Author Topic: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review  (Read 1812 times)

dmcfarland

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Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« on: 28 November 2005, 21:40 »
I found this book review on slashdot. Enjoy

link:http://books.slashdot.org/books/05/11/28/1544245.shtml?tid=109&tid=6

"With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
 
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
 
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
 
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
 
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
 
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
 
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
 
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
 
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at http://www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
 
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
 
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
 
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
 
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
 
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at http://www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
 
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
 
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secur"
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worker201

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #1 on: 29 November 2005, 00:37 »
Might have to get my dad that for Christmas.

piratePenguin

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #2 on: 29 November 2005, 01:03 »
Read the comments at slashdot first. Doesn't seem great.
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a poem by my computer, Macintosh Vigilante
Macintosh amends a damned around the requested typewriter. Macintosh urges a scarce design. Macintosh postulates an autobiography. Macintosh tolls the solo variant. Why does a winter audience delay macintosh? The maker tosses macintosh. Beneath female suffers a double scum. How will a rat cube the heavier cricket? Macintosh calls a method. Can macintosh nest opposite the headache? Macintosh ties the wrong fairy. When can macintosh stem the land gang? Female aborts underneath macintosh. Inside macintosh waffles female. Next to macintosh worries a well.

worker201

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #3 on: 29 November 2005, 01:07 »
I read some comments at Amazon that weren't too flattering.  But it is nice that someone has taken the time and trouble to sum up all the important concepts behind the whole shebang, and present them in analog format for the average computer user.  At this point, it's the first step that counts, not the question of objectivity or practical research.

Kintaro

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #4 on: 29 November 2005, 17:26 »
On the subject of ditching Microsoft. I would like to point out that despite the hopes I had for OpenOffice 2.0, I would still rather Kill Myself than use it instead of Microsoft Office.

piratePenguin

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #5 on: 29 November 2005, 17:48 »
Quote from: Kintaro
On the subject of ditching Microsoft. I would like to point out that despite the hopes I had for OpenOffice 2.0, I would still rather Kill Myself than use it instead of Microsoft Office.
So what exactly is it keeping you on Microsoft Office then?
"What you share with the world is what it keeps of you."
 - Noah And The Whale: Give a little love



a poem by my computer, Macintosh Vigilante
Macintosh amends a damned around the requested typewriter. Macintosh urges a scarce design. Macintosh postulates an autobiography. Macintosh tolls the solo variant. Why does a winter audience delay macintosh? The maker tosses macintosh. Beneath female suffers a double scum. How will a rat cube the heavier cricket? Macintosh calls a method. Can macintosh nest opposite the headache? Macintosh ties the wrong fairy. When can macintosh stem the land gang? Female aborts underneath macintosh. Inside macintosh waffles female. Next to macintosh worries a well.

dmcfarland

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #6 on: 29 November 2005, 18:37 »
Open Office is one of those great works in progress programs. Version is 10 times better than the previous version, and I dont doubt it will continue to improve. Linux always seems to get better, but maintains itself excellently. Im running a POS p3 550 mhz, 384 megs, and this thing runs pretty fast, and seems to load faster since Ive upgraded to kernel version 2.6.14.

Kin why do you post here if you cant stand Linux, Open Office etc. Whats your major malfunction? I hate M$ Oriffice. Its has more bloat in than Micheal Moore, not to mention Open Office takes up less HD space, and is pretty damn functional.

What your problem with Linux. Why dont you post that instead of a pic of a guy f'ing a sheep?
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H_TeXMeX_H

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #7 on: 29 November 2005, 23:25 »
Maybe the book will change a few minds ? I dunno ... but as long as it causes Bill Gates grief I'm all for it :D

What's wrong with OpenOffice ? I find a lot more wrong with M$ office than OpenOffice :confused:

Kintaro

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #8 on: 2 December 2005, 05:17 »
Quote from: piratePenguin
So what exactly is it keeping you on Microsoft Office then?

The fact is has a superior grammar checker, a superior interface, it loads faster, uses less memory, it has 100% complete support for currently world class and world standard document formats, which I don't care if they are not open because people use them for a reason, they are superior. It has a far higher quality of code, is more reliable, and has never crashed on me once.

I have said all this before, why do you keep asking so many fucking redundant questions people have all told you about in the past.

dmcfarland

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #9 on: 2 December 2005, 05:20 »
And some turds think Im a spy for microsoft:fu:

Quote from: Kintaro
The fact is has a superior grammar checker, a superior interface, it loads faster, uses less memory, it has 100% complete support for currently world class and world standard document formats, which I don't care if they are not open because people use them for a reason, they are superior. It has a far higher quality of code, is more reliable, and has never crashed on me once.

I have said all this before, why do you keep asking so many fucking redundant questions people have all told you about in the past.
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Kintaro

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #10 on: 2 December 2005, 05:38 »
I don't just think Microsoft office is superior, I think the entire platform of Windows 2003 is one of the best in the world design wise, I just personally prefer Linux because it provides a lot more choice and runs on far older hardware. However Microsoft hire professional programmers, they pay them a lot, and most of all they do not tolerate incompitence. Open Source is pretty good, but some of it such as OpenOffice is not mature enough for production use.

And I for a long time have been Linux Only because the the Linux kernel is superior on the desktop to everything else because it supports preemption and many other things that are not in Microsoft Windows, Darwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more. This is because Linux has a very fast paced development cycle that has many people with strong qualifications in computer science and engineering working on it.

The only argument I have seen against Linux as a bad choice was from a deranged FreeBSD user who didn't like a comment in the kernel about if something belongs (at least Linux developers consider that they might be making a mistake and are not arrogant pricks like those of FreeBSD, I have studied the FreeBSD source for ideas with an upcoming project and parts of it are just fucking spagetti).

OpenOffice however does not appear to have many bright people working on it, because its not a simple engineering experiment, it needs a good user interface, and people who know a lot about the inner workings of english to help provide it with the features it would require to do what I want. This basically means I am willing to shell out $20 for a student edition of Microsoft Office through school every year or two when a new version comes out.

Microsoft do actually make good software, as do a lot of Open Source projects. However some features that require a knowledge beyond computer programming and computer science are out of the scope of Open Source at the moment because their is little people with the skills needed to improve Open Office willing to do it.

I mean, I would love to help Open Office have a good grammar checker, but my grammar often sucks and if I had good enough grammar to write one I would not need one in the first place. That their is the problem, Sun Microsystems need to get off their fat arses and hire someone to do this stuff if they want to support Open Source.

Believe me, I would like to use OpenOffice, I download new versions when they come out and have done so for a very long time - but every time they dissapoint me. In fact I find the old version OpenOffice 1.x or whatever was better than 2.0.

One place I do use OpenOffice is with poetry, because it lacks a grammer checker, Microsoft makes poetry a total pain in the arse.

piratePenguin

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #11 on: 2 December 2005, 18:59 »
Quote from: Kintaro
people use them for a reason, they are superior.
Just like Internet Explorer is superior to Firefox and Opera?
People generally DO NOT use Microsoft's .doc format because it's superior. That's the first time I've ever seen "superior supported formats" used in an argument for Microsoft Office and against OpenOffice.

Why exactly do you think Microsoft's supported formats are superior? "everyone else uses them" doesn't mean they're superior.
Quote from: Kintaro

I have said all this before, why do you keep asking so many fucking redundant questions people have all told you about in the past.
Because OpenOffice 2.0 has changed a little bit since 1.x, maybe.
« Last Edit: 2 December 2005, 19:35 by piratePenguin »
"What you share with the world is what it keeps of you."
 - Noah And The Whale: Give a little love



a poem by my computer, Macintosh Vigilante
Macintosh amends a damned around the requested typewriter. Macintosh urges a scarce design. Macintosh postulates an autobiography. Macintosh tolls the solo variant. Why does a winter audience delay macintosh? The maker tosses macintosh. Beneath female suffers a double scum. How will a rat cube the heavier cricket? Macintosh calls a method. Can macintosh nest opposite the headache? Macintosh ties the wrong fairy. When can macintosh stem the land gang? Female aborts underneath macintosh. Inside macintosh waffles female. Next to macintosh worries a well.

Kintaro

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #12 on: 3 December 2005, 04:03 »
Quote

People generally DO NOT use Microsoft's .doc format because it's superior. That's the first time I've ever seen "superior supported formats" used in an argument for Microsoft Office and against OpenOffice.


When you can implement COM Objects, and a myriad of other things in an OpenOffice document please inform me.

toadlife

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #13 on: 12 December 2005, 06:13 »
Quote from: Kintaro
And I for a long time have been Linux Only because the the Linux kernel is superior on the desktop to everything else because it supports preemption and many other things that are not in Microsoft Windows, Darwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more.

What exactly are you talking about when you say "preemption"?  Are you talking about using preemption to make linux a bonified RTOS, or are you just talking about preemtive multiutasking, which every OS you listed above has supported for ages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preemption_%28computing%29

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/smp-design.html
:)

WMD

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Re: Just Say No to Microsoft-A book review
« Reply #14 on: 12 December 2005, 06:45 »
He won't respond; he left this place.

More on topic, I can vouch that MS Office for Mac is pretty good, save for a few of the long-time Office-isms that MS can't seem to get rid of.  For example, the odd behavior of the auto-numbered lists.

OpenOffice 2.0 for Linux is at least as good from what I've done, although, there is no Mac version of it (that doesn't suck).
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