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Offline GadgetMasterTopic starter

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2004, 11:48:19 PM »
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Wayne wrote:
Hey Gadget!  Long time no see really.


Thanks!

Nice to see you posting more around here too :-)

I rarely get as much time as I used to for spending on forums but that does not mean I don't check these boards whenever I get the chance.

Re topic: We are usually so obsessed with the bad things that monopolistic corporations bring to the world that we overlook the (few) benefits we have gained from them. Some of the things we expect to come as standard with an OS are all things Microsoft 'spoiled' us with.

The greater expectations we now have are all due to the efforts of teams of programmers that have been hacking away at code for the best part of the last decade (whilst being plied with soft drinks and pizza no doubt) to bring us some sort of usable system. These same programmers would be applauded if they were working for someone else. They have made steady progress and they have definately improved their product over the years.

As has been pointed out, if it wasn't MS then whoever was in their position would be as equally cold and corporate as them. Its only the smaller enthusiast and opensource markets that may have more approachable and down to earth attitudes. Thats the unfortunate but true situation with global multi-national operations. It all about making the most money. If you have happy customers then that is a welcome bonus

While it would be nice to see Amiga succeed I somehow feel that it will always be better as a niche. I would never like to see it become another Microsoft.

Microsoftification, a word to add to the dictionaries ? :inquisitive:    
 

Offline K7HTH

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #15 on: October 02, 2004, 12:04:43 AM »
Microsoft Corp. may have the world-wide market cornered in the cutting edge of consumer and business automation applications. Some would say MS is a monopoly. Well, if that is the case then at least MS is an AMERICAN monopoly and anyone living in America should be at least thankful in that respect.
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Offline KapitanKlystron

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #16 on: October 02, 2004, 02:09:26 AM »
MS has had people complaining since MS-DOS 5.0. Quarterdeck was mad because of the memory management and makers of defragmenters were mad because of the built in defragmenter.

Before that you used to have top buy everything seperate.  They were good programs for the time, but you could spend serious money on utilities that now come with the operating system.

In a lot of ways XP is the best OS MS has ever made but after having bought 95 and 98 and ME I think it is abou time they got it right.
 

Offline Waccoon

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #17 on: October 02, 2004, 03:57:41 AM »
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Hmm, I think the opposite would happen. Instead of everyone complying to standards I think every man and his dog would try to come up with their own "superior" format further fragmenting the industry and causing chaos.

I agree.  Ordinary people are not concerned with technical supiriority and will buy just about anything that gets the job done -- or so the marketeers say.

Linux is just an OS core and does nothing interesting on its own.  It's what people build on it that matters.  So, it's entirely possible to have a really, really horrible Linux system.  Fragmentation of standards will achieve that quite nicely.

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Yes, but all the MSOffice dependents might realize that maybe a monopoly like Microsoft is a bad idea after all.

I'm more ticked off at the functionality of Office rather than the monopolization.  Creating documents in Word is an interface nightmare.  I just use Wordpad if I need something more flashy than plain text.  Word is overkill for most stuff, and I don't understand what anyone sees in Excel and PowerPoint.

Most "business" software is purchased by executives.  You can hardly blame Microsoft because Megacorp feels an integrated suite of software at a volume price is always better than letting employees choose whatever tools they want to use.

Such is the horrible fact of life:  the people who buy software are rarely the ones who use it.  "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" is still very much true today, even though IBM is still super-expensive and not much more reliable than anything else.

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"superior" doent mean its going to win

Depends on what is supirior.  Ordinary people don't know jack about OS design, so they could care less if the core of the OS is good or not.  If they want pushbuttons and Windows gives them pushbuttons, they're happy.

Frankly, I'm disgusted with GUI toolkits.  Linux is still very much addicted to the CLI.  That's what I liked most about Amiga.  It was one of the very few machines -- ever -- to properly balance CLI and GUI interfaces together on the same platform.

Architecutally speaking, the Classic Mac is one of the worst systems ever made, but the GUIs were very consistent and attractive, thanks to Apple's interface guidelines.  Right up to the end of MacOS 9, Apple fans were screaming about the supirior technology of the Mac.

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Apple don't have Microsoft's killer instinct. They'd like to be Microsoft. IMO.

The big difference is that Microsoft knew software platforms are more valuable than hardware platforms.  Apple hasn't grown out of that phase, yet, though having their OS core on BSD UNIX gives them a lot of flexibility to expand to new hardware markets whenever they want or must.

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I'm probably the only person on the planet who would view the disappearance of Microsoft as a bad thing.

I'm number 2.  A platform is just "a" platform until a strong central management steps in.  Imagine what HTML would be without the W3C -- and I don't like the W3C at all.

Geeks can work in an ad-hoc world since they understand the technology and can shape it at will.  Desktop computers must be fully designed for people who don't understand any of the guts -- and don't want to.  People buy Windows because they are willing to put up with a monopoly if it means they don't have to put up with geekdom.  That's why I think Linux will never, ever be a real desktop system until someone just "steals" it and builds a proprietary system around it.  Hence, the only truly successful version of UN*X in the destop world is MacOS X.  Geeks don't understand how normal people think, and normal people don't know how geeks or computers work.

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The Amiga however, would never occupy higher than the #5 slot in the world of desktop computing, even with the disappearance of Microsoft.

Amiga needs to be fully modernized for that to happen.  AmigaOS may have pushbuttons, but it has very old APIs and ways of thinking that are difficult for modern programmers to use, anymore.  That's why I was hoping so much for DE instead of OS4.  The DE idea was cool.  OS4 is more like OS Forced.

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I think a lot of chaos would occur in the software industry, but after a year or two, the number of software companies in existence would probably go up a thousandfold. Variety is a good thing.

But eventually, things would cool down and we'd have two or three mega corps to choose from.  Variety doesn't last long in the OS market.  Just look at cell phones and PDAs.  The game console market works much the same way.  I remember when practically every electronics company had a game machine.  Today, SONY owns, what, 75%+ of the market?

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The same dealer told schools that if they had an Amiga in the classroom they wouldn't get any donated computers and the big "Apple Education discount"..

That sounds typical, but what really burns me up is Apple's service life.  MacOS 8 got, what, one update before you had to buy 8.5?  Microsoft supported Win98 with updates and free, new software for six years.

It's hard to look at Microsoft's support record and say they don't support their products.  I can't say the same for Apple at all.  If companies skimp on updates with all the competition from Microsoft, I doubt they'd do any better after MS disappeared without a trace.

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audio formats have standardised nicely.

PC audio is still wholely inferior to anything in the home entertainment market.  I think the SoundBlater monopoly really hurt the PC market.  Compared to the PC, the audio system in the PS/2 is simply incredible, and it bothers me that top-end cards like the Audigy still don't have compression and normalization as standard options -- which is mandatory for clip control.  Don't even get me started on EAX, which is so horrible I always turn off hardware acceleration with my Audigy.

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They have? Then why hasn't someone told all the Audio equipment/software manufacturers

Audio has always been unimportant in the PC industry.  People are still drooling over the addition of 7.1, which is very easy to do.  I can't quit complaining evey time I slip on some headphones because the mixing and filtering standards are so poor.

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Microsoftification, a word to add to the dictionaries ?

I find it disappointing that everyone complains Microsoft steals ideas and code from the Open Source scene, while at the same time, almost every Linux desktop looks just like a Windows machine -- sometimes even pixel-for-pixel.

Maybe they just feel safer cloning a monopoly that wouldn't dare dump on Open Source underdogs, as opposed to stealing designs from Apple.  ;-)

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MS has had people complaining since MS-DOS 5.0. Quarterdeck was mad because of the memory management and makers of defragmenters were mad because of the built in defragmenter.

Microsoft has a history of selling software they didn't write, and someone will always complain becuase their product wasn't chosen to be the Windows default.  I doubt anyone realizes that the defragmenter in XP is actually a stripped-down Diskeeper.  Symantec also wrote ScanDisk, but I heard there was some real controversy over that and MS and Symantec sued each other something awful.
 

Offline Star69

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #18 on: November 24, 2004, 05:09:38 PM »
Wow... well that would be that then!!!  :-)
 

Offline Karlos

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #19 on: November 24, 2004, 05:16:45 PM »
Quote

Wayne wrote:
Hey Gadget!  Long time no see really.


Odd, I thought our erstwhile GadgetMaster was around quite a bit lately. However, let me add my own note in the same vein:

Hey Gadget! Long time no brew, mate ;-)

/we can now resume with the original topic
int p; // A
 

Offline bjjones37

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2004, 05:22:22 PM »
I don't want Microsoft to disappear, I just want them to diversify some and open up Microsoft Spacelines. :-D
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Offline TheMagicM

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2004, 05:30:49 PM »
alot of people bash Windows/MS.. I run Win 2kPro and have NO PROBLEMS, no blue screens etc.  My 6yr old son uses Win 2k Pro for games and even his system runs PERFECT.  I use my system every day and leave it on 24/7..it runs without reboot for at a minimum of 2-3 months unless I install something that requires a reboot.

So if you're having a problem with windows, maybe its your hardware or a user error.

-Alex
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Offline Star69

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2004, 05:53:30 PM »
I would have to agree with that, I'm on 2kpro and I don't remember the last time I had to reboot.  When it was 98SE, that's a different story...
 

Offline DaBest

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2004, 06:35:10 PM »
Same here. I use WIN2K and haven't had a problem with it at all. I am very hesitant to install XP. Why fix it if it aint broke. :-D  :-D
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Offline DaBest

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #24 on: November 24, 2004, 06:35:44 PM »
Same here. I use WIN2K and haven't had a problem with it at all. I am very hesitant to install XP. Why fix it if it aint broke. :-D  :-D
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:whack:

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Offline dbalaski

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2004, 06:36:43 PM »

I am by no means a lover of their practices (nor their code). But i use it because it is a standard that is greatly in use. Fact is fact. I don't like the code being such bloated and full of security holes.  

What I really don't like is the world adopting their general coding style -- bloat-ware ..  
I mean really,   Compare  XP requirements and performance -- then look what you can do with Unix (and its variants) on lesser hardware.  
Problem I see is that people forget the streamline approach in favor of upping the hardware. Again,  the problem comes that they are becoming the monolithic in their approach.  

Personally -- I think they are about ready to cut their own throat if what I read about longhorn is true ..  I think microsoft is going to be faced with a lot of non-corporate defections.   I used to say  Unix on a desktop  wouldn't fly,  but watching the problems people go thru with  nt/2k/xp  really makes Unix/linix look like a viable option.
(Aros on intel also  ;)   )

I dont want them to disappear -- but I would like to see them get some more competition....


dB
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Offline bjjones37

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #26 on: November 24, 2004, 07:01:05 PM »
@DaBest
Quote

DaBest wrote:
Same here. I use WIN2K and haven't had a problem with it at all. I am very hesitant to install XP. Why fix it if it aint broke. :-D  :-D


Brother! :-D

Be careful, they have a fox hunting thread here. :-)
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Offline Star69

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2004, 07:26:08 PM »
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dbalaski wrote:

I am by no means a lover of their practices (nor their code). But i use it because it is a standard that is greatly in use. Fact is fact. I don't like the code being such bloated and full of security holes.  

What I really don't like is the world adopting their general coding style -- bloat-ware ..


I fully agree, I tried XP on my machine at the same time I upgraded to 2k (a requestor popped up after post asking which os I wanted which was pretty cool), but XP ran so much slower than necessary = bloatware - filled with unneeded cr@p code that if they had thought about it long and hard, ergo lowering profit margins, they could have made it much better.  It seems like M$ write the code with no streamlining in mind at all, as if thinking "hey, were microsoft - let the hardware catch up with us"

p.s. XP is a cartoon os  :-)
 

Offline Brian Hoskins

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #28 on: November 24, 2004, 07:38:07 PM »
I would agree that Windows is very stable these days in terms of amount of crashes.  Windows does still crash, but usually the crash can be limited to the application that caused or was effected by it, and that program can be terminated without any further effects on the running of the OS.  In contrast, a lot of crashes on AmigaOS brings the entire system down with it and as such more reboots are required.  Sometimes, even when a crash doesn't bring the OS down you still end up having to reboot because the program doesn't terminate and leaves it's window open on the desktop.  Crashes which only effect the concerned application or task are MUCH less annoying than ones which cause a complete system failure, which is why you now notice more crashes on AmigaOS than you do Windows ;-)

As a system I don't like Windows very much.  Because it's now pretty much a worldwide standard and it has lots of very good, modern software written for it I do end up using it a fair bit, but given the choice I'd use AmigaOS over Windows any day, which is why my Amiga remains my main machine and takes pride of place on my computer table :)

Brian

 

Offline Hammer

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Re: Microsoft Bashing
« Reply #29 from previous page: November 24, 2004, 08:39:23 PM »
Quote

Star69 wrote:
Quote

dbalaski wrote:

I am by no means a lover of their practices (nor their code). But i use it because it is a standard that is greatly in use. Fact is fact. I don't like the code being such bloated and full of security holes.  

What I really don't like is the world adopting their general coding style -- bloat-ware ..


I fully agree, I tried XP on my machine at the same time I upgraded to 2k (a requestor popped up after post asking which os I wanted which was pretty cool), but XP ran so much slower than necessary = bloatware - filled with unneeded cr@p code that if they had thought about it long and hard, ergo lowering profit margins, they could have made it much better.  It seems like M$ write the code with no streamlining in mind at all, as if thinking "hey, were microsoft - let the hardware catch up with us"

p.s. XP is a cartoon os  :-)

Select the Silver theme instead the toy theme.  Anyway, Windows XP MCE 2005 has Royale as its default theme.
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