Here in Germany, they have been showing a commercial on television for
product X. The interesting thing about this commercial is that it shows
disgruntled computer users bashing in their monitors, throwing their
computers out of windows, etc.... The really interesting part of this
commercial is the following line: 67% of all computer users are
dissatisfied with their computers. Since it is safe to assume that all
of the computer users shown are more than likely using some version of
Windows, how does this jibe with the fact that MS claims to have the
easiest and most satisfying desktop on any PC?
Clearly, something is amiss here. My tendency is to believe the
number mentioned. At work, part of my responsibilities is on-site
support. Everyday, I have to go to fix things that people have messed
up, or attempt to figure out why windows decided to trash someone's
data. On a daily basis, I hear people complain about Windows, or MS
products. I will be the first to agree that the end-user is sometimes
at fault; however, this is not true in 100% of the cases.
The winvocates that continue to spout off ridiculous uptimes--no NT
machine in existance could have an uptime of years, simply due to the
necessity of installing service packs--, ignorance on the part of any
user that has problems with Winxx, the perceived complexity of setting
up a *nix server, the continual crossposting to COMNA with obvious
trolls, etc..., need to get a grip and come to terms with the
situation. BG was not able to push *nix boxes off the face of the earth
and he never will be able to. Win2K will not be the OS messiah to make
it happen, either.
I find it very amusing how much *nix legacy is buried in NT.
Confusing a GUI that creates and modifies config files with doing the
modifications by hand does not make it any easier to configure NT.
Believing that the average small business person can install, set up and
maintain an NT box is like believing that my wife can do it--it ain't
gonna happen, fokes!
While you winvocates continue to pay your MS tax--and the amount will
be increasing--Linux advocates will continue to make in-roads to the
server market with the development of journaling files systems (already
exist, thank you SuSE), refined desktop apps, games and multimedia,
etc.... Of course, we will not have to pay any "tax" to use our
systems. If we choose to, we can use freeware, shareware, or pay
* prices for software. We can custom fit out kernels to our
systems, update a config file with a simple text editor in much less
time than a winvocate can using point-n-click, and have real fun with
our computers, because we are not shut out from the internals of our OS.
Have a nice day!
David Goldstein