Posted on 04/20/2007 9:52:09 AM PDT by upchuck
So you think we should still be running 16-bit software on 64-bit hardware? Or maybe we should never have advanced past 16-bit hardware either, instead of inventing Pentiums and such they should just keep making “better” 486 chips?
The former Microsoft employee who created DirectX and was Microsoft's publishing technology guru, Alex St John::
A month or so in, I still didn't know exactly what my job was until one of the guys who hired me said, "Write a strategy for how you would persuade the publishing industry to move to Windows." I spent a lot of time writing documents saying here's what our strategy should be, here's how we could convince companies to sign on, all that. I came in to do my presentation, and I got about three slides into it before I was interrupted by one of the executives saying, "This is all great stuff, you have a perfect plan. Developers who are reasonable should all support it, but what do you do if none of this works." "What do you mean?" "What if in spite of your best efforts, your best arguments, you best relationships, you can't get them to support them. How do you force the industry to support Microsoft anyway?" "Force them? Well, I don't know." "Come back when you have a plan that answers that question."The Microsoft philosophy is not to give the customer the best product or to provide products that are in the customer's best interest, but to force customers to take whatever Microsoft produces, even if it is detrimental to the customer.That perplexed me for a long time. I'm thinking, "What the hell does he mean, force them? I can't hold a gun to their head, so how do I put all these companies in a position where, regardless of what they see is in their best interest, they have to adopt your technology?" That experience had a major impact on my thinking. I realized that a major part of my job was to figure out how to use technology control to create economic force, or leverage, such that money and business flowed in Microsoft's direction, and people had to go [to them]. That, ultimately, is when I became a "Microsoft guy," when I got that concept.
Apple has no interest in such an arrangement, they sell systems not just the OS..
Lets be fair to MS here, other than telling OEMs that they have to stop shipping in 2008 MS is doing fine. They are keeping full support I believe until 2009 thats two years to upgrade.
I was never a Wordperfect fan, but I'm *still* using Netscape.
If all the hoopla has made you curious, I suggest you go to a Best Buy store or similar place and give it a look.
But I’m sure you’d like an executive summary, and I can give you that.
* Vista has system requirements that are just crazy. 512MB RAM, for example, is adequate for “running the operating system”. 1gb is good enough to run an application or two but real power users should stick with 2gb. Or more.>>
My 2Gb’s run faster than my XP box ever did. Many people run it with 512mb’s(on laptops) and enjoy the boost they get an application usage. The less RAM generally requires you to disable Aeroglass.
* Vista is faster than XP if your computer has 3gb of RAM or more. Otherwise, it’s slower.>>
See above.
* You need a fancy video card for the various effects. It’s a pain to install. Buy a new computer for Vista; you’ll go through more hassles and you might not even spend all that much more money.>>>
No you don’t. All you need is a DirectX 9 capable videocard. Thats it.
* Vista uses transparency effects on some of the windows. For about five minutes they look slick. Then you realize your eyes are having a tough time reading the window title because the title bar is translucent. Oddly enough, Apple’s first version of MacOS X was filled with cool transparency effects but now they are very subtle. Apple listened to its users; Microsoft really should have listened in on those conversations and acted accordingly.>>>
Transparency is controllable with different translucent(sp?) levels, and even the ability to disable, change colours etc..
* Vista has security features designed to ask you whenever anything goes on that’s even vaguely connected to security. There is an Apple ad which I’m sure you’ve seen, with this guard in sunglasses standing arrogantly over PC and saying “Cancel or allow?”. About half the people who talk about Vista complain and say the ad’s shockingly true to life. The other half don’t notice it, don’t care or turned it off before their patience got too strained.>>
UAC is not that bad, also if it bugs you it’s able to be turned off.
* There is a well implemented system-wide search facility, just like Apple’s spotlight. It’s run out of the start menu (ahem, Windows menu - Start is gone) and seems to work quite well. This is one of the few Vista features I liked.>>
It’s great, type search bang it’s instantly pops up, usually before you are done typing.
The truth is that Vista is just not that appealing, especially for the price charged. I would probably get it on a new PC just thanks to a desire for a more modern operating system, but then again I’ve always been an early adapter type.>>
Vista pricepoints are on par (with better features) than previous versions. Basic, which is equal to XP Home, costs the same as XP’s initial offering. Premium whioh is like MCE(but with more features), once again is the same as MCE initial offering....etc.
Personally, I’d be looking at Apple, unless you’re wedded to Windows-only software. Steve’s an arrogant guy, hard to like in many respects, but he does deliver the goods.
D>>
Yeah, well thats an argument for a different time.
I don’t understand the whole “forced to upgrade” thing. If you like what you’ve got keep using it. Kindly King Bill isn’t going to send people to your house to smash up your old computer, everything you currently own will continue to work until the hardware itself breaks, and even then unless you have a total meltdown it’ll probably be repairable. Now if you decide to go out and buy a new computer then new stuff is going to be on it, new stuff is going to be in it too which is part of the reason to get new stuff to run on it, new software usually runs new hardware better than old software does. But nothing is being rammed down your throat. Stay on XP and O2K until the day you or the computer dies if you want, there’s nobody trying to stop you.
*WOW* how much time do you spend running down patches for that!
You'll never get me close to Windows 3.x again. OTOH, if you're doing memos, long text documents, math documents or mail merges, WordPerfect 5.1 can still stand up to any word processor today.
Ditto
“Does Vista really suck that bad? I haven’t tried it or even used a computer with it yet.”
Yeah it do
Bingo. But reality hurts the angry mind, so it doesn’t matter, besides conspiracy helps them to cope.
In the words of Bob Metcalfe, “Grove giveth and Gates taketh away.”
It doesn’t matter how good it is. It’t that Microsoft has continued their historic slide into anti-user arrogance, to the point where their stuff just isn’t worth using anymore.
I run it at home stand alone. I put it on line a couple of times just to know how to do it, for some reason I thought it would be good for me to be skilled in Linux.
Also see Wirth's Law. Of course it's not just the software, but the expectations. Ten years ago a tiny, low-quality video was really cool to see in the Internet. Today we expect a lot more. Ten years ago the biggest complex, high-res Photoshop job I'd try was an A3 poster, years later I had close to gigabyte-size Photoshop files for very large banners.
“The Microsoft philosophy is not to give the customer the best product or to provide products that are in the customer’s best interest, but to force customers to take whatever Microsoft produces, even if it is detrimental to the customer.”
And, as a business model, it’s a testament to the genius of Bill Gates. I don’t think Bill was ever really much of a computer geek, but he sure figured out pretty early how to extract every possible dollar from what he did have to sell.
OTOH, as a consumer I don’t have to like it, and given the chance I will go for an alternative. For the time being that’s to stick with the reasonably OK Windows XP. For the future, who know? Maybe Mac, maybe Linux. Maybe Microsoft will even listen to its customers and come out with something truly better (yeah, as if).
Its not going to be bad for you to be skilled at linux but RH6 is ancient. IF resources are restriceted try DSL (Damn Small Linux) its a lightweight distro but the Kernel and Core apps will be modern.
What I find funny is you tend to get more people yelling about having new stuff “forced down their throats” by MS when there’s a big gap between versions than when there’s a small gap. There was all the same griping when 95 came out, but very little for 98, ME and XP; now 7 years after XP Vista finally comes out and suddenly people are saying they’re being “forced” again. Maybe that’s why car manufacturers do new models every year, keeping the gap small shuts up the gripers.
A friend of mine runs a security firm and just the other day was bemoaning the difficulties he’s running into after upgrading from XP Pro to ‘Ultimate Vista’, said the only thing ‘ultimate’ about it was the ultimate inability of his system to even boot up now. He’s pulling his hair out.
I’m still running W98SE and I see no reason to upgrade at all. If I do, it would be to Windows 2000 Professional, and that’s only because I have a good system image of it from that same friend prior to his upgrade to XP.
PS - If anyone has an original Windows 2000 Pro OEM CD they might be willing to part with, Freepmail me...and thanks in advance!
:)
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