h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, to begin with, that whole "Doomed, Doomed" message wasn't so much an "argument" as an interjection. It was in response to Mylock's posting about "Humanity's Idealogical Debates(tm)"; I figured I should insert my own oh-so-cheery-view on the subject of humanity*.

And as far as the "rebel" thing goes, take me for example: I am an Unrepentant Netscape-Usin' Leftist Macophile(tm)! Wait, maybe I was confusing "rebelliousness" with "masochism"...

And thirdly, I NEVER think out my argument before I start typing! CONSENSUS IS FOR THE WEAK!!....see there?

...and finally, don't worry about wounding me with sarcasm. I probably won't flame you, as I'm much more likely to send a boring, rambling explanation of the deranged thought processes that led to my writing whatever-it-was-I-wrote. As I've done here. Or I might just claim I was drunk.










*I'm thinking of becoming a motivational speaker.

Windows security is nonexistent, period. Any half-educated user can get into your system if it is passworded, and the Windows file sharing system allows other users full rights to destroy your files. That's why, in every environment I've worked in where data security was even partially necessary, they've been running Novell networking tools over and above Windows. If their networking was worth a damn, the extra expense would be unnecesary, since all the Windows networking stuff is built into the OS.

Windows memory protection is the biggest problem with Winbloze. Protected mode means that a block of memory addresses are reserved for a single app, and no other app will be permitted to access that area. It doesn't work, and you get two programs trying to write to the same address space time and again, which generates the Blue Screen of Death.

Winbloze 95 was a far leap ahead of Win 3.0, true, but it was still desperately behind Mac and Tandy. The only reason it sold like hotcakes was because, due to the Intel-MS alliance, MS DOS was already the most widespread operating system, and all the programmers were writing code to work with it, in spite of the fact that it was probably the worst operating system available at that time. MacOS was way more user-friendly, and engineering types were spoiled by the stability, reliability, and scalability of the various UNIX versions. MS DOS won out only by aligning with the trend-setter in hardware, and not from superior programming. Gates is no Linus Torvalds, a better comparison would be to Donald Trump.

And, as for the integration of IE, I think there couldn't have been a more hostile move by MS. It was clearly designed to destroy Netscape... who, at the time, were THE standard-setters for HTML. Not only are you stuck with IE when you purchase a new computer, but you cannot possibly be rid of it. That is an elimination of choice, and contrary to free-market principles, and Gates gets what he deserves for that little trick... never mind the others.

The problems with installs and uninstalls are caused by the OS. It permits every vendor to make free access of the registry, but provides nothing to clean it up. It allows programs to deposit .dll files all over the place, and overwrite ones already in use with ones incompatible with previous software. Winbloze shares everything, and in doing so, allows new programs to screw things up for old programs. And if formatting your hard drive every 6 months seems to you to be a satisfactory maintenance procedure for your hard drive, then I'm glad you're with it, but I find the necessity absolutely deplorable. Even MVS, IBM's user-hostile programming language for mainframes, has more to recommend it than MS.

Okay, I am not going to argue so ferociously this time. Not because you convinced me of anything, but just because I remembered that old saying. Agree to disagree. Anyway, here are a few responses to some of the things you said:

"Windows security is nonexistent, period. Any half-educated user can get into your system if it is passworded, and the Windows file sharing system allows other users full rights to destroy your files. That's why, in every environment I've worked in where data security was even partially necessary, they've been running Novell networking tools over and above Windows. If their networking was worth a damn, the extra expense would be unnecesary, since all the Windows networking stuff is built into the OS."

Windows 95/98 were never meant to be used for business networking. If you turn on all those file sharing features, then it is your responsibility to deal with the safety issues and install security programs. If you want to network many computers then the Windows business products should be used. Aka, NT and (the poorly named) Win 2000.

"Winbloze 95 was a far leap ahead of Win 3.0, true, but it was still desperately behind Mac and Tandy. The only reason it sold like hotcakes was because, due to the Intel-MS alliance, MS DOS was already the most widespread operating system, and all the programmers were writing code to work with it, in spite of the fact that it was probably the worst operating system available at that time. MacOS was way more user-friendly, and engineering types were spoiled by the stability, reliability, and scalability of the various UNIX versions. MS DOS won out only by aligning with the trend-setter in hardware, and not from superior programming. Gates is no Linus Torvalds, a better comparison would be to Donald Trump."

In my mind Win 95 was ahead of the mac in many ways. Also, when I switched from mac to pc (admittedly for the software) I actually found that I liked the Win interface much more than the Mac interface. You are right that MAC's are a bit better in the user-friendlyness department. But any novice who works on a Windows system for a while will pick it all up pretty well. I admit, I don't have experience with UNIX, but as I understand it. It was for servers, and wasn't of use to home users when Windows 95 came out. Also, I again say that it is a testament to MS's brilliance that Dos was so incredibly popular when it was competing with Apple (ie getting all the good software). And yes, you are right that MS did ride the coat tails of intel type chips in many ways, but it isn't MS's fault that they chose a winner, rather than trying to control the hardware and the software like apple. I never said that Gates was Linus Torvalds. And there is no way that he could. Gates came from a completely different technology situation than Torvalds. I would go into this further, but let me just conclude this part with that last statement.

"And, as for the integration of IE, I think there couldn't have been a more hostile move by MS. It was clearly designed to destroy Netscape... who, at the time, were THE standard-setters for HTML. Not only are you stuck with IE when you purchase a new computer, but you cannot possibly be rid of it. That is an elimination of choice, and contrary to free-market principles, and Gates gets what he deserves for that little trick... never mind the others."

I disagree. I stand by what I said earlier on this issue. And just because Netscape was the first big browser, doesn't mean that they other companies shouldn't have been allowed to try to make a competing product. Also, this was shown and ignored in the trial: Ms announced that a new program called Internet Explorer would be part of Windows 95 before Netscape released their first public beta. This is from the Netscape CEO's own notes. Personally, I look at the IE integration with Win 95 as an added feature and a step towards further integrating Windows with the Web. MS saw that the net was the future (sorry for the cheesy line), and used IE as a way to start making all Windows users comfortable with net software and whatnot. The next small step was that active desktop crap i never use. I do believe that MS was wrong if it did in deed threaten computer companies so that they couldn't include Netscape as part of a software bundle, if that is true, then that was definitely wrong. And remember, if it wasn't for IE you wouldn't be getting your beloved netscape for free. And also, Netscape blew up their own empire in many ways. Their software turned to crap and stagnated really quickly. By 5.0 IE was totally superior. Luckily Netscape will release a new browser soon, which means renewed competition and my IE will only get better.

"The problems with installs and uninstalls are caused by the OS. It permits every vendor to make free access of the registry, but provides nothing to clean it up. It allows programs to deposit .dll files all over the place, and overwrite ones already in use with ones incompatible with previous software. Winbloze shares everything, and in doing so, allows new programs to screw things up for old programs. And if formatting your hard drive every 6 months seems to you to be a satisfactory maintenance procedure for your hard drive, then I'm glad you're with it, but I find the necessity absolutely deplorable. Even MVS, IBM's user-hostile programming language for mainframes, has more to recommend it than MS."

Okay, yeah, a part of the problem is with windows. But I still think that a big part of the problem is software companies that don't want their crap removed from your computer. And as for windows allowing programs to share things. Well I think that stuff like that is an example of how MS let themselves lose some control over windows, so that many many programmers would develop it. Sorry if that last line didn't make sense, I look forward to debating you further.

P.S. I respect everyone's views.

Windows may be less good than it's competitors (with the exception of Mac OS!) but it's popular because it, in a word, "works" (at least most of the time). Win9x was never intended as the workstation OS that it unfortunately has become in most schools (running one VBA macro on the Saint Birinus network would render local security useless), and is therefore not designed with security in mind, I know many people who maintain that windows is crap yet have only ever used win9x and never touched another OS in their lives, but hey.

I firmly believe that eventualy Desktop *nx (Linux) could spell curtains for Windows.

P.S, Winbloze ??!! that's just Sh't

Hmmm, I still don't know about linux. It is trying to establish itself as a big desktop OS while windows is trying to turn itself into a net based piece of net software. I definitely agree with what you said about windows popularity stemming from it working most of the time. And I am glad that you agreed with me about Windows 9x systems not being met for big networking jobs. I don't know if Linux will ever take down Windows in the desktop arena, but I could see it beating MS to the punch in all those future web appliances. This is since it is more stable and small web appliances will probably want a small simple system. And MS's attempts to simplify windows have had several problems, though I hear Win CE 3.0 is very good. Anyway, who knows.

Now onto a somewhat sidenote: I am annoyed at how good companies like MS and others take a beating on the stock market. All stock markets are crazy. They are all based on people's perceptions. Maybe one guy decides to sell some of the stock he bought because he thinks he made a good profit and doesn't want to push his luck, next thing you now the market is down 200 points and the company is bankrupted. All because everyone freaks out.

Stock markets are indeed crazy. But then, I'm pretty bleeping leftist, so I think that a lot of capitalism is crazy. I'll spare you all any rants on this point though, as I'm sure none of you is all that interested in the bogus economic theories of a sixteen-year-old (And, after my previous postings, I'd say that my credability in this particular conversation is at a low point).

So instead of spouting Crazy Theories(tm), I'll just give you my perspective on how the high-tech market works (Or worked, until recently).Remember, this is NOT a crazy theory, it's the unvarnished truth...

The modern stock market is driven by gnomes (work with me, here), who slave away in their labyrinthian underground mines. The material that these gnomes seek has varied over the years. Under the older markets, it was oil, or precious metals, but that is all in the past. In the "New Economy," these elfin laborers seek the rare mineral known as "hype." When excavated, the raw hype ore is taken to refining plants and prepared for distribution. Once refined, the hype is hype is taken by elite gnome infiltration teams, and inserted into the heads of slumbering rich people. These rich people feel the effects of the hype upon waking. They are filled with the irrational desire to by stock in any goddamn company that ends in dot-something-or-other.

Unfortunately, the gnomes' hype-mines are beginning to run dry. The resulting shortage is causing many rich people to experience "hype-withdrawal." Symptoms of this include nervousness, irregular thought patterns (such as "Maybe these companies aren't worth investing in unless they can TURN A FREAKIN' PROFIT!), and the subsequent yanking of their invesments from said profitless companies.



And now you know why the high-tech market is winding down.

MS Project Whistler is looking quite promising, as far as I can see anyway, but some of the userfriendly task based features are looking a little overdone. Take a look at the Windows 3000 site http://jotenet.koti.com.pl/

it's not Windows 3000

I agree that the Active Desktop stuff is crap, and I think most knowledgeable users agree, and even the ignorant ones would as well, if they could figure out how to turn it off. MS's strategy for making Win 9x meld with the web is unnecessary, and therefore their free bundling of IE was unnecessary. However, I am not angry at them for giving me the browser... I am angry with them for not allowing me to be rid of it. You can customize your installation of Winbloze to be rid of all sorts of features you don't want or need, but you cannot possibly rid yourself of IE. Even performing an uninstall only makes it APPEAR that it is gone, but if a certain app tries to find it, it will find it and load it. I'm sure I could delete the files one by one if I had all the names, but the necessity really galls me. It's a piece of bloatware that I neither require nor desire, but can do nothing about.

By the way, those places I mentioned where data security is necessary (hospitals and government), they were running NT networks, and either Win9x or NT (I'm including Win2k when I say NT) workstations. Even NT's security wasn't enough, and that is the product they specifically designed for servers and networks. Novell requires extra training and administration, but data security is important enough to these people that they do it. Novell stays in business by addressing the oversights of MS.

And a new complaint... has anyone ever found any of MS's help files helpful? I'm not just talking about the Winbloze troubleshooting screens (a more useless device has never been inflicted on man before) but Office, Encarta (poor excuse for an encyclopedia, H2G2's Edited Guide has already outstripped it), IE, or whatever. I have found that such things CAN be helpful... I learned how to author PDF files with Adobe Acrobat's guide as my sole resource.

"No personal computer will ever require more than 1MB of memory." Bill Gates. PC users paid the price for this bit of shortsightedness for about a decade.

Ugg, okay, back to the battlegrounds.
Firstly let me say that if I don't sound all that emphatic about the things I say, it is merely because I know that I can never convince you of any of my opinions and you hate everything about MS already.

Anyway:
"I agree that the Active Desktop stuff is crap, and I think most knowledgeable users agree, and even the ignorant ones would as well, if they could figure out how to turn it off. MS's strategy for making Win 9x meld with the web is unnecessary, and therefore their free bundling of IE was unnecessary. However, I am not angry at them for giving me the browser... I am angry with them for not allowing me to be rid of it. You can customize your installation of Winbloze to be rid of all sorts of features you don't want or need, but you cannot possibly rid yourself of IE. Even performing an uninstall only makes it APPEAR that it is gone, but if a certain app tries to find it, it will find it and load it. I'm sure I could delete the files one by one if I had all the names, but the necessity really galls me. It's a piece of bloatware that I neither require nor desire, but can do nothing about."

Active Desktop doesn't do anything to you if you don't use it. I don't think it was total crap, it just was a neat idea that never worked out. It has never caused any problems for me. The reason you can't get rid of IE is because it is integrated with windows. It is a part of windows. You wouldn't expect MS to go out of their way to make sure you could remove windows explorer, and it has competition too. Also, I like the way it is integrated. I like the way it keeps all the windows as one and lets me type in an address in my hard-drive, I like the fact that as soon as I have windows installed and can view all those graphic files because they open up in IE. And you can use Netscape if you really really want to (but I wouldn't suggest it, due to its poor standards support). And you can certainly make it the default for opening up all web documents. I say, that if you don't like IE, then just ignore it and set Netscape as the default. I used to have netscape as the default and I never really had to use IE, except of course for opening files, but that is unavoidable.

"By the way, those places I mentioned where data security is necessary (hospitals and government), they were running NT networks, and either Win9x or NT (I'm including Win2k when I say NT) workstations. Even NT's security wasn't enough, and that is the product they specifically designed for servers and networks. Novell requires extra training and administration, but data security is important enough to these people that they do it. Novell stays in business by addressing the oversights of MS."

Saying that they use Win 9x workstations defeats part of your point. That eliminates some of the security. Also, I am sure that if they wanted to, they could make sure that Win 2k was very secure. Of course, I will admit that MS isn't as secure as they could be, but it has to do with the trade off of features and security. Also, if they really need extremely secure networks then of course it makes sense to use software thats only function is to secure things. I am quite sure that Win 2k's security would be quite fine for a small business. Anyway, you shouldn't group Win 2k with NT 4.0 and the older NT's. Same kernel but 2k is much better.

"And a new complaint... has anyone ever found any of MS's help files helpful? I'm not just talking about the Winbloze troubleshooting screens (a more useless device has never been inflicted on man before) but Office, Encarta (poor excuse for an encyclopedia, H2G2's Edited Guide has already outstripped it), IE, or whatever. I have found that such things CAN be helpful... I learned how to author PDF files with Adobe Acrobat's guide as my sole resource."

I am sure that I have found them helpful at some time. I don't remember exact situations, but I am pretty sure that I have used it successfully before. Of course, Win developers can't predict every possible problem. I have no experience with encart, so I am not gonna debate that issue, and to be truthful. The approved H2g2 guide isn't useful for anything but a quick check of basic info. I am sorry to say it, but overall the guide entries never contain nearly as much information as a good encyclopedia article, though they sometimes take up more space. I come to h2g2 for the forum discussions.

"'No personal computer will ever require more than 1MB of memory.'" Bill Gates. PC users paid the price for this bit of shortsightedness for about a decade."

Jeesh, this is absolutely a ridiculous thing to bring up. Sorry for getting negative and losing part of my "respect everyone's views policy." I just don't think that this means anything. How have users paid, you your self keep saying that windows is huge bloat ware? Are you know saying that MS used to make programs that were to simple and small sized? Also, look at history and you find thousands of comments that on retrospect sound stupid, but many of them were made by smart or brilliant people. I seriously doubt that you would have had a different opinion from Gate's if you had been talking to him at the same time he made that statement. As they say, hind sight is 20/20. And I think Bill Gates has made up for not completely predicting the future in its entirety by being such a brilliant visionary the rest of the time. And please tell me how he caused billions of yet to be born techies to suffer due to a statement he made a thousand years ago (in tech years).

P.S. I STILL respect all of your opinions.

I was looking for a reasonable place to interrupt and add my two bits....and since I couldn't find one I'm jumping in here: the one favour that Microsoft has done for the world is make EVERYONE aware of personal computers (I'm a happy Mac user on a older G3 running 8.6 - which is far superior to 7.1) and some idea of what they can do.
I have used PC (started out on one) and that's reason enough to switch to a Mac...rant over.

The Microsoft breakup is making me think of DuPont in the mid-50s. They were just too big for the government's liking and were subdivided....I'm still not sure what they make, and they're doing quite well at it.
I really don't care what happens to Microsoft as most of the people I know that use his products would sooner strangle Bill than send him more money.....what I do like about Microsoft is that they provide competition for (the probably equally megalomaniacal) Steve Jobs, so each company is pushed to innovate....

Until recently, OS X was thought to be vapourware; now it appears to becoming a reality.....which means a few upgrades for those wishing to use it.

Fruitbat

I see I am speaking over your head on the memory issue, so I will elaborate.

MS-DOS was designed with a 1MB ceiling because that was way more memory than he thought any PC would require. A certain portion of it was reserved to load the DOS kernel (command.com, msdos.sys, io.sys), and the rest was available (about 650K) for what we know as Conventional Memory. In a very short time, applications were developed that broke the 1MB requirement, and all sorts of foolish patches were made to both hardware and software to meet the new demand. First came Expanded Memory, which was an ISA card that had to be addressed by extra software (costing more precious conventional memory) and then Extended Memory, which is consisted of SIMM chips. In order to make use of this memory, though, another precious portion of conventional memory had to be reserved for "paging." About 64K of extended memory could be paged into conventional memory at one time, and then to the CPU, and then another 64K could be paged in again. It was horribly inefficient. Despite a user having 8MB of extended memory available, he still had to find a way to free up enough conventional memory to run the core of the application. Out Of Memory errors were absolutely rampant until Win95. Then Win95 introduced us to the concept of Memory Protection Errors, so things really aren't any different. One would have thought the memory protection errors might have been fixed in Win98, NT, or 2K...

"H2G2 isn't as useful as a good encyclopedia article" - I agree. Encarta doesn't have any.

"I am sure that if they wanted to, they could make sure that Win 2k was very secure." - Check the marketing brochure. Security and stability are its most touted features. Too bad it doesn't have any of either. A UNIX system can be left on indefinitely, but even a Win2K desktop or server requires periodic reboots. And in a UNIX system, the only way to get in unauthorized is to steal someone else's password.

For the record, I do not hate Microsoft. I think that anyone who claims that it is the best software around is inexperienced or easily mislead, but just because I disapprove of so many things MS has done, doesn't mean I think things would have been better had they not appeared on the scene. They stunted the development of software for over a decade, but the revolutionized the market by going with the open source code, and that is a benefit that all users, Mac, Linux, and MS, are enjoying.

Microsoft were not attacked for placing IE2.0 on the NT4 WKSTN CD as an optional component, users or 98 and NT5 can still use other browsers in the same way that they would under 95 or NT4 so I realy don't see what the problem is. The active Desktop is just a total waste of space unless for some reason you prefer to tie up your computer with java clocks and animated wall paper than giving it anything useful to do. Windows Help Files quite simply don't, well if so and so is happening then this and that could be the problem..... but i'm not commiting to anything.

Okay, here we go again.

Okay Colonel, I didn't know about the memory issue. Yeah, that sucks. I wouldn't specifically blame Bill Gates for that one though. No one expected programs to get so advanced so quickly. Anyway, kinda tired of arguing. You say that you don't hate MS, but believe that they did every thing they are accused off and think their products are crap. Also, could you rephrase what you said about open source? Something about the way that sentence was written through me off. Anyway, glad to see that you harped on my one mistake in responding to you and didn't respond to anything else I wrote. Anyway, I respect all your views.

Open sourcing is exactly the reason that MS dominates the market. Apple and all the others chose to keep their source code (the core of the OS) proprietary, so they could make money off of everyone who wanted to make programs for their platforms... they had to purchase a license to get access to the source code. It also meant that Apple could do applications development in-house, and make money from those as well as their hardware and OS. MS gave away their source code for free. Applications developers all over the spectrum pounced on it, and began producing programming for it at a rate that staggered the imaginations of the proprietary vendors. That is why MS came to dominate the market... so many good applications were available to MS users that weren't available to everyone else.

"Anyway, glad to see that you harped on my one mistake in responding to you and didn't respond to anything else I wrote." - This tone of petulance has been getting out of hand, so I think it is best to break off the conversation here. Some people can conduct themselves in a debate without becoming overly excited, but some cannot. And this little bit: "Anyway, I respect all your views." is beginning to appear more and more sarcastic, because it is becoming clear you do not. I think this will be my last post in this forum.

We don't realy seem to be getting anywhere here, it's quite obviuos there are hardcore of Microsoft Haters out there who will never change,not that they have to, Microsoft are not Open Source, if they were http:/www.freedos.org would be easier to make compatible with windows 3.x, although I see what you mean as far as programming environments go. DOS was just never meant to last this long Microsoft expected to be able to replace it with something better and more expensive, but so far nothings been quite as stable and usable as DOS (okay not as far as all the point and clickers are concerned) there's very little software apart form games that is designed to do fantastic things under straight DOS, DOS does what it's designed to, but it's not pretty.

Linux is far more efficient, it's free, it has just as nice (if not better) a GUI and I can still run most of my old DOS apps through DOSEmu. I admit it's not likely to replace Windows (or whatever MS decide to call it) but for most tasks it is at least as good.

IF anyone wants IBM's PC-DOS, PC-MOS, AT&T Unix, small Linux or a number of other interesting OSs and GUIs then check out the OS section of http://www.abandonkeep.com

Okay, anyway. Colonel Sellers, Sorry that I started sounding sarcastic, it is just hard to convey speech through text forums. I assure you that I wasn't trying to be an @($hole. I was, however, getting tired of this endless conversation. I agree that it is annoying when someone gets to damned emotional over a debate, to be truthful I was suspecting the same of you. It is a good idea to break off this conversation. We can all start discussing in this thread again when something substantial happens in the MS anti-trust case. Then we can discuss that and hopefully we will stay more on topic.
Oh, and I respect all your opinions.