Windows XP

[Fukar]

quote:Originally posted by Calum:
this bubaslubass guy is really good! why doesn't she or he get a job as a stand up comedian?
My post isn't full of technical bullshit, i am 'only' a lowly user, and have had limited experience of M$ alternatives, but i have had a chance to use many versions of Windows, and what a heap of shit it really is. there's no argument. you guya are doing really well to be arguing about this because there is really no large issue to dispute. Windows is slow and cruddy. it allocates all its system resources at bootup time and plods through muck until shutdown time or until a crash, whichever comes first (guess which happens most often to me?) and as for drivers, as already mentioned, the hardware manufacturers are responsible for it, but they often only write windows drivers. My mitsubishi electric cdrw has had a driver problem recently, i went to their website and they have full driver support for 4 versions of windows, and nothing for anything else. It's a usb device so you'd think they'd at least have a Mac driver.
well, i haven't got a Mac so i don't know but what i'm saying is these drivers are often a steaming pile of poo themselves, or is it just windows' handling of the drivers who can tell. With said device i thought it was the drivers till i discovered that to fix the problem, i needed to change the swap file size using control panel, and hey presto working like clockwork.
Because windows fills up all the ram with crap, it uses the ultra slow swap file instead you see, so that you get a lot of buffer problems and read/write errors etc. by reducing the swap file size, it makes windows panic and empty out some of the crap in the ram, or so i understand.
Anyway, i've rambled off a bit but what i'm saying is that manufacturers try to lick windows' bollocks and microsoft, when it receives a particularly lucrative backhander, kisses the ass of those manufacturers in turn. With Linux, the guys using the system have got to write and distribute their own drivers! In their spare time! Can you imagine the usual drool-chinned M$ butthead doing that? Try hard. No? i didn't think so.
These 'my computer works fine with windows' morons have no concept of why their computer works at all or what goes into making a system. As we've seen already, many of these so called OS criticisms are actually criticisms of proprietary software running on those OSs and much of the reason windows works fine is actually due to workarounds that other companies have developed to make windows WORK. (i always thought that 'MS Works was an oxymoron, much like many MS users now i think of it...) I have to use one program to clear the ram when windows fills it up with goo, another to stop windows opening those mysterious background programs that write to the hard drive when you're trying to run scandisk et c et c.
Right. well, that's it. to sum up, i'm a no code non programmer user and even i know that M$ software is a pile of crap produced solely to make money and anybody that says otherwise has been brainwashed, is getting some of the revenue concerned, or has never made any serious enquiry outside the M$ camp.
End of missive, commence flaming now....    

This is all great, I love seeing people break down and start using such childish language as has been used throughout this thread, though it has calmed down.  Now I won't pretend to be an expert with computers at all.  But I upgraded (no clean install) of XP on my dell computer that had ME.  I had very few problems with ME and it ran games great, which is my main objective, to run games well.  I mainly play CS and run several servers for our website.  After I upgraded to XP, I left the computer on for over a week with NO crashing, if a buggy program locked up, just Ctrl+Alt+Del and gone.  The system has been stable and NO crashes, friends in computer science courses can hardly believe the performance I get with XP and that I upgraded instead of clean installing.  I get at least 72fps on CS with a 16MB ATI Rage Pro 128 card (even though the HL engine is old).  All other games run great, with a ton of stuff running in the back ground, such as multiple webbrowsers, a program that remotely controls game servers, etc. (though I DO have 512MB of RAM).  But I notice absolutely no lag or slowdown, but I realize that sometimes the components just fit and work together great and maybe I was one of the lucky ones.  Also, XP is very easy to use for a noob like myself. Though there are some counter-intuitive things about it, such as going to the START button to shut off the computer, but overall, it rocks.  Flame away    .

Fukar

[Neon92k]

quote:Originally posted by bubaslubas:
XP is a darn good try by the Microshit guys  

i agree it's the best attempt ms so far, but other companies managed to make similar OSes 5 years ago!

[jtpenrod]

quote: Also, XP is very easy to use for a noob like myself.  

No flames here. It's a point well taken, and XP is better than Win ME (but that's not saying much    ). However, the main problem here is that it will keep you a "noob" forever. This is one of the things I detest about XP, and why it will *never* be on any system of mine (unless M$ gets this flying thing sorted out. The day Steve Ballmer soars through the air is the day I get XP      ). It seems that every time you try to do anything, up pops yet another idiot box, no matter how simple a task it is or how many times you've done it. And take a good look at that desktop. It looks like it was designed for a four year old (you can take that almost literally. At Costco, in the toy dept., I found a toy computer called "My First PC". The screen shot on the front of the box bore a *stricking* resemblance to the XP desktop.) This is what M$ thinks of you.      

I also don't want the nagware. Don't want a passport? It won't take no for an answer. Everytime you go on line it will ask over and over again get a passport. No thanks, I get enough nagging from the women in my life    

Use XP if you must, but do yourself a favor: try learning a thing or two and educate yourself to the point where you can ditch XP and get a real OS. You'll be glad you did.

[Calum]

Why did the right honourable gentlemen quote a big block of my usual rambling OS related blah when talking about childish language, before rambling off on his or her own rambling blah? I wasn't particularly childish in that post was i? just because i said poo!
Get over it! i said poo and i meant it.
Adults are allowed to say poo as well you know, however i agree with you about the inflamed childish name throwing bouts! ho ho ho! very amusing...  

[Neon92k]

Poo! Hee hee hee... Poo!

[cyrax]

the problem with you people is that you are jealous... yeah thats what i said, you JEALOUS of Bill Gates' money. The computer wouldn't be what it is now without him so why dont you show a little respect for the man, he has done nothing wrong. He built his empire from scratch and he dosn't need little people like you trying to tear it down.

[iancom]

Of course most people would be jealous of someone who has that much money.

Colombian drug barons have millions if not billions of dollars lying around... it doesn't mean that the way they went about obtaining that money is right.

Microsoft has never been an innovator, it simply latches onto good ideas within the technology sector, develops its own inferior solutions and markets them extremely aggressively. All this whilst ensuring that their products are sufficiently incompatible with those of their competitors to cause their software to spread rather like a virus.

As more and more companies rely on M$ software, those around them and doing business with them find that in order to continue doing business with them they must also get M$ products.

This spreads in all directions... customers are forced to use M$ products since a lot of businesses' websites are designed exclusively for IE. And since most customers use M$ IE, most businesses design their website specifically for it.

It's a viscious circle, and that's just one very small part of it. I won't even go into their extremely underhand licensing terms of OEMs that practically ensures that no-one buying a new computer will get one with any OS other than a M$ one.

Even if M$ were to make the best software in existence (only likely once there is no other software in existence) I would still be strongly opposed to them since the Internet, and the community built around it and technology in general should never be controlled by any one organisation, government or company.

Just consider the situation where one massive company has complete control over all the world's television stations. They produce all news programmes, they decide what everyone watches... they decide what is right, what is wrong, what you should buy, how you should live your life. Whether, in fact it really is *your* life any more...

This is Microsoft's vision for the biggest global media phenomenon since television. They will control the Internet, and they will control our lives.

They won't succeed. They can't be allowed to succeed.

[Calum]

WARNING, THIS POST IS VERY ANGRY AND HOPEFULLY OFFENSIVE.
 

quote:Cyrax had this to say for her/himself:
the problem with you people is that you are jealous... yeah thats what i said, you JEALOUS of Bill Gates' money. The computer wouldn't be what it is now without him so why dont you show a little respect for the man, he has done nothing wrong. He built his empire from scratch and he dosn't need little people like you trying to tear it down

JEALOUS!?! OF THAT LITTLE WORM?
Maybe in 'america' (where you say you are from) money is THAT important but i have the strong belief that actually money is only THAT important to those who choose to give a SHIT, wherever they are on the planet!
Cyrax get a life, instead of dreaming of somebody else's! YOU are obviously jealous of Bill Gates (though God knows why!) and his money! i wouldn't want to be Bill Gates if i had twenty times as much dough as him! get real!!!
And before you go off on your high horse, the reason i am so enthused here is not because you touched a nerve or any of that shit, it's because i am SO INSULTED THAT YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO THINK I ENVY BILL GATES!

 

quote:The computer wouldn't be what it is now without him so why dont you show a little respect for the man, he has done nothing wrong.

This is EVEN WORSE! WHAT computer? yours? you are right, the industry would not now be the hamstrung opportunistic backstabbing shambles it is now without Microsoft. Mr Gates bludgeoned the open source movement in the head from behind and then called up his mates to put the boot in, before putting arsenic in said mates' coffee afterwards! (Metaphorically speaking, before you start).
And WHY should i show this git my respect? NO-ONE gets my respect until i know they deserve it! what a moron you are! you just blindly go around adulating and fawning over somebody just because they have had the combination of ruthlessness and luck that allows them to have more MONEY than you, do you? Pathetic.

 

quote:he has done nothing wrong.

I will not even dignify this with a comment.

 

quote:He built his empire from scratch and he dosn't need little people like you trying to tear it down

Dicksplash! no-one is doing any tearing down, you balloon! what's being advocated here is that people be given the CHOICE, do you remember what a choice is? If people want to continue using Microsoft's fuckware, then HEY! Let them dig their own graves i say! BUT! those people who choose NOT to subscribe to the Microsoft way SHOULD be able to run their computers totally free of Microsoft's products.
They're only one company, for God's sake! if you wanted not to run any software from, oh lets say PHATWARE, because you believed their stuff was unstable, nobody would mind, but because it's Microsoft, everybody wants to run around screaming "oh leave Lord Gates alone you bad boys, you are just jealous!" We have the exact same problem in the "Commonwealth" with those moronic royalists who think the royal family is a great idea no matter what they do. That's one problem you americans need not bother about.
In the end, if Microsoft can't even compete with an OS (Linux for example) that has after all been written mostly by hobbyists in their spare time, then HEY, it's just market forces in action! I thought you capitalists believed that if a company fails to make money, it's their own fault! Well, you can't have it both ways, dummy.

I will leave you with a transcript of a letter that Mr Gates circulated some time ago. Some people may have missed it. Read it and think about it. The main reason for communication is to share and learn, not to confuse and control:

 

quote:
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however,
1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and
2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.

Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft

[psyjax]

quote:Originally posted by IanC:

Just consider the situation where one massive company has complete control over all the world's television stations. They produce all news programmes, they decide what everyone watches... they decide what is right, what is wrong, what you should buy, how you should live your life. Whether, in fact it really is *your* life any more...

Actually AOL/TimeWarrner comes pretty close to this. Have you looked into them? They own most of the most popular TV stations, Magazines, Movie studios, etc. An excelent Article in the Newyorker a while back did a feture on them and when you readlize the bredth of the control they have over what you watch and think, it's like: "OMG I have been had by Big Bro.!"

Freaky really.

[Kage]

Bill Gates is a good businessman, and he is a smart person - no doubt about that.  However, when it comes to his scruples, they are highly in question.  He doesn't really care about his consumers, he cares more about the market share.  Personally, if they made a decent product and did not smash anything resembling conpetition I wouldn't care how he was.  The fact that they make a shitty product AND tend to stifle development is what really riles me.

Bill Gates didn't make the computer what it is today, you retard.  He redesigned existing systems and packaged them nicely, in the long run.  Why the hell do windows gui's so resemble that of Macs?  X?  Its because he ripped the idea and simply made it cheap and easy to use and install.  

The fact remains that all forms of windows to date really are NOT for power users.  They hide so much information about the base level system that truly tweaking a system simply cannot happen.  You can code applications, sure, but they still have to link with some win32 api shit. (I am NOT a win32 coder and never will, so I have no clue the real way it works) The proliferation of shitty little programs that dont work is testament to this.

Ah fuck, what I really mean to say is that it isn't a learning operating system.  It's stagnant.  You can learn how to navigate around, but you won't learn how things really work, and that's the way MS would like it.  The less you know about how they make things work, the more idiotic updates you could do yourself that they can sell to you.

Example:  My netbsd laptop has a problem mapping /dev/vga on the new 1.5ZA kernel.  After a bit of reading, I determined it was the securelevel setting in the kernel config.  I switched it to insecure mode, and now it is working.  This required a kernel recompile.  could you do that with any current windows system?  No.  you would have to either buy a patch or download a patch a month after the issue with them.


Abstraction is good - in programming.  NOT in system operation and configuration.

[kjg]

quote:Originally posted by psyjax:


Actually AOL/TimeWarrner comes pretty close to this. Have you looked into them? They own most of the most popular TV stations, Magazines, Movie studios, etc. An excelent Article in the Newyorker a while back did a feture on them and when you readlize the bredth of the control they have over what you watch and think, it's like: "OMG I have been had by Big Bro.!"
Freaky really.

And it's about to get worse. Most of our news and entertainment is already under the control of about 10 mega-media companies, and a court just struck down the last couple of regulations to prevent total control by one company:

 

quote:Mega Media Merger Mania

A federal court ruling on Feb. 19 delivered a dramatic victory to media corporations by eliminating important restrictions on media ownership. Analysts are predicting that mega-mergers of the past will seem like small potatoes compared to the corporate deals that will be possible under the new rules.

The decision "strips away a critical part of the few remaining checks and balances on media conglomerate power," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

The ruling weakens two of the main regulatory barriers that have limited the power of television moguls. The first is a 60-year old Federal Communications Commission rule that limits the number of broadcast TV stations a single company can own. The cap is currently set so that a single company cannot reach more than 35 percent of the national TV audience. The second FCC rule prevented a company from owning both a cable channel and a broadcast station in the same city.

The decision in the lawsuit -- which was filed by four of the biggest media groups, AOL Time Warner, Viacom, News Corp and NBC -- declared these limits "arbitrary and capricious" and not in the public's best interest. The cable/broadcast restriction was fully overturned and the station ownership cap rule was sent back to the FCC for reconsideration.

Both financial analysts and consumer advocates agree that the court decision -- unless reversed on appeal or mitigated by congressional action -- will dramatically alter the media landscape. Media deals that were impossible yesterday seem all but inevitable today. America Online can now buy NBC. Comcast, which is planning to buy AT&T Broadband, could buy Disney.

The media moguls reacted with predictable enthusiasm to the decision. Paul T. Cappacio, general counsel of AOL Time Warner, told the New York Times that the rules were "an anachronism" and were "not remotely necessary to protect competition."

Consumer advocates, however, say the ruling will lead to bigger and more powerful monopolies, accelerating the current trend of consolidation. "The 'prize' these companies seek is a digital landgrab," Chester said. Under these new rules, gargantuan media conglomerates will have the power to control the flow of information and therefore shape public opinion. "It will be freedom for a half- dozen major companies, not the public," Chester said.

More here: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12451

For even more information, check out The Media Channel's in depth guide to U.S. Media Ownership Rules at http://www.mediachannel.org/news/indepth/fcc/

While it's not specifically related to Windows, Microsoft and/or Gates, remember, Microsoft is the "MS" in MSNBC. Such deregulation will only increase Microsoft's power and reach.

Karen

[psyjax]

Man! It's too scary to even think about. The scaryest thing about it is that the media can make you think you have a choice in what you watch or what you think about it but you really don't.

Candidates for government office favored by the big 10 will get more airplay so more people will vote for them. Some bamd they are trying to promote suddenly turns up everywhere etc etc.

Heck it happens already today. When Harry Potter came out CNN did these specials on the movie. I never thought muhch about it until I read the article. AOL/TimeWarber OWN CNN! They can promote their freaking movies on a NEWS channel and make it look legit. It's like tricking people into watching a huge informercial under the guise of unbiased news brodacasting.

And yes, M$ is totaly interested in becoming a big media company. Thats why they own some of the big cable distribors and that WebTV crap. They have been trying to break in, niw with the X-Shlock and other things I think they may be able to push their way in.

God save us all!

[kjg]

quote:Originally posted by psyjax:
Candidates for government office favored by the big 10 will get more airplay so more people will vote for them. Some bamd they are trying to promote suddenly turns up everywhere etc etc.

Heck it happens already today.

There are those of us who think it happened already more than a year ago. Supposedly, the CEO of GE (parent of NBC) went out of his way to reward reporters who covered Gee Dubya favorably and Al Gore negatively, and punish those who did the reverse. Furthermore, he made great efforts to convince other news media to do the same. All specifically *because* he expected Bush to relax media regulation if he won.

(a relatively short excerpt from a long article)

DEMOCRACY, GENERAL ELECTRIC STYLE
http://makethemaccountable.com/coverup/Part_04.htm

 

quote:Shortly after George W. Bush declared his candidacy for president in June of 1999, General Electric Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch was contacted by Bush political advisor Karl Rove. Welch later informed associates that Rove told him a Bush administration would initiate comprehensive deregulation of the broadcast industry. Rove guaranteed that deregulation would be implemented in a way that would create phenomenal profits for conglomerates with significant media holdings, like GE. Rove forcefully argued that General Electric and the other media giants had a compelling financial interest to see Bush become president.

Welch told several people at GE that the conversation with Rove convinced him that a Bush presidency would ultimately result in billions of dollars of additional profits for General Electric. Welch believed that it was his responsibility to operate in the best interest of GE shareholders, and that now meant using the full power of the world

[voidmain]

It's funny, I watch a lot of news and the CNN channels are extremely pro democrat, and the FOX channels are pro republican. You can pick out the same bias on the big 3.

All I gotta say is, I'm sure glad Al Bore didn't get elected.  It was bad enough with 8 years of Billy Bob - Monica Gate - "I didn't have sexual relations with that woman" - "depends on the definition of *is*" - "don't ask don't tell" - Clinton, and not to mention his dog (or was it his wife) Hillary.  I can't figure out how Billy Bob ever got elected, and was even more befuddled when he was re-elected. At least he was smart enough to loot the place before he left, I'll give him that.

<Let the flames begin>

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[psyjax]

Let's not start this debate here! Please, I get enugh of this crap elsewere.

This being a fuckM$ site lets remember good 'ol Dubyas quote on the M$ case:

"I belive in Inovation, Not litigation"

Dubya's the guy who's got the case fast traked, as well as getting rid of the proposed breakup.

I don't care who is in office really, thier all after their Kickbacks and I think Mr. Gates has a check written for Gerogie boy.