“You’ve really done it this time,” Brett writes in an open letter to Microsoft Corp. posted to the Pseudomarkting blog.
“And I am leaving and never speaking to you again,” Brett writes. “It’s not that I want to dislike you. I was loyal to you for so long. I stuck with you through thick and thin. From DOS 5.0 through XP.”
MacDailyNews Take: Poor bastage. We tried Windows once… ONCE!
Brett continues, “But this new operating system is the last straw… You’d think at least someone (other than your PR people) would find something to like about a piece of software that took an industry leader five years and a gazillion dollars to develop. But I’ve yet to hear anyone say ‘Wow!’ about it.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, come on, we’ve heard plenty of “Wows” — all of them preceding “this sucks.”
Brett continues, “Most people say it’s a just a naggy, inferior imitation of Mac OS X… I had this epiphany when I tried out my friend’s Macintosh with OS X. I realized how much grief you’d put me through: the constant crashes whenever I tried to run more than three applications, the endless required reboots, and the vicious malware attacks that I wasted many precious hours wrangling with. And then having to pay extra for third party security and virus programs – because you couldn’t keep a handle on things…”
“The secret is out, Microsoft. The reputation that you can’t be trusted to deliver reliable software is getting around fast,” Brett writes. “Hasta la Vista!”
Full letter here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: For Windows-only users via Google News or elsewhere: Cut your losses. Get a Mac.
“Viruses and malware is not the big issue for most users that Mac users like to pretend – most PC users install a security suite and move on”
A straight lie.
“Cerf told his listeners that approximately 600 million computers are connected to the Internet, and that 150 million of them might be participants in a botnet—nearly all of them unwilling victims.”
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070125-8707.html
Back in th eOS 9 days, I would tell my freinds, associates and almost anyone who would listen about Macs. They would ask me to describe what the difference between Apple and M$ is in non-computer terms.
So I would tell this story:
When you are cold in the winter and need to cut firewood for your fireplace, which would you rahter do while you are out in the freezing cold forest – sit down and assemble your chaisaw each time you needed ot cut a piee of wood – disassemble it and then reassemble it to cut the next piiece of wood OR would you rathre just pull the cord cut your wood and go home and be warm in your nice cozy cabin?
Obviously, they would choose the later. Doh!
How does that relate? Consider that all I have to do the use an appilcation in the Apple world (for he most part) is start the computer and open the applicaiton and since I learned know the conventions for one application (let’s say MS Word), I will know where most of the rest of the menu pull downs, etc. are in tany other application. Most of the learnig is over. It becomes intuitive from then on.
Fast forward to, oh say, now… pre 10.5 and let’s see – true plug and play, app conventions are incrediblly the same system wide (not counting GUI decoration bits from app to app, when I install most applications I do not need to restart my computer to go to work, no fouled plugs (Viruses Infections Spyware Trojan horses Adware) to worry about,
“It just works”
Funny Microsoft – even after all of the copying can’t say that.
Now you can either throw another log on the fire or a shrimp on the barbie (actually we eat prawns but you Northern Yanks wouldn’t get that one).
I have a MS DELL in my lab – I wanted to use a web cam to communicate with colleagues on SKYPE. So I bought a webcam – pluged it in and went through all of the iterations that I need to do to get it to be seen by the confuser and low and behold SKYPE sees it but won’t use it. Says some other application is using it. Even when I don ot ave anything else running!
So I have brought my 17 Powerbook (the relic,
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> ) and it is my dedicated iChat, SKYPE, YM, etc tool in the lab. I realy can’t wait to see some of my CNC applications become availabel on the Mac. Would be lovely to not have any M$ crap in my offices or lab. (We are all Mac except for the two DELL POSs in the lab.
Microshaft – What Else Were You Planning To Do Today?
Sorry for all of the typos – I hate Dyslexia. It is no fun to see the mistakes AFTER I press the submit button…
I hope you got the line of thinking there. Thanks.
Cheers!
Really!
@R and @Twisted Mac Freak
Among the Pennsylvania Dutch folk a hex or hexe is a spell placed on someone to cause them bad luck or to make their plans go awry. I place one on Microsoft daily.
Abe Stolzfus, Wizard, B.W., M.A.W., D.A.W.; Hogwarts, 1970
I used Windows Vista for less than 5 minutes at my work (testing a web app) and the save dialog for IE 7 wouldn’t do its thing. You’d try to save a file from a site and the first dialog would appear asking what you’d like to do (okay, cool), then you’d opt to save and nothing else would happen. After a reboot, the problem went away… but only having a 5 minute experience with Vista and the luck of finding a bug like that tells me that Vista was a rushed product and tells me that Microsoft has a ways to go before they’ll actually deliver a real finished product. I have noticed one thing that hasn’t disappeared, the screen redraws are still the same as they were in Windows 95, come on, if you’re going to copy Apple, at least pay attention to what Apple does in this department!
“And before screaming and shouting at this post, I do suggest you spend a few hours with Vista so that you can actually respond with a first-hand comparison.”
I support software on Vista, XP, and OSX all day long. Am I qualified? Can I tell you how much I love teaching people how to hack the registry?
“That Vista can be argued to be so “wonderful” by the technically literate and so technically incapacitating by so many average joes is the real reflection of the product.”
my brother is technically literate. he is a fully certified network engineer, and has certs for linux, php, MS, novell…… he makes his living being a geek. big time. he does NOT see vista as wonderful.
in his house are 2 linux servers, 2 XP desktops, an iMac, and a MacBook Pro. he has a little bit of experience to spread around here is what i am saying….
he says that his company installed Vista on 2, only 2, machines, and they are now beyond his help short of zeroing the drives and starting over. he also tells me that vista is the single biggest POS he has ever dealt with in his life, and then points out that he installed windows ME.
i agree with you that the average Joe thinks Vista sucks. but the geeks who aren’t blinded by all things MS have the same opinion.
the world just has to face the fact that Vista is a dog. even by microsoft standards…..
hack the registry
That is rich! I have not had to do that since I stopped working with ms stuff eight years ago! Before that were config.sys and setup.ini games I used to play.
I had a Comaq laptop, bought in 2002, an XP capable laptop. I tried Vista from the late beta program days to it’s release. While I did get it to install just fine, it did not have drivers for any of the following:
1) NIC interface
2) Soundcard
3) Modem
The dispaly, keyboard and trackpad had drivers (whew), but the display was a generic 800×600, not the full 1024×768 the screen could display. Basically it is a brick to Vista, about 5 years after purchasing it.
Now I relegate that laptop to Linux only, and am moving exclusively to Apple hardware, as my 1999 purchase is still fully functional and runs the latest OS no problem. You can’t beat that kind of value, folks.
Booting From Diskette Then Installing From CD
This method of distribution has the advantage that the hard disk does not have to be pre-configured in any way. The INSTALL program will detect the absence of partitions and run FDISK if necessary. This is a good solution because you spend little effort pre-configuring the hardware prior to shipping.
The following example describes how you create the distribution for this solution:
1. Format a floppy diskette using the FORMAT program supplied in the \DRDOS\INSTALL directory on the CD. Use the /S switch to transfer system files.
2. Use the CONFIG.SYS file in the \OEM\SDKS\RDK\FLOPPY directory on the CD as a template for the CONFIG.SYS file which you must now create on the boot diskette.
The sample CONFIG.SYS has comments indicating where you would insert a CD-ROM driver for example.
3. Edit the country and keyboard settings in the CONFIG.SYS file to suit your target customers and copy CONFIG.SYS to the root of the diskette.
4. Copy the sample AUTOEXEC.BAT file from the \OEM\SDKS\RDK\FLOPPY directory on the CD to the root of the diskette.
5. Copy the following files from the \DRDOS\INSTALL directory on the CD to the root of the diskette.
HIMEM.SYS
SETVER.EXE
KEYB.COM
COUNTRY.SYS
DPMS.EXE
NWCDEX.EXE
SETUP.INI
6. Edit the SETUP.INI file on the diskette to make the following changes:
7. Add a line to the [OEM] section to facilitate installation of the CD-ROM driver, for example:
CONFIG=CD-ROM driver, 2555, A:\CDROM.SYS, DEVICE=%1%s\%0%s /D:MSCD0000
8. Replace CDROM.SYS with the name and location of your CD-ROM driver.
9. Add a line to the [AUTOEXEC.BAT] section to facilitate loading of the CD-ROM redirector, for example:
NWCDEX /D:MSCD0000
10. Edit the dos:d:SETUP.INI line in the [Disk1] section to read dos:d:A:\SETUP.INI. This forces install to use the SETUP.INI on the diskette and to ignore the one on the CD.
11. Copy your CD-ROM driver to the boot diskette.
Duh, what third grader didn’t already know that, doc?
Sheesh.
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“And I am leaving and never speaking to you again,” Brett writes. “It’s not that I want to dislike you. I was loyal to you for so long. I stuck with you through thick and thin.”
Is this referring to bad software or a bad marriage?
MS is like an abusive spouse. They’re forever promising to finally straighten themselves out, but behind each new face festers the same ugly core.
There comes a time to realize the hoped-for changes will never come, and that it’s time to move on.
@doc
Or on a Mac:
Insert DVD – double-click Install Mac OS X – follow the simple prompts – done!
Diskette? How quaint!
Thank Gods and Little Fishes that we’ve never had to put up with this shite on the Mac.
=:~)
hehe, I remember my first Mac in my first job as a designer for Newsquest had a HUGE Umax scanner attached via SCSI interface. I killed my motherboard because I accidentally pulled the SCSI cable out of the back of my BEIGE G3 desktop. That was 1997, 10 years ago…
…today, I’ve got a tiny Canon USB scanner that’s plugged into my screenless G4 Tower (accessed by using Image Capture the scanner shows up on my network), and the G4 Tower is also my Mail Server for my family. Connected to that is my AirPort Extreme n Base Station, with 2 printers and 4 hard drives attached to it’s USB port via a hub. OS X kicks ass, it lets you do all these amazing things and THEY WORK AND KEEP WORKING.
I use my MacBook to control the Mac Pro via VNC, and my wife and children all use Macs, the wife has an iMac (G5) and the kids have an iBook (G4) and a Graphite iMac CRT (G3). All these Macs work exactly the same as each other, and I can interact with them exactly how I need to (iPhoto sharing, iTunes music sharing etc etc). We plan on getting an TV for Christmas as a present for all of us.
I think the point I’m trying to make is I have Macs of all ages, all working seamlessly together and stable. Reliable. Efficient. Quiet. Smooth.
You just can’t say something like that about a Windoze setup.
“I use my MacBook to control the Mac Pro”
obviously wishful thinking on my behalf. I meant G4 Tower.
MW: figure, as in go figure.
Vista would be awesome for the iPhone like device no doubt headed our way from MS in the next year. The innovation continues in Redmond while Apple sucks gas.
The whole pricing mess with these seven ridiculous versions of Windows Vista is really all the info you need to see how out of touch and plainly stupid the market robots at Micrsoft really are. They had a chance to consolidate the line and sell the OS as the thing to have, but what do they do? Create an OS so bloated and overwrought that it automatically ghettoizes anyone without the very latest hardware. They then presents this mess as “choice”.
Pathetic.
That guy from Tech TV, Leo ???
I heard one of his Mac Break Weekly Podcasts where he’ was saying good things about Vista. Not that I care now but it was surprising to hear him say such. I think he was talking about the security being ‘just as good’.
iPhone like device
Zune rhymes with tune
Lone rhymes with phone
MS Lone, will work when ever you come within range with any other Lone Owner, but only when within range of another Lone Owner. You can call and talk to each other! WOW! I had one of those when I was a kid. Used little paper cups and a string!
What’s a diskettte?
Oh..and What is a bastage? Its a cork soaker born out of wedlock.
“Wow! This sucks!!!” is exactly what I said a week after upgrading to Vista. It made my year-old PC feel like an old 486. Then there’s the drivers that don’t work, programs that don’t run, and the bad joke known as UAC. I have never been so disappointed in an OS upgrade in my life.
And by the way, Aero is downright ugly and distracting once you get over the “shiny object” factor. Not that I ever really liked the childish look of XP, but I had really hoped MS would get it right this time. They didn’t. I constantly felt like my eyes were out of focus with the odd mix of blur, transparency, and gloss. And just because you have 16,777,215 colors to play with doesn’t mean you have to use them all at the same time!
Anyway, I’ve switched back to XP for the time being. What a nightmare that was! I guess if you buy the Vista upgrade they deactivate your old XP product key. I had to call and convince some guy who barely speaks English that I’m not a criminal trying to rip-off the oh-so-poor Microsoft. He finally read me this huge number that I had to type into XP to get it activated again.
The bottom line is FU Microsoft! I’m going to be in the vicinity of an Apple store on Tuesday and will very likely pick up a new MacBook Pro. I’ve had a friend who’s been trying to get me to switch for a couple of years and I’ve blown him off in hopes that Vista would be great. All I can say now is, “Wow! I should’ve bought a Mac.”
Jordan & etc.:
Glad to hear that Vista’s working out for you. Really. I hope you’re liking it, and that it works for you. I especially hope that MS gets its security, malware and drivers issues solved, because its a PITA to do tech support for windows using friends and relatives.
I used Windows myself for years, and it has some things going for it. The biggest one is software compatibility; everything is written for the OS. Possibly an even bigger reason is that I had used Windows since Windows 95, and was used to how it worked.
But I got sick and tired of all the malware issues in XP. It seemed that even casual surfing got my systems infected with adware and spyware, bogging it down to the point that it barely worked at all. After having this happen a few times, I got po’ed enough to switch to Mac. Haven’t had a problem with stability or malware since.
Literally every person I know with XP has been infested with malware, period. My parents, co-workers, friends, colleagues; all of them. My fiancee has to update and run adaware and spybot two or three times a week because they start affecting the performance of her machine, even though she now uses current versions of opera and firefox as her browsers! (God knows how many times she’d have to run it a day if she still used IE.)
You may be saying that we all should quit bitching and buy security software to protect ourselves. My question to you would be why we should be forced to do this. Good windows security software, in my experience, don’t work half the time, and hog CPU cycles to the point where it effects a computer as much as the malware itself. Why should computer users at the consumer level be forced to endure this? I don’t think there is a valid reason why except that Microsoft didn’t have the stones to switch to a more secure OS foundation like unix or linux for fear of losing customers. I don’t want to spend a significant amount of time on my computer having to do maintenance or malware repair; my computer should be working for me instead of me having to work for my computer. It should be simple (hopefully, elegant) and just work. You shouldn’t have to be a security expert or computer nerd to keep your computer running smoothly.
Again, hope Vista’s working out for you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to post messages on a Mac message board. Please give us your email addresses so that we may direct all those who suffer from malware to you, so that you may use your abundant free time to help them.
“And by the way, Aero is downright ugly and distracting once you get over the “shiny object” factor. Not that I ever really liked the childish look of XP”
am i the only one who thought XP looked like it was designed by the lego team?
….not that i am knocking legos, at least you can make something out of them that won’t crash.
“Besides, I don’t know anyone who can’t get Vista up and running the first time. It just works. You Apple lemmings have no idea. Aren’t you tired of the SCSI conflicts? How do you get anything done when are always zapping the PRAM and rebuilding the desktop? And the malware for MACs. Thank goodness I never got a MAC. I just don’t have time for all the hassle.”
Your so funny! I never met someone who actually still lives in 1989! Get a real life, next thing your going to say is that Pong is the best game ever!
My vista is working like a charm (the PC is kinda old: P4 2.8GHz, 1GB, GF6600, but it works flawlessly) but I simply prefer MacOSX.