
can only log in one user account at a time unless you pay out the nose
Sitting here on Windows 7 I can click start and select Switch User any time I want - won't be concurrent but that's multiple users logged in. If you want multiple then Microsoft provide Remote Desktop Services (you may call it Terminal Services because you're obviously a dinosaur) which is a very robust set of technologies and features for multiple server logons through multiple methods that I believe is more than far that MS ask to be paid for.
a window8 GUI trying to shove apps down out throats even if we're a desktop
When you create an account you can choose whether or not to have a Microsoft or Local Account. Choose Local and uninstall the Apps. Again controllable by Policy. I do agree with you though that pushing a touch OS on Desktop is stupid.
all versions of word are more incomparable with each other than open office is
I can open a 20+ year old Word file in Word 2013 and can then open a brand new Word file in Word 2000 or later with updates. There are issues with formatting when converting Word files from doc to docx but MS provide tools to identify and fix these issues before converting if required. The updated document formats provide many features and collaboration abilities that you would complain are missing otherwise.
Eh I've tried running Linux as a novice multiple times over the years. Everytime it's a nightmare of googling and forum posts that get arrogant replies and an unwelcome community.
It's a disjointed mess (Linux) that never "just works". There's always issues with hardware compatibility or issues that honestly I don't get or see as someone who maintains thousands of desktops running Windows.
This is my own experience though and this is Apples to Oranges I understand in terms of the hardware side. But the community is horrible and you need to realise it's your type of attitude that makes it that - Apple aren't stupid enough to attack MS by bagging out Windows (well sort of - they attacked the usability through the "I'm a Mac" videos but not the product), they provide a VERY good alternative that people use and people jump. Linux fanboys have this idea that by attacking Windows it will make people move to Linux?? How about you make a product deserving of people making the switch and the people will do it themselves.
The infrastructure is there both through Windows Update and the Hardware Installation wizard for vendors to make their drivers available - you can also update the built in Hardware Wizard drivers. It's 100% the vendors fault if it is not there and you should be contacting them and voicing your anger at their shortcomings.
Microsoft even provide instructions through their built in troubleshooting for devices on how to acquire drivers for some devices where an installer is required (with links and step by step instructions). This is through the Devices and Printers control panel.
The article and summary ignore the fact that the systems is obviously older than Windows XP at the least. They cannot guarantee it will work on anything newer. Like any website or system designed for an older system... This is not news.
Slashdot Mirror
(Involved in various facets of WiFi Projects for approx. 50 commercial sites).
Any commercial grade AP is going to cost you around the $500 mark. At the least.
Your point?
Oracle's online systems are as dinosaur as the company. Taking literally 30 seconds to "load" a web page... Take them out the back and finish them off.
When I went to buy my first flat screen TV 6 months ago with a $1000 budget I took my time, read a lot of reviews and made a lot of trips to stores to see the models in person.
At first I was aiming for LCD - there was a Samsung Series 6 LCD, 40" for $1000. But in seeing the "cheaper" LCDs without the full motion control they are frustrating to watch. Everything is too sharp, the movements on the TV don't look real - it's like the thing with humanoid robots standing out hugely to us as the get near human appearance.
All of the LCDs in this price range are like this - even a lot of the more expensive models appear the same to me. (I'm a fan of Samsung) The only Samsungs to not have this were the Series 8 and 9 which were ridiculously out of my price range.
So instead I had a look at Plasma Screens and am very happy with my Samsung Series 6 51" Plasma for $700. The colours are great and feels more "alive", none of the over sharp picture but still looks 100% watching 1080 and such and (not that I use any of it) has all the 3D, Smart TV BS.
Suffice to say low end Plasmas (from actual manufacturers) will give a better TV experience than a similar priced LCD and you'll probably get to upgrade to a larger size and get more features.
Simple. If you smoke or drink you're not covered for public healthcare. Fuck, include obese patients as well and make an onus on doctors to records advising patients to drop their weight.
The problem there is the US allowing drug companies to advertise prescription medicine.
Seriously, how fucking stupid can a country be than to let drug companies tell consumers to ask their doctor for medicine?!? I couldn't believe when I found that out.
But if I were a struggling developer or such and had a patent troll try this on me, with the only option to defend myself at my cost with no real hope of getting money back, I'd be very inclined to instead find the people behind this and make it very clear they wouldn't see a cent.
Why has this not happened yet? I want to see that news story, just to send a message to the rest of these vampires.
How about instead of sitting there watching it process you just block your own access to viewing this 15 second delay and ignore it. Just don't care about it. Pretend it doesn't happen and your mail just arrived in your inbox.
I can see no situation where email being delays by 15 seconds is going to cause a an issue.
And also what are you talking about can't buy a PC with anything but Windows 8? I just bought 15 laptops from Dell 2 days ago and all will arrive with Windows 7. Nothing special at all, not even discussed with my account manager their. Last 3 orders since Windows 8 have all been the same.
Just because you walk into whatever department store and only see Windows 8 doesn't mean that the only reality.
From the Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Downgrade Rights PDF available here:
Rights to OEM versions of system software are granted in the OEM License Terms. The OEM License Terms for Windows 8 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, and Windows Vista Ultimate operating systems grant downgrade rights. See the full text of the OEM License Terms for the specific downgrade rights
So please tell me why you need to purchase anything? If you buy a PC with Windows 8 then install Windows 7 and call Microsoft Activation and advise you have downgraded to Windows 7 as allowed as part of the OEM licensing agreement and would like their assistance in activating.
One person at £32k is still cheaper than 10 people at £320k and given that they have a lot of computers at different sites they damn well should (and for what it's worth do) have staff trained in remote deployment and the software and infrastructure to do it. They just opted to send people around physically instead.
Sorry I thought you had no understanding and actually though the process was going around with a CD, not utilizing GP or SCCM or Altiris or Landesk etc. That's actually pretty shocking that they don't employ something like SCCM, Microsoft give pretty decent discounts to Government as well.
That's why you have a support team. For when these things don't work.
Nope. You plan and test all these things, then test with a few users initially, then fix issues, then test again, maybe fix more issues, then test and if OK you deploy. Slowly deploy as well lol.
No reasons large enough to justify the expenditure at a time when they're making cuts axing meaningful jobs that could've otherwise been saved. The staff could just as well have got by on 2007 for a few more years until 2013 came out or the next version again even and 99% of the staff would have never even noticed the difference or seen any change in productivity.
2010 is the next version. No corporate anywhere is moving to Windows 8/Office 2013. We actually had a third party software purchased by the CEO turn around and say we need all 2010... Despite my protest of this sounding completely retarded the CEO said it had to happen so we made it happen. My experience in this deployment to only hundreds of PCs is what made me jump at your post saying just walk around with a CD.
I do agree though that unless there was a definite requirement there are of course more pressing things - some people do get a hard on for IT lol.
Oh... Well in that case because you're already less safe just sit right up their ass.. Can't get any more unsafe RIGHT?
Oh, and of course they hired a bunch of people on £32k a year to install it, because of course you need people paid a 23% premium over the national average wage in a relatively cheap part of the country to stick a CD in and click next next next a few times
Except you would pay someone that wage to come in and deploy to your PCs via an automated method, especially if your current IT has no experience with that product. Not to mention testing compatibility of addons, retraining, reconfiguring settings or GPOs to match your requirements with the new version etc. For instance: Word 2010 by default uses different paragraph spacing than 2007, you probably want to ensure your Office Programs are saving in your companies default extension (doc or docx) and in the required location (each user may have a mapped "user drive" that you want to be the default save location).
And there are reasons to upgrade that improve the user experience (you at least have the ribbon on every product in 2010, not a mix like 2007) and IT Support (2010 DOES have less issues than 2007).
But don't worry, just keep straw manning to success.
We'll start to realise why the sudden jump in cancers and tumors over the last hundred or so years radio has been widespread...
Why can't we have more stories like this? Why does it always have to be something political or an advertisement for a product or the usual MS bashing stories? This title alone is more interesting than any "news" story I've seen on Slashdot in the last year.
Then keep 2 seconds behind? They do have break lights..
Chrome "Fuck you Firefox you'll never catch our number" Version.
An interesting thought. When we're sick we continually blow our noses and try clear out as much of the mucus as possible. Perhaps the habits of nose blowing and picking are what causes us to get sick most of the time in the first place - our nose detects a virus and starts producing mucus to fight it off, we blow our nose removing the barrier to infection? Perhaps when we're sick we need to let our bodies do the work and let the mucus sit there sort of thing.
I agree on static devices Linux "Just Works ^tm" but even on your own example of Android it's a headache. I have a Samsung Galaxy S 2, my work provided phone is an iPhone 4 and my partner has a Nokia Windows 7.5 phone of some kind. Of all 3 the Android phone is BY FAR the buggiest and most least user friendly. It consistently locks up at random times, GPS is still innacurate as shit at times and things are just no where near as smooth. My partner who is not at all technical has at no point ever asked for help doing something on Windows phone - previously on her LG Android POS it was constant issues and "how do I do x again?". Kinda exactly like my Linux on desktop experiences! Also I'm no MS Fanboy - I'm the first to attack them on many things and there phone OS is still not near OK I.E. There Sharepoint app requires some non default BS security enabled on your server, but download any Sharepoint App on Android or IOS and no issues, Just Works. They also don't get the Just Works idea sometimes, but the Linux Community on desktop don't at all.
Pain in the ass? Microsoft provide better documentation, both from an enterprise and consumer level, than any other vendor for how to change these type of things. Your igorance is not shared. As for gouging - not one single point of yours I've quoted involves any financial costs.
Users should never see a PC until both Windows and Office is activated. Your IT Support have not done their job correctly - they were slightly correct in saying talk to your tech support. Sometimes Microsoft do have problems with their activation system (when calling) - I'll give you that one. I'd say call back later or some BS but I know what it's like to be say onsite somewhere and needing it done now. For the 99% of the time though the system is pretty good - a lot better than other vendors activation systems/BS.
how they try to force me into bing
They set the default home page as their own search page? Surprised? Or that the default search is Bing? What's the default search in Chrome? Again, easily changed, they never try to force or change your choice if you change it and controllable via Policy across multiple PCs.
how they try to obsolete older versions like XP - even though it works perfectly fine on older PC's
You had over 10 years, you knew how long they would support it from day 1. All they're doing is stopping security updates - no ones saying you can't keep using it. Please give me another OS that will have been supported for 13 years.
Constant popupups
There's balloon popups and Security Centre/Action Centre that both can be disabled very easily via either Control Panel or Policy across multiple PCs as required. I see a popup saying your AV is out of date, that you have no AV or that you should setup a backup as a good thing for home users - in a business it's not and thus disabled via policy. Tell me I'm wrong.
talking nagging paper-clips
I think last version where this came on as default was 2003? You're really using a 10 year old slight annoyance that again could be very easily disabled via settings in Office or Policy as your argument against MS?
can only log in one user account at a time unless you pay out the nose
Sitting here on Windows 7 I can click start and select Switch User any time I want - won't be concurrent but that's multiple users logged in. If you want multiple then Microsoft provide Remote Desktop Services (you may call it Terminal Services because you're obviously a dinosaur) which is a very robust set of technologies and features for multiple server logons through multiple methods that I believe is more than far that MS ask to be paid for.
a window8 GUI trying to shove apps down out throats even if we're a desktop
When you create an account you can choose whether or not to have a Microsoft or Local Account. Choose Local and uninstall the Apps. Again controllable by Policy. I do agree with you though that pushing a touch OS on Desktop is stupid.
all versions of word are more incomparable with each other than open office is
I can open a 20+ year old Word file in Word 2013 and can then open a brand new Word file in Word 2000 or later with updates. There are issues with formatting when converting Word files from doc to docx but MS provide tools to identify and fix these issues before converting if required. The updated document formats provide many features and collaboration abilities that you would complain are missing otherwise.
Eh I've tried running Linux as a novice multiple times over the years. Everytime it's a nightmare of googling and forum posts that get arrogant replies and an unwelcome community.
It's a disjointed mess (Linux) that never "just works". There's always issues with hardware compatibility or issues that honestly I don't get or see as someone who maintains thousands of desktops running Windows.
This is my own experience though and this is Apples to Oranges I understand in terms of the hardware side. But the community is horrible and you need to realise it's your type of attitude that makes it that - Apple aren't stupid enough to attack MS by bagging out Windows (well sort of - they attacked the usability through the "I'm a Mac" videos but not the product), they provide a VERY good alternative that people use and people jump. Linux fanboys have this idea that by attacking Windows it will make people move to Linux?? How about you make a product deserving of people making the switch and the people will do it themselves.
The infrastructure is there both through Windows Update and the Hardware Installation wizard for vendors to make their drivers available - you can also update the built in Hardware Wizard drivers. It's 100% the vendors fault if it is not there and you should be contacting them and voicing your anger at their shortcomings.
Microsoft even provide instructions through their built in troubleshooting for devices on how to acquire drivers for some devices where an installer is required (with links and step by step instructions). This is through the Devices and Printers control panel.
The article and summary ignore the fact that the systems is obviously older than Windows XP at the least. They cannot guarantee it will work on anything newer. Like any website or system designed for an older system... This is not news.