Thursday, June 9, 2011

Commentarama Issues Microsoft Fatwā

It is with heavy heart. . . no, forget that, I’m pretty happy about this, perhaps even manically so! I have decided that the time has come to rid the world of a scourge that has plagued it for far too long. Thus, today, in the spirit of peaceful co-existence, I’m issuing a fatwā against Microsoft. Yeah, @#$%ing Microsoft.

This has been a long time coming. Why? Well....

(1) I’m sick of the fact I have to spend more and more time turning off stupid features and deleting bloatware. It’s gotten so bad that what used to take an hour to set up is now taking 5-6 hours and despite my best efforts still clogs my harddrive like a lifetime of cheeseburgers squeezing my heart.

(2) I HATE the fact that arrogant Microsoft employees want to control how I set up my computer. What do I mean? Every new edition takes away features that let you customize your computer. They have even bought out programs like Tweak UI and sabotaged them just to eliminate my ability to make changes like removing the stupid arrows on the desk top icons. What kind of power-mad control freak tries to take away existing options like that? Does the furniture company tell me where I can put my couch?

(3) Stop spying on me. I mean it.

(4) I am not retarded. I don’t need my documents gathered into 14 places on the hard drive just in case I can’t find them in the other 13. Seriously, W.T.F.! I do not need you protecting me from doing things to change my computer. I do not need a bazillion backups for every moment of my computer life. Stop trying to automatically turn features back on that I’ve disabled.

(5) Stop installing half-versions of Windows on machines which keep me from being able to recover from a serious virus. . . which I only got because of your buggy code!!
And that brings me to Windows 8, the Satanic Version. Last Thursday, we the moronic public got the first glimpse of what the “geniuses” at Microsoft have planned for their next operating system. You better sit down for this.

Since they think we’re all retarded and since they haven’t been able to compete with anyone else’s phones or tablets, they’ve decided to turn the desktop into a tablet. Here’s an image of what the new Windows 8 will look like. Oh, and it has a touchscreen keyboard.

Go ahead, punch the wall, I’ll wait for you. I will not put this on my computer. And if I am somehow forced to because there are no other options, I will become a terrorist. . . I kid you not.

Not surprisingly, the techie person who announced this in a newsvertising article thought it was great: “Windows 8 looks like a step in the right direction for Microsoft.” But the public ain’t buying it. In fact, of the 491 comments that appeared in the first 20 minutes, not a single one was even slightly positive. To the contrary the comments ranged from “No, f*ck no” to “Window F*ck You will be the official name” to “Are these guys @#$% retarded?” and everything in between.

Of course, there could be a plus side to this. Microsoft doesn’t care what the public says. To the contrary, they seem to revel in going against the wishes of their market. And one tech guy thinks this may be the end of Microsoft.
The description was an eye-roller and then a shocker, as the demo of this turkey turned up with a pop-up on-screen keyboard, which is the way the keyboard crops up with a phone or tablet. I'm not sure what Microsoft is thinking, but a typical desktop computer actually has a real keyboard. You know, Microsoft even makes such a device. I'm using one now.

The basic thesis that people want exactly the same look and feel across all their personal platforms is frankly idiotic. But Microsoft is a subscriber. In this instance, all the company will manage to do is kill the platform where this UI does not belong: the desktop workstation. And that would be the end of Microsoft.
Let’s hope.

Somebody. . . looking at you Google or China. . . should take Windows XP, change it enough to get past the copyright, and then put that out as an alternative to Microsoft’s stupidity. I would do it if I had the slightest tech skills. Heck, I’d put it out for free just to destroy the company.

And that brings me back to the fatwā. Since the destruction of the company is unlikely, I hereby instead authorize and command you that if you ever meet a Microsoft person to punch them in the face. And if they are a senior manager, then use a tire iron. And if you’re ever in Seattle... well, a picture is worth a thousand words.


And so it was foretold by prophesy.

57 comments:

JG said...

In short, they're becoming more and more like Mac. Which is never a good thing. *sigh* Nice thing is, unless I buy a whole new laptop (which, hopefully, won't happen for a while) I don't have to upgrade. The hubs builds computers as a hobby and the brother-in-law does as a profession, so we are definitely the build-you-own type. Which is why I still use Office 2003 :)

JG said...

*your. sheesh.

AndrewPrice said...

JG, I still use Office 2003 and I'm not "upgrading." It anything, the next time I'm going to look into open source stuff.

One of the problems I have is that my laptops have all be cursed... dead by water, dead by bad motherboard, dead by clumsy friend.... so I seem to keep replacing them every two years. That means I'm being forced into newer and newer version of Windows.

I need an alternative. And I'm serious, someone like an Indian company could make a fortune if they stole Windows XP and put it out there as something new with promises of never doing pointless updates, but instead only doing necessary fixes. This whole plan to issue no operating systems every couple years is a scam.

And I will seriously go insane if they try to include a pop up keyboard on my monitor. Grrrrr.

AndrewPrice said...

That's ok JG, this is a fatwa in the greatest Islamic tradition of peaceful co-existence. . . spelling doesn't matter. Only the peaceful violence demanded by prophesy matters. ;-)

T-Rav said...

Windows 8. No. Just...no. This is getting unhealthy; I've been fighting for too long the urge to bash in the heads of everyone connected with the creation of software; if I have to deal with this, I will probably explode.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

After seeing that article on Windows 8, I'm having serious thoughts of going back to Linux. I'm kind of a techie, so it will be an easier road for me than for the non-techs, but Linux has apparently come a long way for ease of installation and ease of use. There's even an emulator program called WINE that allows you to run Windows apps on Linux.

And for those who vow to stay on XP forever (I am one if I could), keep in mind that the day will come when Microsoft won't support it anymore. That means that even if you restore XP onto your computer from those trusty recovery disks, you won't get the security updates from Microsoft over the Internet, which means your system will be a lot more vulnerable due to known security holes. And third party apps will become less and less supported on XP (think Windows 98 and all those other dead Windows products.)

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, Consider my fatwa as a form of release then -- you can go punch Microsoft people and know that you're morally right for doing it! :-)

Seriously though, this whole new system every two years really makes me angry. It's not even like they are making them better, they are just making them differently. If they really cared about consumers, they would be slowly but surely improving their products with only occasional jumps. Instead, they put out buggy versions and then abandon those every couple years once they have the new buggy version.

I will not upgrade. No way, no how.

Jocelyn said...

I've always been amazed by Microsoft and their apparent quest to be like apple. I use MS because it's NOT like apple. And why fix something that isn't broken? 95 and XP worked fine. One of the things I don't understand, with Vista and 7 is why an OS requires so many computer resouces. Why do I need a minimum of 4GB of RAM or a minimum 500 GB hard drive? Shouldn't your OS be simple? Microsoft things otherwise of course.

And Andrew, I 100% agree about having to find the settings you want to turn off and wedding through how they rearrange your settings. And how they take away some of your options while claiming to give you even more options! One of my pet peeves about MS (especially Vista) is how you need to be an administrator for everything. If I'm signed in as the admin, why do I need to keep reverifying that I am the admin?

And I didn't even know there was a Windows 8 in the process, ugh, how disappointing and depressing.

I may switch to open source too, I hear that it has become more user friendly over the years and doesn't feel like you're using a command line to do everything.

Enjoyed the rant!

Tennessee Jed said...

I am a retired corporate executive. Back in the day, we had computer guys who took care of our problems. At least outwardly, they didn't behave like the SNL character.

Last time I switched computers, I tried Mac. I have to say that the operating system has been a lot more stable. Most of their products seem to work as intended. Being retired, I've learned to exist nicely without msword; xls, etc.

I do agree with JG that Apple (and apparently MS) seem to do two things. 1) at the very instant you become comfortable with a particular application, they update it so you lose your comfort level. 2) Apple seems to love the slick, mobile phone technology that appears to young people. My marketing self gets that. Me, I want a big screen, a simple software package to store and edit digital photographs, massive storage capacity for my music library, 3) fast processing 4) reliability and stability of the operating system. I must have crashed my MS computer six or seven times. Still waiting for the Mac, but who knows.

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, That the problem -- once they stop supporting an operating system, it starts to become useless pretty quickly. Little new software is written that will use it. You tend to be stuck with older web browsers that won't work on newer websites, and they stop trying to fix the security holes.

That's why I think there is a huge opportunity out there for someone to take XP (which people seem to like), and put it out as a new product that they will promise to support and to improve without making wholesale changes.

Or maybe someone can even take it and put it on the net and turn it into an open source program like Linux was. I'm not sure what that would entail or the liability, but it seems like another good alternative -- and hackers seem to love doing things like that. Any idea if that's technically possible?

I've seen Linux and it was still too complicated for my tastes, but it may become an option if this is where Microsoft if going. I can't tell you how annoyed things like this make me with Microsoft.

JG said...

I'm at about every 2 year status, too. The first one, the processor just died somehow. But it was a cheap one. The last one...well, I started gaming. And while I was satisfied with my gameplay, the hubs was irritated at the (alleged) screen lag...and insisted I upgrade. Hopefully...as long as the puppies don't do anything major (they have knocked it off the couch a couple of times)...this one can stick around for a while.

Microsoft has serious "short man syndrome." They are constantly trying to "improve" what doesn't need improving because Mac sells something similar. They don't really take into account the cult factor, where Macheads will buy whatever they put out just because it's Mac and it's new, not necessarily because it's good.

For example (and I know this isn't directly Microsoft, but same thing), the new towerless desktop. Why the crap would you want a towerless desktop? My smirking Mac friends said, "About time they caught up to Apple." I said I wouldn't want one: You're now locked into a full system upgrade for the smallest hardware upgrade. To which they replied, "Why would you need to upgrade your own hardware? You can buy a new, complete unit...or take it into the Mac store and have them do it." Head=>brick wall.

Either way, this is the same type of situation. It's like, Microsoft doesn't really get that some things just don't need to be "improved" or tweaked. It's fine just the way it is. I am all for your idea of encouraging some new OS innovators out there. Do we have to outsource to India, though? That just feels dirty.

AndrewPrice said...

Jocelyn, Thanks! It felt good to rant on this topic. This is a long time frustration that gets renewed every time I have to replace a laptop or something gets changed and I discover that I can no longer change it back.

And I agree 100% on the administration thing! I am the administrator (and the sole user), so why do I constantly need to give myself permission to do things? And if it's for security, then why do I only have to hit "ok" for it to do it? It's like they did that just to annoy me.

I don't get it either about their versions. Microsoft has had some excellent products (95 and XP come to mind), but rather than build on those and improve them, they just keep putting out new (usually buggy) operating systems. I understand that they want money and they think the way to get it is to put our new products that force people to upgrade, but I think they could be doing so much better if they just keep fixing and improving the systems that already work.

And are you ever right about the amount of resources it takes to run the new systems. It feels like half my harddrive is eaten up needlessly by their OS and the bloatware they cram into it.

On the Apple fixation, I don't really get that either. I remember someone in the industry once saying that Apple was creative and Microsoft just copied, so maybe Microsoft just can't come up with original work? But that's just a guess. I don't know why they want their products to be like everyone else.

JG said...

I've never used Linux, but I keep hearing I should. It wouldn't surprise me if we went that way (at least on the desktop) before too long. It depends on what BIL can get us at the "friends and family" discount. :)

JG said...

As far as who copied whom, you should check out the made-for-TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley." It's about the origins of Apple and Microsoft. No one's hands are clean, and I'm sure the individual personalities were dramatized, but I found it really interesting. Netflix has it.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, A lot of people love Macs. In fact, there was a study the other day that said buying a Mac mimicked a religious experience in terms of how the brain responds. (They used MRIs to study brain activity.)

Personally, they seem just about the same as Microsoft to me -- both keep changing your comfort level (as you put it quite nicely) and both want to make you upgrade over and over. So I don't see much to be gained from switching over.

I think what you list that you are looking for in a computer is exactly what most people probably want -- something to handle photos, internet and a little more here and there. But the computer industry doesn't seem to get that as they prefer to cater to the youth market.... so what's new?

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

Or maybe someone can even take [XP] and put it on the net and turn it into an open source program like Linux was. I'm not sure what that would entail or the liability, but it seems like another good alternative -- and hackers seem to love doing things like that. Any idea if that's technically possible?

The problem is that Microsoft owns the source code for XP, so the best some random hacker could do is reverse engineer it and build something from the ground up that looks and behaves like XP (and probably much better for that matter.)

As for Linux, I think it's become much more respectable and mature these days. In the old days, the user interface was simplistic and you had to do a lot of things with a command line instead of a mouse. I haven't used it for years, but I think the user interface can now be made to look almost like a Windows computer. It still has the problem of not being able to run Windows apps, unless you use that emulator thing. I think this may just be a summer project for me. :-D

Unknown said...

Andrew: I'm still laughing. It's preferable to crying. I figured Windows 8 would be the biggest improvement since WindowsME. LOL

I use XP, and like you, I've been happy as a clam with Office 2003. At least with 2003, they were nice enough to make it "translation friendly" when exchanging information with others who are using newer versions. But Windows 8 will probably kill that too.

AndrewPrice said...

JG, I say India or China because they're pretty notorious about stealing software. If I knew anything about programming, I would be opening CommentaramaOS right here in the old US of A. :-)

I think you're absolutely right there is a mental aspect to this. I understand that they are in the business of making money and this is their model, but they seem obsessed with constantly "fixing things that don't need to be fixed." And even more telling is how hard they work to deny us the chance to tinker with things like the desktop. It's like they have decided that they will control exactly how we use the computer -- and that strikes me as a psychological issue. Seriously, how can it possibly matter to them if I remove the arrows on my icons? And why are there "libraries" all over my harddrive? Ug.

On Mac, I just mentioned to Jed the study from the other day where they found that buying a Mac mimicked a religious experience for some people (using brain scans to compare what parts of the brain were firing). That's telling and it does fit with the seeming Cult of Apple. I know several Apple people who will buy anything Apple puts out and then will swear that nothing else in the world can live up.

Good example with the tower. I prefer laptops at this point (despite their mortality rate), but there is something to be said about being able to swap out internal parts as they go bad or when you want to upgrade.

The most tragic loss of a laptop was a virus that literally destroyed my computer's ability to find the motherboard and start up. I lost all my files in that one..... because I am an idiot and I don't back up enough. :-(

AndrewPrice said...

JG, On Linux, my dad is a tech guy and he uses Linux. From the little I've seen, it's still too complex to get it to do "normal" things. I don't know if that's always true or maybe just the version he uses, but it's enough to make me leery of switching.

AndrewPrice said...

JG, I recall an interesting documentary on that topic years ago on PBS. I wish I could remember the name. It was really fascinating to see how these mega companies started and how weird and nasty so many of their founders were. It's an interesting story though and if I can ever figure out the name, I will certainly recommend it to people. (I haven't seen the one you mention, but I'll check it out.... I think I remember it though.)

The same guy who did the computer documentary also did a series on how the internet got started, which was just as fascinating. These things seem so normal and obvious now, but at the time these people really were working out of garages and doing things that no one had ever thought about before. It's quite a story!

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, Sounds like a good way to spend your summer! :-)

If you reverse engineer Window XP, then you're probably a lot safer in terms of copyright law. Of course, that's probably going to be harder. But I'm surprised no one has tried that yet. It would seem to be an easy way to break into the OS market.

And of course, let's not foreclose corporate espionage. I understand that the combination to Bill Gate's safe is "1, 2, 3, 4."

On Linux, I'm not technical enough to know if it's at that level yet where a switch over would be possible for most people. The versions I've seen aren't, but then I doubt those are the newest versions.

This whole thing reminds me of the modern version of being at the mercy of the auto mechanic.... "oh yeah, your OS need more blinker-light fluid." Really?

JG said...

Re laptops: Trust me, I know that for the long-haul, desktops are better investments for a multitude of reasons. I have no illusions that this laptop will last me forever. I just hate sitting at a desk. :) About once a month, the hubs offers to build me a desktop (which would also involve buying a desk) so I could do...exactly what I'm doing now, just a smidge faster? (Again, the gaming thing). I still say no. I like my mobility.

I don't get the libraries either, but it hasn't caused me an issue. I'm just glad I can still access my folders. A friend on Twitter asked "how do I copy pictures from my phone to my computer?" I said, when mine mounts to the computer, I just open up the appropriate folders on my phone and on the computer and copy and paste. She says, she can't do that, she has a Mac and an iPhone and all they let you do is sync, no folder access, no copy/paste option.

But it's SOOOO much more user-friendly!

I don't think I've ever tried messing with desktop icons. Maybe it's psychological on their part, but could it also be that perhaps the younger consumer generation just wants those types of things done for them, or would just rather have an institution determine the details of their lives, and they're responding to that? Such as, with the libraries. I'm not a very organized person by nature. So having libraries already set up is fairly helpful to me - provided I can then go in and create subfolders to organize according to my preferences (unlike the example above). So, that might be a factor, too.

I need to find that study. I've been saying for years it's a cult.

Ed said...

Andrew, Great rant as always. This is really stunning if they think switching desktops and laptops to look like phones is going to work.

rlaWTX said...

unfortunately, I am the "expert" where I work - and that is a scary, scary thing, lemme tell ya... so, I can't use "other" because I don't understand them, and if I don't understand them...
I just switched to firefox on my work desktop and my personal laptop because of IE9 - I hate it! Firefox has done OK (better than IE9), but if only I hadn't had to update!!!
Fatwa accepted.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I had a friend who was forced to "upgrade" to the new version of Word and he complains bitterly. He says they took away functions, made the files a lot bigger, and added absolutely nothing. He says it was done entirely to create an incompatibility with older versions, and I think that's probably accurate because people weren't upgrading.

This stuff is really annoying.

CrispyRice said...

I'd post a comment, but I can't see for all the blood boiling in my eyes.

Anyone wanna teach me Linux?

Where'd I leave that pitchfork and ticket to Seattle?

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

Andrew, your mention of the auto mechanic made me think of that classic analogy that was floating around the Internet years ago that compared Windows to operating a car.

If Windows were a Car

I'm particularly fond of point #3. :-D

AndrewPrice said...

JG, I think a lot of it comes down to "we know what's good for you and we're going to give it to you." That's my thinking. Take the libraries. I find them useless because I keep things separate on my harddrive in different folders so that the wrong programs don't pull them in. For example, I don't want my screen saver pulling in the photos I create for this website. But if you let the libraries do their thing, all your photos and all your docs end up in the same place and it becomes a mess.

Beside that, I'm probably OCD or something like that and it just drives me crazy to have my computer cluttered with things like pointless libraries that contain nothing more than a thousand shortcuts to other folders. STOP THE CLUTTER!!!

I also understand people are having problems with their computers renaming their songs, which is causing problems when they try to load them to MP3 players. I haven't had that problem yet, but I delete all the MS music/video stuff and go get my own.

I'm the same way with the desktop. I started using a laptop in 1999 and have never looked back. I love the mobility, despite the constant threat of file-death.

I do the game thing too now and then, though I usually go for oldies but goldies. For example, I've recently found a way to make Railroad Tycoon III work on my laptop... which is not a good thing, though it makes me happy. :-)

Here's the Mac article: Mac Cult. I love the idea of an Apple inspired war in malls... LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That's the problem of living in a bubble. They are probably all sitting around playing on phones telling each other "that's how everyone lives, so let's give it to them." It's the same way Detroit constantly misses what the rest of the country is thinking -- because they all think alike and they assume they represent the rest of the country, when they don't.

Jocelyn said...

Pitt, that is hilarious, and I believe so very true.

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, Excellent! You will be rewarded for accepting the fatwa! ;-)

I actually switched to Firefox for the same reason -- they forced me to upgrade to IE 7 and I didn't like it. Firefox was more like what I was used to, so I switched and I've never gone back.

On your other point, that's something else that tech companies too often don't get. Most people don't have techies on staff to fix the problems, so we need simple, stable platforms with small learning curves that we already understand. That's why these jumps are so anti-customer. If your job isn't to be a tech person, who has the time to learn a new system, implement it, and keep fixing the bugs they haven't even worked out yet.

One place I used to work switched to Vista and promptly switched back when they couldn't make it work in a reasonable amount of time. Who needs that?

AndrewPrice said...

Crispy, Send me an invoice for your pitchfork and we'll reimburse it out of the fatwa fund! ;-)

JG said...

@Pittsburgh Enigma: That's pretty funny. In fact, I *do* push the start button to turn my car off, since it's keyless. :) Here's another one that's floated around the internet for a while: http://tinypic.com/r/2zqyk5l/7

Thanks for the article!

Now, Andrew, did you see the South park episode a few weeks ago, CentiPad? I could only watch about half of it, really (my gross tolerance is very, very low) but I thought it was hilarious.

JG said...

Sorry, I'm horrible about remembering to turn links clickable in comments: link

BevfromNYC said...

Okay, I am guilty. I love new technology and am helpless to stop myself from upgrading. Please help me...I just bought a Ipad 2 even though I know Apple is one of the great Evil Empires along with Microsoft and Google. But now I am totally hip and cool! It's really important to be hip and cool. I can't buy a car, so I have to use the inner city urban version - the latest in electronic technology - Ipad, Iphone, Droid, Ipod. The Lord is my Ipad...Please make it stop.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

Andrew: on the reverse engineering of Windows XP, there's another problem that Microsoft has been notorious for: undocumented features. Even if a group of experienced techs could reproduce XP (which shouldn't be that difficult), how XP is documented to function and it actually functions are two different things. Microsoft has always been at an extreme advantage in developing its own applications because it routinely utilizes undocumented features in its Windows API (application programming interface) that other non-Microsoft programmers don't know about. So Microsoft could implement super cool features on the programming side of Windows that would make Windows applications perform much better than any competitor's product. This may have been one of the things they were in trouble about with the Justice Dept. One could argue that this is just a competitive advantage that they are entitled to, but I don't agree. I think MS is a malicious company and always has been. They don't respect their users, and they certainly have never played fairly in the marketplace. I don't feel at all sorry for them when I hear about how much China pirates their software.

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, Thanks! I've never seen that before and it's hilarious!!!

I really like No. 11: Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

AndrewPrice said...

JG, Thanks for the link, I'm sure there are Mac users out there who would not like the comparison, but it is pretty funny!

I missed that South Park episode -- I've only seen a couple of the newest season, but I'll catch it in reruns. The other computer one that I keep thinking about is the Facebook episode where they all keep friending each other and getting upset about who is friending whom.... and then Facebook turns into a monster. LOL!

JG said...

Yes, I loved that one! But I'm an old-school Tron fan, so that was also a factor. The hubs (who never saw the original Tron) didn't get it.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I didn't even know there was an Ipad2?

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure they have "deprogrammers" who can help you! ;-)

Interestingly, when I was in DC, tech was the same sort of status symbol. Everybody had to have the coolest, newest cell phones, pagers, PDAs, laptops, etc. I guess that's part of the human condition?

Anyway, don't sign up for any sort of "cyborg plan" or anything that uses the words "bio implant"!

AndrewPrice said...

P.S. Bev, I literally just joined the Kindle generation last night. :-)

AndrewPrice said...

Pitts, I feel the same. Microsoft has never been a good player in the market -- they have done predatory competitive practices and they are abusive to their customers and to other companies who need to use their code to make their own products conform. Thus, I have no sympathy either if DOJ takes them down or breaks them up or if China steals them blind.

In fact, I suspect that their reputation is so bad that if a legitimate competitor did emerge for the OS, then Micrsoft would collapse like a house of cards. But no one other than Apple has jumped into that market -- and Apple seems content to be only a small part of the market.

I didn't know they hide parts of their code, but it doesn't surprise me. For a company that wants to track and control every move of their customers, they sure don't like anyone knowing what they are up to.

AndrewPrice said...

JG, I'm a big (original) Tron fan too. That movie deserved a lot more respect than it got!

DUQ said...

Don't let China or India steal it, let Americans steal it! ;-)

LL said...

Macs are more stable, they're not prone to the virus problems that infest the MS OS series and to me there is simply no contest. When Mac introduced OS X, running on a Unix kernal, it hit the sweet spot and it's still going strong.

I don't blame you for issuing a fatwa on Microsoft. I did it years ago.

Tennessee Jed said...

yeah Andrew, I sure don't want to give the impression that I bliss out over Mac or that Jobs is the second coming of Jim Jones. Like LL, my main point is it doesn't seem to get viruses or crash (KNOCK ON WOOD.) The thing that got me on to Apple originally was the ipod which I liked and the apparent way itunes was logically set up. To your, and everybody elses point, though, they keep "improving" itunes for no apparent reason and in ways I don't like.

Beyond that, they probably market well, and I have seen Mac worshippers. Last thing I'll do is worship a computer l.o.l.

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, I'm all for Americans stealing it. ;-)

AndrewPrice said...

LL, I understand the Apple OS is more stable and less prone to viruses. Unfortunately, there's always been an incompatibility problem with Apple products.

In any event, it's good to see that I am not alone in my dislike for Microsoft!


By the way, as an aside, the first two computers we had were Apples -- an Apple II and I think an Apple IIe (or maybe Apple Plus). That was back when most programs were written in basic. We switched to the PC when Apple shifted to the Mac because my father was doing a lot of programming and he liked DOS.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, It's my understanding that Apple has a better system, though compatibility can be a problem. My biggest issue with switching has always been that I didn't want to lose all my old programs, which I think would not be compatible. But I may not have a choice if this Windows Version 8 comes out. Grr.

In terms of the worship, there is definitely something to that. I don't understand it, so I can't explain it. But it's definitely there -- not with all their users (as you and LL prove) but with some portion of them.

And yeah, I don't want to worship a computer either -- that sounds too much like Beneath the Planet of the Apes!

Koshcat said...

Andrew, stop buying name brand computers at big box stores. Get on newegg and build your own. Actually really easy especially a desktop. Then just buy the OS you want. The beauty is it won't come loaded with gigs of crap.

I have had a Mac for several years (same one) with no problems. I am not a gamer and want a computer I can surf, load pictures and edit, store music, ect. I am not interested in hacking into WOPR. I am typing this in bed on my iPad which is nice for somethings but doesn't replace a laptop.

Wife has MS laptop. All the administrator crap is annoying.

Joel Farnham said...

The purpose of the administrator is to take away an easy hack. Certain programs in order for it to control your computer need the level of administrator. Some updates won't update unless you open that level of security.

If the level of security is set at user level all the time (You can do that.), a hacker can gain control of your computer by dropping a control program on your hard drive. If the computer has an administrator level, then the hacker's job is that much harder.

I am not really that happy with Microsoft because their documentation is crap. It took me about six months of no updates and an obscure reference to figure that out about the administrator.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshkat, I like Newegg! (but that doesn't solve the long term problem that older operating systems stop being compatible and you eventually are forced to upgrade).

Only my last laptop came from a big box store because my old one blew up right in the middle of a project that was due that day -- so I needed a replacement. I ended up with an HP which had even more bloatware on it. I've since stripped out gigabytes of HP garbage, but there is still more which I'm not sure if I can delete it or not -- don't want the dvd drive to stop working.

I know some people who swear by the ipad now, but I still prefer a keyboard.

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, I understand that their documentation is a mess and that a lot of what they do is not documented. . . hmm, undocumented programming, maybe we should deport them?

The administrator thing is just one of a million little things that upset me with Microsoft. The biggest is the constant, pointless leaps they make to force people to update and then the arrogance of trying to control minutia of how my system looks.

Notawonk said...

andrew: you are down right delicious when pissed off! i laughed all the way thru this, except for the evil microsoft part. for that i punched my wall....thanks for waiting.

this fatwa is for you!

AndrewPrice said...

Patti, Thanks! I'm glad you're on-board with the fatwa! Maybe we can this thing fixed? :-)

darski said...

I waited to buy a computer until they had win 7 which of course was going to be better than Vist which was a disaster. Two weeks after I got it I was in my Yahoo mail begging my son to come and put in XP. (he was in exams and mid degree at the time) I could not believe that Fascist Bill Gates really believed that he knew more about how I should use my computer than I did. There is a connection between his need to run every computer on the earth and his desire to kill 80% of the world's population. (that is not a joke... sob, sob)

AndrewPrice said...

darski, One a control freak always a control freak. And I think they have a culture at Microsoft that says they know better than everyone else and they intend to control our lives.

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