Dear Microsoft Windows ... 617
SpaceCanary writes "I recently read this open letter to Windows and I think it's pretty funny. The guy writes a letter to his OS as if he was breaking up with it. It's a bit strange, but finally more people are starting to see the light and moving away from Windows. The writer chronicles his relationship with the versions of Windows and finally is able to move on in the end."
Dear Internet, (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish you weren't filled with self-righteous idiots who can only express themselves in manifestos, open letters, and rants. I wish people knew how to write meaningful criticism instead of half-hearted sarcasm.
Sincerely,
John Q. Irony
Spyware... (Score:3, Insightful)
You did... surfing porn sites and clicking YES on every popup asking you if you wanted to install gain/gator/cometcursor/mysearch...
You can blame IE, you can blame Microsoft... but in the end... the real admins know... BLAME THE USERS!!!
It's a Marriage of convenience anyways... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drivers are why I stay with Windows (Score:3, Insightful)
Good point. I have yet to use a telephone modem while operating Linux. Other than the telephone modem, though, all my other hardware works great...except my scanner, but the Windows drivers and software are just as crappy.
I'd have to say, though, the single most important feature that influenced me to make the switch to Linux is that I can obtain and use everything for free (while also avoiding unethical/criminal activity).
If I had money to burn, I'd probably still be with Windows. Now that I've made the switch, though, I'm happy with Linux (SuSE 9.1 and trying out Ubuntu).
Re:It's a Marriage of convenience anyways... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Lets face it. Most people stick with Windows because it's there and it takes effort to get something better
Sounds eerily like the reason most people stay in the relationship they're in.
Re:Dear Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
What delusion negates the EULA? Windows has no accountability.
Re:Reminds me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think Microsoft as a whole is just so incompetant they simply can't pull it off. Business policies, marketting, etc. all come together to make certain things more important than others, and a mindset of "just getting things done" versus "doing things right from the start" roll into the mediocre Microsoft mess we see today.
Unfortunately for them, to fix this, they can't just change a few lines of code. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire corporate culture in all respects. Doing that with a company the size of Microsoft would be pretty tough, especially with a mindset that tells them such things are unneccessary!
Re:MOD PARENT UP! EXEMPLARY POST! HOLY FUCKING SHI (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: XP by choice (Score:3, Insightful)
You're missing the stated "runs on my computer" requirement.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree completely. One of them is obviously more evil than the other, but for some reason a whole lot of people don't seem to notice.
Re:Dear Internet, (Score:1, Insightful)
The
Re:Article Text (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post is a great example of what is wrong with the moderation system. People treat mod points as PERSONAL rewards and punishments. Mod points should more properly be viewed as rewards and punishments FOR THE POST.
The post WAS informative. The site was dotted, and I wanted to read it. Thankfully, someone did.
True, it would have been more elegant if the poster had gone AC for it, but the fact that the guy may have been a whore in no way makes the post any less 'informative'.
But you, and others, will go ahead and use points to 'punish' people for being dicks. Go ahead, and be my guest. I, on the other hand, will use mod points as I belive they are intended: to allow users to separate the wheat from the chaff, should they so choose.
Re: XP by choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways I think people aren't "just" waking up to Windows being insecure, unstable etc. It's just that they are willing to live with it rather than investigate alternate OS
Re:Dear Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're implying that I'm not being honest. Care to explain where and why?
I'm not the original poster, but I'd say it's where you claimed that Foo is better when its the events surrounding Foo that are better. It's like claiming that one railroad gauge is "better" than another just because it happens to be the one most of the railroad tracks were built for, when there is nothing inherently better about it. It's just the choice that causes the least hassle. It's like you've never heard of the idea of an "arbitrary decision". Sometimes everyone benefits by everyone picking the same arbitrary decision, even when there is nothing whatsoever that is better about that decision other than the fact that it's the same decision other people are making.
If we are making up a new secret code to use with telegraphs, and there are two other people in our club who have already started saying that "1 beep = yes, 2 beeps = no", then it would be advantageous for us to also pick the same rule instead of going the other way around. But even so it would still be incredibly dishonest to say that "1 beep for yes is a better system than 2 beeps for yes". It's not better. It's just a consistent arbitrary choice - just like the way the industry has standardized on Windows.
Re:Article Text (Score:2, Insightful)
I still use it. Daily. For schematic capture, PCB layout, and cross-assembler/DSP C/C++ stuff.
You see, I understand the file formats on these old files. And I know exactly how the programs work. And these programs were coded in a day where the programs would run on just about any machine you dropped them in. ( Mine require 386-16SX or higher, and are plenty fast on the minimal machine, albeit they now all are running in Pentiums for so much overkill it ain't funny.)
The big draw for me is that I still have access to any drawing I have ever done, or anyone else in my group does. The formats don't change every couple of years and require me to constantly upgrade to something that works differently, along with the probability I screw up because I didn't catch some new "feature" properly.
I chose the old programs wisely almost 20 years ago. They all have user definable libraries and do not have any "permission codes" or dongles required. They will fit on a floppy, and run on just about anything I can boot up in DOS.
The only objection some may have is that the companies who generated these tools have been out of business now for ten years. So support is moot. But from my point of view, this software was coded solid as a hammer. I don't need support for the hammer. This software was coded solid enough it doesn't need support. It just does what its supposed to.. nothing more, nothing less.
Actually, I see my using abandonware as a benefit, as there is no-one riding my back to enforce DRM or threaten me with lawyers if I take it on myself to open up the code if needed to customize it more to my liking.
Yes, I know the later systems have all sorts of features, but I don't really think those new features save me as much effort. I see them like "insurance policies" sold for its "peace-of-mind" value, but said value vanishes when the claim is denied for the exclusions in small print.
Yes, they tell me I can simulate in SPICE. And I do. But you know, I don't trust it yet. Spice models ideal components. Spice will often tell me something will work and lead me into false "peace of mind", when in reality small component variations lead me to a disaster when the product hits the consumer. Nah, I want a proto for me to run my hands all over when its running so I can introduce so many stray leakage paths and variances that just about anything that can fail will. (I exempt most SMPS power converters from this procedure).
I had to leave a previous employer over this issue. But then I have seen them spend my salary dozens of times over trying to keep their legacy filebases accessible. I know my computational infrastructures are sound and will run the rest of my biological lifetime easily.
Do I have a place for Windows? Yes. But its not for things I think I may need years from now. It to me is a pretty gizmo, quite easy to use, but its nothing I want to build a foundation on. But its damm nice for things where its very important to look good, but not important that it last. Like those "cardboard belts" that often come with a suit. Yes, they may look really good when dressing up for a job interview, but don't count on it holding your britches up for a year. Two or three days is about par for the course, but if it looks pretty enough to impress the suit guy, good enough. (My favorite belt is well used, not all that attractive, but quite functional).
When I really have important stuff, its very important to me to know how to single-handedly recover from anything without losing damn near a quarter-century of work.
I really hate to sign binding legal documents without understanding what I am agreeing to... likewise I really hate to use software I don't know exactly what its doing... especially if that software in question already has a history of being, as the article related to, a "cheating" lover who carries on trysts on the side. Rich men can afford that kind of thing, but frankly money is just too hard for me to come by to keep paying over and over again for me to just hold position.
Long Live DOS!
Re:My girlfriends are like Linux.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is what I would call high maintainance... gotta keep the virus scanner, firewall, and spyware detection tools up to date. Gotta do periodic manual scans to make sure everything is clean. Reinstall periodically when things get clogged up. That is high maintainance.
How is Linux expensive?
The only way Linux is like the girlfriend I think you are describing is that it is complicated, needs manual to get basic things done, and perhaps not worth the trouble. I'm not sure your analogy works.
-matthew
Re:My girlfriends are like Linux.... (Score:3, Insightful)
What, all of them?
Here's an idea, try monogamy, then if you feel like multitasking, upgrade back to full blown polygamy.
Now, I'll be the first to admin that I'm no Casanova, but in my experience, women want pretty much the same things men do. The only difference, is they are more subtle.
Re:Reminds me... (Score:1, Insightful)
Why are Linux users so bitter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Grow up folks!
Re:Dear Internet, (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Hmmm. I've got a JPEG you'd probably like to see.
On the serious side, if it works for you, that's cool. There is a bit of a curve to switching, but it is no greater than the curve that someone has to climb when encountering a Windows-based OS for the first time.
FOSS is all about choice. If you choose to use what many in this crowd (including me) believe to be an inferior operating system, then you should be free to do so. But time will tell which is more "polished."
Re:Dear Internet, IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, the first thing I notice about my Income Tax program from Intuit Canada (Quick Tax), is that it clearly uses IE dll's for all connections to the net. It is impossible to avoid IE in doing the most security critical things such as accessing absolute mandatory program updates (without with which it could not be compliant with all last minute changes to tax laws).
Ditto, with Norton AntiVirus. When you keep up with the latest virus signatures, it uses IE modules for you to download them.
The list goes on and on, but the worst of all is Microsoft Windows Update itself which is carefully designed to force you to use IE and ActiveX.
By the way, I find that with respect to gdiplus.dll, the one that may be vulnerable to the bug that allows exploits via jpeg images, both HP and Norton software may be using doubtful versions.
Yep, you sure can trust good old Microsoft! NOT!
Microsoft is the good old "ease of use" company that changes to the "most difficult possible to use" when the slightest need for security arises!
Re:Dear Internet, (Score:5, Insightful)
Monopoly or not, Microsoft knows how to build a solid OS.
You mean solid as in very big and thick as a brick? Or do you mean solid as in being an immovable, easy target for malware? As a former user, Windows doesn't fit my definition of a "solid OS". A solid OS isn't swiss cheese that requires virus scanners, anti-spyware tools, and anti-adware tools that suck up system resources while watching for bad things that the OS allows. Microsoft definitely knows how to market their software, which is a very different thing from building a solid product.
Re:Why are Linux users so bitter? (Score:1, Insightful)
Vegans don't eat animal products but they don't run around bagging you and I out do they?
Yes, some Linux users are bitter, and in the same way MS wishes to protect it's cash cow, you wish to destroy it and promote the cause of your OS in a morally similar manner. Except of course, you are under the false belief that you have the right to do so. No better than them.
Leave them to be and further your cause by providing the better alternative and you WILL certainly take the lion's share and have a cause worth championing. Furthering yourself by pulling others back is NOT moving forward and only serves to ultimately damage your cause, not theirs
Re:Dear Internet, (Score:3, Insightful)
the linux box dhcp's the modem on eth0 and routes to eth1 : i have a linksys router which forwards port 21 and 22 only for me, to a linux box. the box does samba shares, ftp, etc, etc
i'm sure a lot of you do the same
Re:Dear Internet, (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish people would stop saying this. Free Software is about freedom. Open Source Software is about a better method of software production (or something). FOSS = Free and Open Source Source, so there's absolutely nothing sensible you can say about it. It's like saying something sensible about "Intellectual Property", you can't. If we only had one piece of Free Software to choose from we'd still have the freedom to do what we want with it.. that's what Free Software is about. If you want "choice", go use shareware, they've got all the choice you'll ever want.
Constructive criticism... (Score:4, Insightful)
* MS is "easy to use" vs. Linux. This may be becasue you are most familiar with it. You'd probably think Macs were harder to use if you think Mandrake or Lycoris or Linspire were hard to use.
* MS "looks good" - again a matter of personal taste--I personally think XP looks like garbage and it is the one of the main reason I refuse to upgrade my Win2k system at home to XP. At work--well--I just have to deal with it (customer is always right you know--besides there is always "classic mode"). If you DO like the XP look there are themes to make Linux look more like it, and Lycoris and Linspire were designed with that in mind.
* MS doesn't take too long to load up. That is crap--on todays hardware everything starts up pretty quickly. On slower hardware like my notebook (dual boots Win2k and Mandrake 9.1) I find Mandrake boots significantly faster. Perhaps you did a huge/full install of Mandrake and started all services if you found it slow. In the application space, you should try AbiWord and Gnumeric--they are lightweight and speedy and have enough features to be useful for everyday work (actually Gnumeric kicks all other spreadsheets butts!)
* Games - probably your only truly valid point. However video card drivers and game selection are slowly getting better
* You don't have to build Linux from scratch yo your statement comes across as a thinly veiled insult. In fact in my experience and many others that are documented on the web, most popular distributions of linux are in fact EASIER to install than Windows. Plus, if you are reinstalling windows 2k or XP be prepared to spend extra time finding offline copies of the most important updates and installing them, along with firewall and antivirus software before you get anywhere NEAR a network connection, or you could literally pick up a virus within minutes. The only reason XP seems "easy" is because PC makers do the work for you before you even buy the PC.
* you've acknowledged you use Opera over IE--but aren't you aware that IE is so pervasive and integrated now that it could rear its hideous head even when you are not surfing the 'net? Plus, to use windows update you MUST use it.
It's a free country and you are entitled to your choice (and if your PC is indeed your entertainment then XP is probably the best choice). It's also fortunate that you've had zero problems with XP, because (along with win2k)it has been the cause of countless problems in my life. Personally, computer games are only a very small part of my "entertainment", and should I decide I want the best, latest games I'll pick up an XBox or a PS2. For productivity, web surfing and so on (my needs are not demanding either) I feel safer and more at home with Linux.
You are not the problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
I simply want the freedom to choose to run Linux. The way Microsoft works, I feel that freedom is threatened.
It's Microsoft's policies I HATE!!!!!!!
I used to be an OS/2 user. Microsoft didn't out-compete OS/2 in any technical sort of way. They arm-twisted, cheated, and lied, and there's not much of any other way to put it. OS/2 Warp was competing and winning some amount of market share. One 'opportunity' for OS/2 software was music/midi. A company had a product called "Easy Keys for OS/2" all set to go. Microsoft bought the company before Easy Keys could get to market. Did the product get re-directed to Windows? NO! Microsoft bought the company pure and simple to prevent it from bringing out an OS/2 product. That's only one thing. There were others.
Consider that per-CPU licensing was struck down in courts, but somehow Microsoft still has some sort of equivalent contract in-place preventing non-Windows preloads. Yes, there are a few non-Windows preloads, few and far between, and if the major brands have one, you have to look alongside the Vogan Interstellar Bypass plans at Alpha Centauri to find them.
It has become more fashionable on Slashdot to bash people for bashing Microsoft or Microsoft products. I'm going to leave products out of this one, I'm bashing the company. I have seen NOTHING in their conduct, especially as the Linux community starts fearing the DRM and IP attacks, that makes me think there is any improvement whatsoever in Microsoft's Corporate conduct.
IMHO, Microsoft deserved bashing 10 years ago with the AARD code, they deserve bashing NOW, and for nearly all of that time in-between.
Re: XP by choice (Score:5, Insightful)
That and both points are heavily sensationalized over here. I run XP and 2K across several different computers. The general assumption here is that I spend hours a week dealing with viruses. I don't. I haven't been exploited in months. And, the one time I did, it was because I had a fresh install of XP out on the net sans firewall or a service pack. Doh.
The other assumption is that I spend lots of time rebooting. Nope. My machines get rebooted once every two weeks or so. This is laughable compared to Linux, but virtually nothing in terms of practical time used. Back in the Windows 95/98 days, this was a legit complaint. (3 or 4 reboots a DAY) Today, though, it's just not enough time to notice. I'm 'living with it' about as disturbingly as living with wrong number phonecalls.
So, by relieving myself of those problems with Linux, I'm not gaining a whole hell of a lot. I would, however, rack up a bunch of Google time trying to figure out how to make everything work. Linux is just going to have to do better than that to get people to switch. This has nothing to do with people having mixed up priorities.
Re:Your .sig (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the classic story of the haves and the have nots. The haves (the ones with the state of the art weapons) sqeeze everything they can get away with from the have nots. Then they hang the have nots for daring to look at their women. It can go on like this for centuries until the have nots decide that they've had enough.
The English in India. The American South early last century. South Africa 30 years ago. The peasants in France pre-revolution. The workers in Russia pre-revolution. Linux giving away software as it's only weapon against Microsoft.
Today looks very similar. The trodden can only take so much before it doesn't matter how crude their weapons are... they fight anyway. And that war, as it turns out, is rarely winnable by the people with the state of the art weapons. Because you can't kill off _all_ of the people that do your laundry, buy your software, work in your mines and grow your food. When enough of them rise up, they find that even the crudest of weapons will do.
The only way to win against the crudest weapons is to assimilate the ways of the oppressed. China is winning because they're embracing many parts of capitalism. The Soviet Union won when their countries started holding elections. The only way the current overlords can hope to win is if they start showing respect to the lives of the people they're fighting against. As long as we consider them to be "evil" their crude weapons will carry the day.
TW
Re:Your .sig (Score:2, Insightful)
Then you go off and talk about social and economic changes. Sure, these changes are important, but they are not warfare. In fact, I'd prefer not to refer to these changes in martial terms but in terms fitting their domain: social, political and economic changes.
There is a war on between Jihadists and Secularists (many of whom are religious people of faith, but know that the State cannot be entrusted with such important matters). And in this war there are those who HAVE modern weapons and those who don't. It is imparative that we (the West, the Secularists) maintain this critical imbalance.
I am glad my country has weapons and willpower to hunt down the Jihadists and destroy them.
Re:Your .sig (Score:5, Insightful)
I am afraid that you have become a victim of a Western desease known as "sound-bite mania" or gross oversimplification of issues to make them appear black/white. This is a desirable effect of indoctrination by the "media", by like minded peers but most importantly by people who benefit from such abuse of your worldview.
To look at things in more detail: your "secularists" are not. The Western camp is divided in many groups, some of them equally vicious, bloodthirsty and dangerous as the Jihadists (Israel springs to mind). Some others are willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives to play global power games or prove their pet socio-economic theories (the Neocons). Some others are willing to resort to brutal repression to keep their state (for better or worse) from fracturing into thousand pieces, a process of fragmentation which is actively encouraged by the Neocons for their purposes (Russia). That last one is particularly insideous because the Neocons (and other power hungry jackals) are actually aiding and funding the same very Jihadists they are supposedly fighting desperately elsewhere. But as they say, lust for power knows no shame. I could go on. In the other camp you have a mix of religious maniacs, desperados and people who consider themselves freedom fighters. You have nationalists who blow themselves up under a US tank in a bid to free their country and you have psychos who send teenage girls to blow themselves up in a cafe while they jostle for political power.
This of course is just but a tiny sample of the actual complexity of the issue. But you are certainly doing a disservice to everyone by over-simplyfing it and at the same time you are also furthering the agenda of various Western-borne equivalents of "Jihadists" who wish to use this as a vehicle which they will ride to ultimate global power. Be wary because the fuel for that vehicle is ignorance and blood.
Re:Your .sig (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the people of palistine: poor
Look at people of Iraq: poor
Look at the people of Afganistan: poor
The only rich countries in the region are the ones we're not fighting.
Saudi Arabia: allies
Kuwait: allies
Look, the "haves" like to think that they're clean and good. Part of the way they do this is by misinterpretting the problem. Instead of seeing that they have a position of privelege and that they've set up the system so they'll always win, they see that the "have nots" are lawbreakers. It's easy to keep oppressing a lawbreaker. A murderer. A Zelot. Why should someone like that have rights? It's much harder to acknowledge that you've set up a system to where you pick which brand of HDTV you like while they're deciding between food and lights.
So you've decided that they're "Jihadists" and "murderers". Wrong choice. That will get you exactly the same place as Israel, decade after painful decade of war. If you would have decided that these are needy people lashing out in desperation and maybe backed Iraqi oil going to Iraqi labor unions instead of Haliberton you might have had a fighting chance.
TW
Re:Your .sig (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me see. One of us reads the other's comments and the other one stops reading two lines in because its "fanaticsm". I dont think "fanaticsm" means what you think it means...
Israel is a secular democratic state as is every Western country
Goodness gratious, you are living in some alternate universe. Israel is defined to be a "Jewish" state. Not by me but by its founding fathers. It is in "The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel" of 1948. Unless there is a "Jewish" race (to my knowledge original Jews were Semites, just like the Palestinians and many other Arabs are) or some other clear-cut definition of a nation (all other "nations" are defined by unquestionable race/population/territory context which Isreal lacks utterly) we are talking a state whose defining element is religious. Democracy does not preclude wanton aggression as history teaches repeatedly, starting at war-mongering ancient Athens city-state and going from there all the way to adventures in Iraq. A cursory look at any independent (i.e. not written in Israel or by Isreali citizens in the USA or by opposing Arabic writers) history of events in Middle East of the last 50 years would certainly speak of what is today euphemistically called "ethnic clensing", apartheid, land grabs, annexations and destruction of property, summary punishments, etc. etc. all motivated by religious messianic fever with a healthy dose of greed and supremacist attitudes. The fact that Israel is surrounded by less then pleasant company of dictatorships and wobbly kingdoms is not an excuse to attempt to run (and annex choice chunks of) the neighourhood. I cant believe any person with even a modicum of integrity can defend blatant abuses Isreal has commited for all of these decades, on the basis that its political system is "democratic". Oh and example of how truly democratic that system is, one can find in the attempts to eliminate the voting rights of the Arab minority in Israel, in fear that its birth rate will lead to eventual majority of citizens of Israel being non-Jewish. But on the other hand one could expect that from a state that defines itself as being of one religion.