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

I have to say that while I respect everyone's opinions I was confused by what Suite Madame Blue was saying. I mean you can't really expect Bill Gates to just lie down and let other companies walk all over him. And don't think that every other company that he competes with is some little helpless baby. Companies like Oracle now how to fight, and if you read above about what Oracle did to try to get ahead (ie buying trash from microsoft sponsored organizations and saying that "It is our job to hurt microsoft" -Larry Ellison) you might not think MS was much worse. Also, his incredible wealth is not so much actual cash. It is stock value in microsoft, and then 22 billion in other holdings. So if he let MS just wilt and die then he would be worth like 1/5th as much as he is now. Granted that is still a ton of money, but you can't just ask him to sit quietly and wait for everyone to catch up. Also I want to know which business practices you are referring to?

One quick added note: The judge and Netscape's people ignored this fact, but the Netscape CEO's own notes show that MS announced that it would be created Internet Explorer and Integrating it with Windows 95 before Netscape even released their first beta

Mac OS is horrible, and most Mac users don't Have a choice of other operating systems (or at least don't know about YD Linux and BEOS).

Mac's were only able to stay in business because of their high end graphics capabilities. However, last time I checked, not everyone wants to spend 600 hundred dollars on photoshop. Uhhh, uh oh. I just managed to turn this into a mac vs. windows thread. Sorry about that, hmmm. Anyone want to try to restart this conversation into its legitimate discussion form?

Wonder how the rest of the Unix Community feels about OSX?

I have no idea, I literally know no one who uses linux or unix, however, I will eventually since my brother's girlfriend who I will eventually meet is a linux head. I have heard that OS/X is going to be very good, but some of the images I see of it make me think it is over done. I mean do we really need swirling windows and colorful buttons, of course, Gates always did talk about his products being art. Back to microsoft news:
Microsoft is currently trying to have 60 of about 120 lawsuits by people thrown out of court. The lawsuits claim that since MS was called a violent evil monopoly in federal court, they were over priced in buying windows. I personally think that, if you excuse my french, it is a load of crap. Windows prices haven't really increased in a long time. Also, they sell to companies, who sell to consumers at different prices. So, figuring damages would mean individual cases for each person. Also, the federal antitrust case claims that Microsoft crippled other companies with its monopoly and therefore stifled innovation, besides the fact that I don't think that is totally true. It doesn't equal any sort of actual price. You can't for sure say that any feature was left out of windows because of monopolistic practices, also, even if that feature was in windows, wouldn't it increase the price? I just think that the whole thing is a bunch of blood thirsty lawyers trying to make a fortune off blood thirsty citizens who think they can make a quick buck of MS.

No, you're not alone*. There are plenty of Microsoft supporters, but they're generally naive and timid little sheep, who limit their 'net excursions to whatever they can link to from their AOL homepage. Tech-savvy/semi-competent Microsoft supporters are a result of some kind of genetic mutation.




*My apologies. I just read the last paragraph of your post, and saw that your not a COMPLETE Windows puppet. But your not a full blown rebel yet, so I'm still gonna lump you in with the masses who hate monopolies, but take the easy path and support them anyway.

Bill Gates is an utter...hmmmm, can't seem to be able to find a mean enough word for it! I HATE HIM and his stupid Microsoft monopoly. I hate WinBlows and I hate Internet Exploder which just shut me out of this forum, so now I have wasted many precious keystrokes!!!!
Okay, so if you want a more appropriate place to rant and rage about this HUGELY DISGUSTING TOPIC, then go to my "Bill Gates Must Die! Club"! I don't remember the link to it, and I'm not about to leave this forum until I finish typing, so just find it on my home page. Though I probably won't be there, and I haven't officially opened it yet, you are more than welcome to join it and place your ongoing rant there.
Now I'd better put in this gripe before this stupid computer decides to get even more mean and nasty...

I think I'll start out by saying that I don't respect respect all your opinions. But, hell I don't respect my own either.

If I can draw a tenuous parellel between the OS debate and the Earth's ideological struggle, it is quite apparent that different ideologies conflict and that most attempts to bring them into harmonious union seems to result in the creation of new and greater complicated conflicts.

It would be nice to believe that mankind can dispose of Microsoft once and for all and live in a world of open-source operating systems, but the capitalist system in which we live ultimately will prevent this. I believe that the choice of computer OS is as important to a faithful computer using humanity, as is the choice of currency to a money using humanity.

Did that make sense?

However, having had a large amounts of compatibility problems between office 97 and office 2000 creations I am inclined to say that MS stink. It is also strange that the unnecessary increase in software complexity from win3.1 onwards, has produced larger profits for other interested parties. MS attempts to "un-standardise", established programming languiages such as Java, C(++), JavaScript, Basic, etc stand as yet another example.

HOwever, if you think that I may be ranting and raving without due cause, consider this, using Encarta99 (UK) the other day, researching a guide article about my home town, I was told that: (Gosport) 'has a shipbuilding industry', and 'is connected (to Portsmouth) by a bridge'. Both statements, totally fictitious, in an article of less than fifty words, leads me to doubt the credibility of the whole Encarta thing.

MS aside, unix wont work either, best just to give completely and go back to flint knapping I reeckon.

Mylock, I don't think that it is fair for you to call every single MS product crap just because one version of Encarta got bad data from whatever collection service they use. You are right that MS doesn't play ball with some standards in order to make more money, however, all the big business do that. MS just happens to be big enough to make their version the standard. However, they do cooperate, they just recently made a big deal with IBM over xml technology and they also are better than some people. AOL claimed that they were going to open up instant messaging but they are dragging their feet as long as possible so that they can keep their strangle hold. Also, of course software has grown more complex. It is now relied on for many many more things. Also, it has to support so many different systems that it gets bloated. Also, many people don't upgrade their computers so the industry is constantly trying to give the new computers cool stuff without leaving behind millions of old computer users. Another thing, is that many companies seem to misunderstand the term, uninstall. Tons of programs leave little pieces of their programs all over the computer. This is why it is a good idea to save all your important data, and reformat your computer every once in a while.

Emar the flying misfit, I was a little confused by your post. You seemed to say that most MS supporters were timid but that because I wasn't fully for MS getting off scot free that I am some sort of monopoly hater who just wants to take an easy path by defending them. Trust me, defending MS in bulletin boards in not the easy way out of anything.

The corrupt one, you are an anti-MS extremist. And as such, you have tainted all of your views in my mind. If you want to argue over points about what you believe MS has done, or what you think should happen to them via the law, then you shouldn't just make a lump statement saying that Bill Gates must die and completely ignoring the many accomplishments of his that have helped the world. Also, you may have installed poor programs of some sort that have hurt your computer, or your computer could be old and that could be causing crashes. I myself find IE to be a great program, and while it does occasionly crash, I find that it is pretty stable. If you want your views to be heard and understood, then don't make huge statements that make you sound like a person who is totally against MS and who isn't worth arguing with.

My deepest apologies, Siguy. I had not intended to pass myself off as an extremist. And as for my club, I merely mean it to be a place where people can let out their frustrations--and the title is definitely NOT, I repeat, NOT, meant to be taken literally.
The thing is, I am just sick of having my computer crash a hundred million times a day, and so I often overly state my position in the matter.
All right, I admit that MS has a few pretty good programs. But Windows is pure crap and everyone knows it. The basic idea was good, but somewhere along the line they screwed up. And it just seems utterly unfair when Bill Gates is sitting up there with...oh, I don't even remember how much money, but it sure is a hell of a lot.
Also, my computer just happened to be being a jack-ass when I wrote into the forum.
I hope you can understand, Siguy, and once again, I'm really sorry for my earlier behaviour. It won't happen again! I promise!

Well, Corrupt one, you did sound much more sensible and sensical this time around. And I of course say again that I respect everyone's opinions. I, however, disagree with the contention that windows is pure crap. In my mind it is the best operating system at this time for regular users. Sure, it has problems, but all software does, and I also stand by my opinion that its main problem is how many systems it has to run on. Also, I don't agree that it is unfair that Bill Gates is intensely rich. Keep in mind, that he is currently the highest ranked philanthropist in the world. He and his wife are distributing somewhere in the area of 20 billion to charities and programs to help the needy. Whereas one of his chief competitors and self proclaimed MS hater, Larry Ellison, has donated something like a few million dollars this year even though his stock earnings for last week for 4 billion dollars. He claims that he always makes sure that his money is helping people and that he believe he does more good with his few million than everyone else. Well sure, it is great to be careful and give out charity to specific places, but when it comes down to it, his charity givings are pathetic.

Sorry for going a little off-topic, but Bill Gates is actually a pretty good person in terms of his impact on the world. At least in my opinion. He does of course have some problems with his personality, he comes off as defensive to many people and he did his fair share of yelling at programmers I am sure. Again, I disagree with you on the windows issue. Windows ME won't be solving many of your problems, I have heard that it is good, but that most of the issues it deals with are more based on adding multimedia capabilities. Luckily, MS is already working on a new Home windows version based on the NT kernal which will supposedly be much more stable and secure. Then eventually everything will be web based. This is assuming that the DOJ doesn't split them, I still hope that MS wins on appeal and that they are merely forced to undergo some business changes.

Sorry for the disjointed sentences and poor paragraph structure. I would suggest to you that you rename your page so that it is something about rants in general, just my opinion, but I think more people will stop by if you do that.

Why shouldn't he make money out of something that he's spent most of his life developing? Mr Gates is hated by many people, but then so is richard branson, mainly due to the fact that he is wealthy and they are not. I personaly have no problem with Bill gates or Micro$oft, but choose to use Linux, BEOS and FreeDOS.

As far as i'm concerned the Only current version of Windows worth using is Win2K for the simple reson that it has taken the best aspects of NT4 (still a strong favourite) and the "eye candy" of Win98 (plus one or two features that were genuinely usefull) and produced a very usable, stable, fast nice operating system.

Miscrosoft have recently pleged that they will support Apple's OSX (it's unix jim, but not as we'd like to know it) all the way.

Microsoft also has a bigger pledge that they have made. Their new ".NET" strategy (tell me if you haven't heard of it and I will find a link to a news story about it) will supposedly be completely cross platform. They say that they will try to make it work for any system, even if their OS isn't running the system.

FOOLS!! HUMANITY IS DOOMED! DOOMED!! DOOOOOOOOOOMED!!

Emar the Flying Misfit,
If I was a jerk I would type this: "Wow Emar, your brilliant and well thought out statement has totally turned me around. I have now renounced all of my views and taken up all of your opinions for myself. Do you have a newsletter that I could pay to subscribe to? "

However, I am trying to not piss people off, so I won't say that. I would like to hear what you meant by saying I wasn't a total "rebel"?

I think that anyone who says Windows is the best product for this time has very little knowledge of the background of the system.

Windows security isn't.

Windows memory protection doesn't.

The graphic user interface was born in Apple, not MS. Tandy had their own, too. Both came out about a decade before Win 95.

Windows 3.0 was the first GUI interface offered to the public by MS. It was touted as an operating system in and of itself, but all it was was a shell that ran over the top of DOS. Except for running a handful of apps designed for Win 3.0 and above, it was utterly useless, and most computer geeks stopped booting to it.

Win 95 was the first real GUI OS for home users by MS. Anyone who ever used one of those Tandys or Macs took one glance and said "been there, done that."

The only advantage to MS is that everyone has it, so it is easy to get good programs written to work with it, but it is still good programming designed to work with an error-prone operating system.

Time for a real debate. I am going to answer everything you said Colonel Sellers:

"I think that anyone who says Windows is the best product for this time has very little knowledge of the background of the system."
I know everything you just said, except for "tandy". And disagree on several points.

"Windows security isn't."
First of all, and this applies to everything you said, I was speaking as a overall system. Yes there are security problems, but that is due to its extreme success. If apple had the 90 percent market share, hackers would spend their time screwing up people's apple computers. I do admit that MS does have security problems due to their attempts to add as many features as possible. And before you bring it up, yes Java is more secure in most cases, but still isn't perfect security wise either.

"Windows memory protection doesn't."
That statement could mean a lot of things, could you be more specific?

"The graphic user interface was born in Apple, not MS. Tandy had their own, too. Both came out about a decade before Win 95."
Ehem, This is where I am arguing hardest. NO!!! The GUI was not born in apple. It was born in the Palo Alto research lab run by Xerox. Apple just stole it from stupid executives who wouldn't listen to their own Xerox scientists.

"Windows 3.0 was the first GUI interface offered to the public by MS. It was touted as an operating system in and of itself, but all it was was a shell that ran over the top of DOS. Except for running a handful of apps designed for Win 3.0 and above, it was utterly useless, and most computer geeks stopped booting to it."
Yes. Win 3.0 was just running pretty pictures off dos. No one disagrees over this. This was an evolutionary step in windows, just like adding IE to windows 95/98 was a step leading to their future ".NET" strategy. And I do believe that it did sell well enough.

"Win 95 was the first real GUI OS for home users by MS. Anyone who ever used one of those Tandys or Macs took one glance and said 'been there, done that.'"

(Ignore the post above it is incomplete and was an accident, this is of course assuming that it was posted.)

Time for a real debate. I am going to answer everything you said Colonel Sellers:

"I think that anyone who says Windows is the best product for this time has very little knowledge of the background of the system."
I know everything you just said, except for "tandy". And disagree on several points.

"Windows security isn't."
First of all, and this applies to everything you said, I was speaking as a overall system. Yes there are security problems, but that is due to its extreme success. If apple had the 90 percent market share, hackers would spend their time screwing up people's apple computers. I do admit that MS does have security problems due to their attempts to add as many features as possible. And before you bring it up, yes Java is more secure in most cases, but still isn't perfect security wise either.

"Windows memory protection doesn't."
That statement could mean a lot of things, could you be more specific?

"The graphic user interface was born in Apple, not MS. Tandy had their own, too. Both came out about a decade before Win 95."
Ehem, This is where I am arguing hardest. NO!!! The GUI was not born in apple. It was born in the Palo Alto research lab run by Xerox. Apple just stole it from stupid executives who wouldn't listen to their own Xerox scientists.

"Windows 3.0 was the first GUI interface offered to the public by MS. It was touted as an operating system in and of itself, but all it was was a shell that ran over the top of DOS. Except for running a handful of apps designed for Win 3.0 and above, it was utterly useless, and most computer geeks stopped booting to it."
Yes. Win 3.0 was just running pretty pictures off dos. No one disagrees over this. This was an evolutionary step in windows, just like adding IE to windows 95/98 was a step leading to their future ".NET" strategy. And I do believe that it did sell well enough.

"Win 95 was the first real GUI OS for home users by MS. Anyone who ever used one of those Tandys or Macs took one glance and said 'been there, done that.'"
Well anyone who said that obviously didn't investigate further and judge the OS before repeating the same apple propoganda that I just argued about a moment ago. And obviously under estimating the great features of the OS was one of apple's big problems. Since windows 95 was a huge leap forward over Win 3.0 and sold like hotcakes.

"The only advantage to MS is that everyone has it, so it is easy to get good programs written to work with it, but it is still good programming designed to work with an error-prone operating system."
That is not the only advantage, though it is a huge one that didn't happen by chance. MS did a great job getting companies to develop software for the system. Also, I don't think that MS is responsible for the many errors that plague some windows users. The main problem has to do with the huge number of systems that the software has to support. Ask apple to make an OS that runs on an infinite variety of systems, and watch them produce something that is pretty good, but still bug prone. It is a difficult task, and MS does a pretty damned good job at it. Now the last part of what you said confuses me. I think that you are saying that the programmers do a good job writing for the system, but that they are held back because it is error prone? I am not being sarcastic, I just was confused. I will answer back though. Programmers cause many of the problems with windows.

Due to business interests all these huge programs for windows, don't understand what "uninstall" means. So they leave huge piles of stuff that plugs up windows and slows it down. You can't blame windows for not uninstalling something correcly, it can only alter files when the uninstall info tells it what to do. If you save all your important data and then reformat your hard-drive every six months or so you see windows running very well with less bugs.

Sorry for going on so much, I respect all your views of course.

As far as Secutity goes it is improving although will never be able to rival BSD, The current security is plenty for all those unskilled win98 users who like to give themselves the illusion that they are in control by setting up multiple users with passwords, who then forget said passwords and get very flustered as I rename the PWL files and logon. To be quite frank anyone who trusts Windows 9.x with anything important needs their head examined.

Windows 3.0 was a rather large step as far as development goes, 2.1 was unbearable and less functional than DOSShell.