_Thursday_
Ah, the big day has arrived. Yes, boys and girls, Microsoft is finally releasing their new OS, almost on schedule for a change even. This is unlike their X-Box, the great hope of MS for achieving dominance in the game console arena. The X-Box shipped in limited quantities two weeks after its original launch date, and has been underwhelming to all who have seen it. Imagine, if you will, a game console with the stability of Windows ME. Yeah, that’s great. About half the demos that MS has held didn’t work, and the reports from retailers are that about 25% of the X-Box consoles are operational, straight out of the box. heh.
But, back to Windows XP. There are plenty of reasons to avoid this beastie. For starters, the upgrade price has actually gone up while implementing “anti-piracy” measures that should reduce the price. And, those anti-piracy measures are entertaining as hell also. If you’re a business, you just install the OS as usual, although there has been some controversy about “imaging” drives (standard practice in large organizations but apparently prohibited now). If you’re a home user, not only do you pay more per machine than a business does (about 3 times more on average), you have to deal with the dreaded Windows Product Activation system. This thing has been the focus of more hostility than anything in recent memory, and the crackers and warez d00dz have already posted the corporate version on Usenet. So, if you don’t want to deal with WPA, you can grab the pirated corporate version and avoid it. Yep, great anti-piracy measure, Bill.
Then, there’s the push towards .Net… The whole concept behind .Net is vague at best, but it centers around some internet-centric view of computing. When Sun and Oracle attempted such things (Network Computer sound familiar?), they were rightly mocked. When Microsoft restarts a bad idea like this, the media start clamoring that it is the best idea ever and will revitalize the industry. No wonder paranoids think tech journalists are MS hacks. Regardless, if you’re thinking of running programs across the internet, you’re smoking crack. Seriously, have you noticed the lack of broadband access across the nation? If you have broadband, would you consider running MS Word across a network connection? Of course not, that would be stupid. A 100 gigabyte hard drive costs less than $300 nowadays, and memory is less than 50 cents per meg. The computer sitting on the shelf at your local Office Max can look for ET while downloading music and editing photos, and you’d consider giving up control of your machine to Microsoft, of all organizations? Ha!
<rant>
As I peruse random LJ users, often linked from another of my “friends”, I notice something. Those who tend to espouse highly extreme viewpoints do so with very poor English skills. I’m willing to give a lot of slack to folks for whom English is not their primary language, of course, but a frightening number of Americans seem incapable of remembering something as simple as, “I before E except after C.”
Honestly, if you’re going to try to convince others (or the world at large) of the correctness of your views, doing so in language that would make a sixth-grade teacher cry is not a good way to do it. I have a very difficult time believing that you are capable of forming an informed opinion on a subject if you can’t spell “which” for example. Since so few of these people will listen to opposing views, no matter how simply and logically explicated, I assume this rant will fall on deaf ears. So be it.
</rant>
current_mood: bored
Categories
Tag Cloud
Blog RSS
Comments RSS
Last 50 Posts
Back
Void 
Life 
Earth 
Wind 
Water 
Fire