Recently read a document about BlackB meeting with Fravia, and the rest.

Also read how REALLY all anti-microsoft "neo-hackers", spitting on M$, really are using IE5x or NEtscape, and shitting on Opera.

Why the bloody posturing on the mbs that M$ is crap and all that bull? Peer pressure ? Or do they think that only by mouthing profanities against M$ can they be viewed as real hackers ?

I proudly say (since very long, on the old mb) that I use M$ products, and they are far better than many others.

I also understand REAL unix fans hating it. I have no issues with that. I also understand "old" hands trashing it. But all I want to do is:

Is it not time to stop talking about M$ and concentrate on how you are using IE and M$ stuff away from the prying eyes of the peers ? Like you used ta read "Hustler" hiding it from you mother, and preaching platitudes outside on the sins of the flesh ?

I am open for discussion. Sorry if it feels like a "flame", but I have no intentions of this posting being so.

Tsehp, you may delete this if you feel that this is indeed the case.

Sorry for the deviations. Only technical questions henceforth.

As ever

Well, actually I'm pro *nix (see http://hcunix.org).

At work, all my servers are *nix based, due to the need of high availability. NT, unfortunately, failed to fulfill the standards.

However, in order to cope with the incoming documents, almost all workstations are 98 boxes (approx 30, except mine). MsOffice seems to be a market standard.

My box (both at home and work) is a dual boot one. I'm using mostly *nix. For excell files, using gnumeric and for word files antiword. In case of Powerpoint files, I switch to 98.

I'll be using VmWare, though.

For word processing, I'm using RTF and HTML. For spreadsheets, gnumeric and siag.

Database applcations are server based, mysql, with win odbc support. Sql text files.

Programming GNU, both on win and *nix.

Filemanagement mc and xwincommander (explorer alike, more panels)

Both OS's appears similar on my desktop, including e-mail clients (becky and xfmail). I can ssh manage my *nix servers from both my Os's.

So, who cares what OS you're running? The important thing is using the standards. If you code on VB, you cant port it. If you write *.doc, you can't port it, if you use telnet, someone will port it... etc. etc.

Lastwords, no MS products are not bad, but never use Outlook as you mail transfer agent.

Kind regards.

I can throw in my two cents, here.

A few years ago I worked at Dell in part of a factory install group. This was shortly before Dell got into the Linux business, about the same time that Compaq swallowed Digital, and before the M$ lawsuit (to put things in perspective). One of the major barriers to entry that Dell had, which prohibited them from offering Linux sooner, was an agreement with the evil empire to sell and distribute the M$ OSes exclusively, with a discount of about $15 per license. Without the discount Dell couldn't compete; with the discount Dell couldn't offer Linux, OS/2, et. al, factory loaded. IMHO, this was an unfair agreement with implications of illegal price-fixing. IIRC, this was brought to the attention of Judge Jackson (that was his name, right?), but he didn't rebuke this agreement as he did with other M$ business practices.

Notwithstanding the Judge's opinion in that matter, you don't have to look far for other examples of unethical or illegal business practices on M$'s part. Their attempts to illegally divide the browser market with Netscape are notorious and well documented. The introduction of changes to their APIs that just-so-happen to break competing products like DR. Dos or OS/2 provide an example that shows how M$ used it's market dominance to deliberately hurt their competition. Their fairly consistent subterfuge of useful standards and protocols are a constant annoyance to developers that strive for cross-platform compatibility. And so on.

Some of these acts seem illegal, some seem unethical. All are good enough reasons to bash the evil Borg.

Surely not, I'll never delete such postings, only crack requests and useless stuff even when I'll never be the only judge for this.

I completly agree with you aimless, a lot of us are using m$ products, considering the server logs, we have about 97%, it seems normal to hear more critics about m$ than the rest.
If m$ were as bad as they say, would be so much people using their products, buying the OS ?
Celebrity comes with critics, my only hope is that nobody uses the
*organised* fight unix/m$ to divide this community.

Best regards,

tsehp

So? Have you never heard of quantity discounts and the like? This practice has been going on forever since the first smart businessman tried to outdo his competition. I have no love OR hate for MS but all i see is a strong marketing effort that is totally consistent with the corporate way of doing business. $15/unit discount??? - hell, I've seen $50- 100/unit discounts in other industries. Is it "fair" to the competition - hell NO! The operative word here is competition - this is an adversary. I guarrantee that if netscape could have done to MS what MS did to them - they would have.



And I guess that we should all bash Apple, 'cause MAC software isn't compatible with PC's? If I wrote software that I only wanted to run on XYZOS and put code in it that would crash any other OS - am I crooked? It's MY software and I want to control who uses it. Two things will happen - if my software is good enough, people will buy XYZOS to run it. If it's NOT good enough, people won't buy my software.

Before we start bashing the evil borg empire we might want to consider bashing EVRYONE in business, cause if they're successful, they are doing one or more of the things you describe. Seem to recall that quite a long time ago there was a landmark case about Schwinn Bicycles trying to do the same thing that MS is doing by controlling distribution.

I say, cut MS some slack - like it or not, the computer industry woulod NOT be as big today if it weren't for them. They've forced manufacturer's to produce faster and cheaper product. As a consumer, I benefit.

--------------
[QUOTE]Aimless (11-22-2000 17:34):
Recently read a document about BlackB meeting with Fravia, and the rest.

Also read how REALLY all anti-microsoft "neo-hackers", spitting on M$, really are using IE5x or NEtscape, and shitting on Opera.

Why the bloody posturing on the mbs that M$ is crap and all that bull? Peer pressure ? Or do they think that only by mouthing profanities against M$ can they be viewed as real hackers ?
---------------

Dear Aimless,
One year is a long time on the web. Indeed when we met in Brussel with BlackB, a long time ago, we 'confessed' each other to use MSIE Explorer MUCH more than we would like to admit... in those times, with a rudimentary Opera at hand. We were telling ourselves some thruths, which is what we always should do, and I intend to continue doing so: my own 'truth' (as far as I can feel it) today (yours can differ, of course) is that in the meantime things have evolved quite a lot AGAINST MSIE explorer: I am now NOT using MSIE anymore, not even at work, because of the sheer 'betterness' (is that the word? :-) of Opera. Especially its version 4.02 (even if it urgent needs our 'ameliorations', see recent essays on my site, so I'm not saying Opera is great and MSIE is crap, I'm saying Opera is better for my needs today, and I stick to it).

To be honest, very homnest, in this very moment I'm not using Opera: I'm using a modified version of netscape 4.75, for anonymity and testing purposes... Hi +Tsehp, is me... you like the referrals I bring arouns? :-) but I can assure you that nowadays my own personal choice when performing 'normal' browsing is and remains Opera 4.02. I'm ready to switch to MSIE if it will ever offer a better cutting of the mustard, though, but I think this hypothesis is getting more and more unlikely.

Try Opera 4.02 yourself -now- TOGETHER with whatever MSIE version you'r using and then let me know what you yourself think when you compare performances ('performances', not only 'hidden activities' take your time, at least a week experimenting before making up your mind).

Just my two cents, coz I think you got a false impression from some (true) considerations we made more than one year ago, which for many good reasons no longer apply.

Don't know if people are still 'mouthing profanities' against M$... personally I don't think it would be necessary any more: Microsoft has already lost, at least in my opinion (I don't even have any more an 'Antimicrosoft' section, you shouldn't flog dead horses, eh :-) Good riddance.

As a side consideration: the fact that people still (less and less) use a lot Microsoft products doesn't mean AT ALL that those same products are good, a very strange mass=good equation if you ask me... remember the VHS-Betamax battles? :-)

On a side note, everytime I see a book in the library with "more than 7.000.000 copies sold" advertised in big red letters onto it I, personally, know for sure that I should NOT buy it. So many zombies cannot be right.

F+

3 quick retorts for vgb:

1) Price fixing != quantity discount. One is illegal, the other isn't.

2) "Everybody does it" has never been an acceptable excuse to commit crimes. If other businesses are using anti-competitive tactics to maintain their stranglehold on an industry, then we should admonish them as we do M$.

3) Consumers (including you) do not benefit from companies that have monopoly control over an industry. Consumers benefit when they are able to choose the best quality product at the best price. Monopolies hurt consumers by denying them this choice.

Here we go.... finally one who thinks different in this era of "linux" trend

I thought this way for long time, and all i got was laughs from the huge amount of neo-hackers childs (who run linux just to smurf each others) and the graduated zombies hanging over in italians universities..... Well, what can i say ? i always said that the 2 OS (*nix and WIN) are different, and something is best done by WIN and something by *nix.

Simply, there's something u can't do performantly in *nix, and this is a fact. *nix will never be an all purpose OS like WIN, simply coz its architecture is too net-oriented. The server-client architecture of X can't be compared to the speed of the standalone GUI of WIN, and noone can deny it. Unless they get rid of the X architecture, they'll never have a gui comparable to WIN in terms of speed. It is true also the contrary, that this client-server architecture helps a lot on the net stuff side, which WIN lacks by now.

So you see, there can't be the perfect OS .... but people should be able to use the one which suits best their neads, and learn to rispect the others without spitting shit on what (often) they don't know at all.
Unfortunately, (at least here in Italy), the universities are the first to throw shit on M$ without even knowing their products... and this is because today everything is net oriented, and net=linux=work.... who says that ? You university teachers, ever noticed that there's not only net applications, but also games, gfx suites, audio suites ? You know that completely excluding WIN from italian university teachings 99% of your students gets graduated in computer science but DON'T KNOW A SHIT of what is the de-facto today standard in everything-but-net stuff ?!?!
Well, enough rants ......

I've always been proud to use MS products, and i don't see the bad in it. Its the standard, and today if you want to gain money (easy or not) you must agree to the standard. You can't code using WIN32 API or VisualC++/Basic/Delphi/Builder ? Too bad GNU guy, you work chances are very poor compared to mine.

Those things are overbloated ? Sure, infact almost every game is written used VisualC++ ..... seems this compiler is indeed good...

Windows is slow ? sure, Gnome/KDE are speed demons .... they swap as hell even with 128m ram....

In the end, no matter which OS you use .... but be sure that the OS is the best for the stuff you must do. If not, switch to another OS without wasting time...

And for *nix users ..... please open your eyes once for all, and try to see the bad and the good of Win as we WIN users try to do with your favourite OS

xOANINO
[UCF]

Ah sorry, i forgot the most important thing i wanted to say ..... too much ranting made me forgot it

To Linux users, you REALLY REALLY believe that if Linux Torvald would have been in Bill Gates position he wouldn't have acted as he's doing ? He's doing nothing bad at all, he's just a business man who runs his company, and he try everything he can to face the opponents. Wake up, this is BUSINESS!

And remember that (maybe) if there wasn't an "uncle Bill" probably we wouldn't be here chatting on this MsgBoard

enough for today, bye
xOANINO
[UCF]

Actually, IMO...
To be some sort of jolly, that's where you have chances... at least that's the kind of people anyone would love to hire... *nix-obsessed and windows-obsessed are pretty useless in a continuously a-changing world. Try your luck as windoze only or as nix only in a phase where there are so many going from Unix to NT as there are going from NT to Linux... and you'll soon realize that the (easy to guess) 'secret' is to have knowledge of BOTH fields (and to be able to see the limits and advantages of both).

This sais... we were not speaking about nix versus windoze, where we? We were speaking about Microsoft sad implementations in general (star office has given away on MAGAZINES the source code... you see what that -could-mean?) and, more specifically, we were discussing MSIE (WINDOWS) advantages and /ordisadvantages vis-a-vis Opera (WINDOWS).

There, specifically, I still miss your valued feedback...

Work well,
F+

Hey, Xoanino... I hoped to meet you in Milan in October :-)

PS:
+Tsehp... you like my referrals and User agents? :-)

eh fravione, ero senza macchina ..... in attesa di prendere quella nuova, me l'hanno consegnata poco dopo lo smau Sarà per la prossima volta

xOA[UCF]

Browsers habits in an MS OS : why opera is not sufficient (IMHO)
I try :
If you're coding in MS langages ( VB(A) stuff ... ), the greatest source of info is MS site
, which is best surfed with ie5 (take msdn library for instance,and generally the tons of specific combos: awful without ie5 ).
I sometimes have to use ActiveX plugins ( for working purposes ), so I need ie5.
I don't want to switch to Opera, because it crashes more than Netscape (it may be computer-specific, so don't flame me for that please ), it's never compliant with all weird plugins (not the "multimedia" ones, the useful ones (sam spade,alexa ...)) .
Netscape has a great bookmark management, ( the "drag&drop to bookmarks button" is the fastest way to class bookmarks IMHO ).A "ctrl B ctrl F" and you can regexp in bookmark names,urls, titles...Great.
I think the personal toolbar is really useful (I import subtrees of my bookmarks into it, like search engine helps-in local of course to gain 2 seconds-)
I use Opera for better anonymity(INSIDE, with the black&white screen,no menun, no bars :ie a great notepad.exe, and OUTSIDE , with coookies/java/scriptlangages/referer management).

And you, what are your own browsers habits?

Hi, Been visiting your "cracker" world and must say thanks....but there seems to be a small number of y'all that talk trash about M$ and thats
OK, Ford owners trash on Chevys, Chevy owners trash on Fords, they both trash on Mopar...nothing wrong with having a favorite ride. What is wrong, is sites like fu*kedprint
and others who take it too far and throw nails onto the information superhighway giving "flats" to surfers who drive explorers, and not Opera drivers, that is pure BS and makes them look like common low life thugs. Y'all claim that we should be free to surf for ANY info, then some of you select M$ surfers and tell others to "damage M$" ??????? Why not use
your time to make the highway a better road for everyone? I'm using Opera to surf "The Cracker World", so as not to get a "flat", but
EX5.5 is my browser of choice for all other surfing. I would never sink so low as to try to crash netscape or opera and you shouldn't do it either.

Perhaps I am a little more paranoid then most people but, with Opera I am given such control over my anonimity. The same reason why I don't use bundled email programs, not even Operamail. It's hard enough to wander the internet and not be followed. I just wanted to make it a little more difficult for them. Bottom line for me is, I like Opera because it's easy to customize to *my* needs.
I also have to agree with you all that whatever fits your needs then use it.
I have a question though......Am I missing a "bash Microsoft" party somewhere?
Maybe there was renewed resistence and I missed the gathering?
Just wondering what started this thread.
Peace, Woodmann

Hi Woodmann,

I don't think you missed a bash M$ party, but as a new comer, it
is quite obvious that people like *fravia are promoting a bash M$
attitude. Nothing personal *fravia, but telling people who visit
your site that they are fools for using M$, and that they should instead use Opera, sounds quite childish. The trouble is, there are new-be's who will take your advice and "damage M$". Do you have stock in Opera?? I think your students are trying to tell you
something, :time to do a little reality cracking yourself 'cause
you will end up making enemys. Frogsprint is another example, they
had anti M$ script blocking the front door, and offered free download script to fuck with Explorer surfers. (It caused them some trouble huh?) How many nails did
y'all throw onto the highway? If your server logs are true, and 97% of your members are using M$, seems to me a little help making
our rides a little more secure would be a better way to handle it.
All you reversers need to demand more respect from the teachers, bashing M$, makes you look like thugs. This internet, our computers and OS's ect. is a dynamic evolving awsome powerful tool
made by people as a whole, not a conspiracy by the 10's of thousands of real people who work at M$.