Why are so many people Anti-microsoft?

Is anyone else here running linux? I've been running SuSE 10.0 OSS for a few weeks now after I got tired of Windows XP Pro x64 getting infected with spyware that couldnt be removed (google EliteBar) even though I have a software firewall, anitvirus and anti spyware protection.

With Linux you don't even need any antivirus software at all. Windows games work fine if you have a subscription to Cedega ($5 a month), though I haven't subscribed. I've been playing Neverwinter Nights and Doom3 since they have linux versions too. A lot of developers are making games for linux or releasing linux clients (copy the CD's to HD then run the client installer).
Macromedia Flash works fine in Firefox. I am looking into shockwave now, they have binaries for download but I'm not going to install them tonight.

 

Yep, that's why I mentioned "on the topic of Digital." Two great companies, and their products seemed to play together so nicely too.

In the late 90's ('98-'99) I started going to client sites to decommission older VAX machines, some that I had initially configured in the mid 80's and had kept up ever since.

Assuming some sort of rudimentary power protection was in place, and they were not placed on the shop floor next to a chipper or lime kiln, they ran without fail for many years. Much like the Honeywell TDC 3000 Distributed Control System, itself based on the Burroughs B8 series. Note back then, "distributed" referred to having more than one Control Room, the sensors and valves in the field were simple analog 4-20mA devices with no true processing capability.

Modern process control is more reliable as the control itself is finally "distributed" that is, the devices in the field are powerful enough to run the segment. Those devices have chipsets and board support packages from Hitachi or TI, and run embedded RTOS's usually from Wind River (VxWorks) or QNX (Neutrino has big influence now).

It's a good thing the process segments can have a Backup LAS (Link Active Scheduler) as the process interface in the control room now runs on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Operators tend to freak out when they get a Stop message, especially if they're responsible for petroleum cracker.

 

Steve Jobs - then Chairman at Apple - wooed John Sculley from PepsiCo in 1983. In 1985 Sculley forced Jobs out. The board forced Sculley out in 1993.

Next was Michael Spindler from 1993-1996. Then Gil Amelio, an engineer at National Semiconductor before joining Apple, was in charge. He was let go in 1997, after Pixar was aquired by Apple.

Jobs had co-founded Pixar and agreed to be an interim CEO or "iCEO" as he phrased it. He is generally credited with turning Apple around.

 

A box fresh out of shrink wrap is of little use to anybody unless you use it just as a glorified Internet terminal. A lot of folks - consumers and especially business users - run productivity applications to ... ummm ... increase their productivity.

Take XP Pro by itself, with just IE 6. Nothing else. It's reasonably quick to boot, very stable, and seems fast. But you have to worry about exposure to virus, worm, and trojan on the Internet, so you install something like Norton Internet Security 2005 .

You will then notice that shutting down takes a LOT longer, and so does booting up again. But you figure the noticeable drop in performance is "worth" having a "secure" system.

Now do the full install of Office 2003. Suddenly the boot gets longer again, and performance drops again. Now stick in Visual Studio Pro with the MSDN Premium subscription, and it really slows to a crawl.

Say you do development work with Oracle, Wind River, or QNX, their IDE's also slow things even more. The Stop messages are thankfully rare, unless you tried to install the Beta 1 release of Visual Studio 2005. Oi.

The thing is, a lot of folks have the expectation their home machine can be used for school work, fun and games, serious stuff, and the like. I would suggest that is far more of a "typical" configuration than the bare-bones fresh out of shrinkwrap scenario.

In the more likely scenario, Registry Rot enters the picture. Most home users brave enough to do a fresh install are suddenly faced with heart stopping things like "why won't it recognize the CD-RW drive anymore?"

 

He is also "credited" with having a very confrontational and adverseal management style. If he didn't like something, he'd bluntly tell the person "this is s***." His well-known desire for "perfection at any cost" can be viewed as almost OCD.

Orginal Apple employees like Andy Hertzfeld comment on the dual love-hate of Jobs. On the one hand, the employees had great respect for Job's vision and demand for perfection, otoh some were terrified of him. When the product wasn't perfect, there would be hell to pay.

Jobs is generally credited with the initial success of Apple, along with co-funder Steve Wozniak, especially the Apple II. Jobs had an almost obsessive desire for perfection which hampered early success of the Mac.

I guess you don't remember Windows 3.0 or Windows 3.1? On the opposite side of the scale, where perfection is frowned upon as too expensive, Microsoft used marketing ploys to shove Windows down our collective throats

 

I've been in the IT business for more than 20 years and people have always thought of us IT folks that way. People are frustrated not by the BSOD but by using something they don't really understand and don't want to.

People vilify MS because they are the king of the hill. Are they stifling competition? Sure. So did Apple when kept their architecture locked down so tightly. So, did Novell when they refused to admit that their server would have to work with Windows. Had Apple opened up a little, we would be cursing Apple. Had Novell built a Windows security module for their server, they would still be producing server software.

MS has indeed had a tremendous impact on our computing experiences -- the vast majority of that is positive. Microsoft listened to user feedback early on and took on the task of integrating hardware and software. That is the reason Windows is ubiquitous now.

Before Windows you needed to get a printer driver for every program you used. Before Windows every program had a different user interface. That is the downside of innovation.

One of the articles on this site quoted someone referring to the 2006 hybrid tax credit as a way to "level they playing field" for the domestic auto manufacturers. It seems people in Detroit and Washington forgot the field was level and are beginning to vilify Toyota.

 

I feel strongly about this -- be forewarned.

MS programs as tools tend to be poor -- but not always. Either way, I could not care less.

I do care a lot about the rising bilge of corporatism that threatens personal liberty, expression, and creativity. MS is a leading light to this opaque world in which a person is a commodity, and MS is the broker.

MS can be summed up pretty nicely as "embrace, and extend." If you do not understand the significance of this company policy, you are lacking the basic political sensibility that will protect your freedoms as an individual.

 

I disagree.
People vilify MS because they are a BAD king.
And sure, a bad king gets more complaints than a bad duke or count.
Just because they're king does not excuse them from just criticism.

 

My Top Ten Reasons to Hate Microsoft...

10. The paper clip help guy.

9. I never got rich on their stock - everybody else did.

8. ActiveX

7. It rains too much in Redmond.

6. It takes forever for them to release a new OS.

5. The XP boot up jingle.

4. NTFS

3. They tried to kill Java

2.The mysterious "null" file that has zero bytes that shows up every now and then.

1. Too many porn sites have videos that only play on Windows and I have a Mac.

 

Every king can be viewed as a bad king. Of course we should criticize them and there are plenty of reasons to do so. The simple fact is they are in their position because people wanted compatibility. Don't vilify them for giving people what they wanted.

 

people want compatibility sure, but since when does a technically illiterate person know what he or she whats good for them as opposed to what they want??

microsoft in its idiocy to be backwards compatible inadvertently created the spyware industry.

apple rewrote their OS and got rid of the problems and because of that, they have a much better system. so paying a premium for their OS is much easier to stomach then paying full price for MS OS which is a poorly disquised version upgrade

 

They had to be backward compatible. Spyware and viruses are so successful because MS never thought of it. Apple rewrote their OS because they saw theirs was just as vulnerable as MS's and they learned from MS's mistakes.

 

oh!! ok that explains everything...

 

Off-topic nitpick - Apple bought Next Computers, mostly for the operating system and object-oriented development tools, which ran on top of an open-source unix core, just like Mac OS X. It's true that Jobs founded or co-founded Next and snuck back in the door at Apple through that transaction. Pixar is independent, though also founded or co-founded by Jobs, after he bought an existing company's assets from, I think, George Lucas. Jobs is the money/big picture (no pun intended) guy for Pixar, while another guy is the main creative person for the animation/stories.

 

That is incorrect. Steve Jobs was in charge of NeXT during those years. In 1997, Apple bought NeXT, and brought Steve back into the company, possibly the only smart thing that regime ever did.

He promptly "arranged" a shakedown of the whole company. Now it is what you see today.