18 May 08 Wasted Time
More time wasted with sucky Windows.
I have a client who wants her computer restored back to life. The XP OS has gotten so corrupted the only sensible course of action is to re-install it.
However, as Microsoft have this real stupid OEM system, where only a copy of Windows for a particular brand will work on any machine (even when you’ve got the product key sticker on the system box, you can’t even use a CD from another machine.
Now this machine in question is an HP. I too, have an old HP, but alas, it’s not the same tpye of HP as this one, so the OEM CD I have for it won’t work, and this client’s one doesn’t come with a CD but an even sillier system called a recovery partition.
Now, with that idea, you are supposed to make a set of recovery CDs when you first get the machine, but I guess that a lot of non-computer people don’t realize that anyway, and don’t do it. The recovery partition on this machine doesn’t work, and there’s no recovery CD, so now the only other option is to spend more money to send off for a backup that in my view HP should supply you with in the first place.
Still the whole system sucks. None of this crap with Linux. Just put the CD in almost any machine and away you go.
No stupid activation nonsense either.
You know, perhaps it’s a pity that Microsoft didn’t buy out Yahoo, and overreach themselves and keel over and die in the process. They deserve too. Another big BOO to Redmond. Ballmer and Gates, your company sucks.
Tags: bill gates is an asshole, crap, hp, linux, microsoft, microsoft is rubbish, microsoft is trash, microsoft should die, microsoft sucks, money, nonsense, oem system, ov, recovery cd, recovery cds, recovery partition, sensible course, yahoo
10 Apr 08 It Gets Worse
First there’s news that Microsoft is going to start using it’s well-known bullying tactics to try and get its way in its efforts to take over Yahoo.
Now, the latest rumor is that Murdoch’s News Corporation – well known for its political bias, and it’s dumbing down of all that it touches – is weighing in on the act too.
All this in an effort to try tip Google out of it’s #1 position in the search engine rankings, and to stifle its threat to Microsoft with its excellent online email and document programs?
As I’ve written before, I’m one of those people that spurn the overpriced, overbloated, slow memory and resource hogging Microsoft offerings such as MS-Office for Gmail, and Google Docs. Google’s products are not only free, but more importantly they work. Gmail offers better and faster search capabilities than Outlook, doesn’t produce reams of extra code in each email, and doesn’t take up megabytes of my hard drive space that I then need to spend extra money on to access remotely when I’m out of my office.
I don’t even run Windows on most of my computers.
So, why, Microsoft, would I want to spend $400 on your product, and how will you taking over Yahoo, change my mind?
Tags: document programs, drive space, email, extra money, gmail, google, google docs, hard drive, megabytes, microsoft, microsoft offerings, ms office, murdoch, news corporation, political bias, reams, search capabilities, search engine rankings, slow memory, yahoo
05 Feb 08 What Is All The Yahoo About?
Why does Microsoft want to buy a failing company like Yahoo for? Like it or not, Google is the main search engine of choice for the overwhelming majority of the online population.
Remember the likes of Excite and Lycos? They seem to have vanished. AltaVista and inktomi got swallowed up by Yahoo themselves.
What Yahoo CAN offer Microsoft are the deals they have with Verizon, and the inroads they have made into the mobile market.
Windows Mobile 6 might not have the best reputation for stability (what Windows OS does), but WM7 is on the way, and more and more people are using mobile phones for everything but making phone calls.
What about the iPhone? Well, the iPhone is rather a cool niche product, but it does really offer mobile computing in the same way that Windows Mobile can and does, and as most of my readers will know, I am no fan of the Redmond giant.
Also many people that hacked their iPhone’s to work on other networks besides AT&T are now finding they no longer work after the latest iPhone updates. Also the iPhone is, officially, tied to AT&T, which is an expensive, slow, network.
Now, Google are looking to get into this area too. It’s well known that Google are bidding to obtain wireless spectrum, and are touting the idea of an open source phone with free (but advertisement-funded) software.
Google’s fear (besides being concerned that a Microsoft/Yahoo enterprise will eat into their market share) is that Microsoft will use their monopolistic powers to subvert the net; to change it slowly but surely, into MS-Net, much as they’ve done already, in the way they’ve stamped their feet at OpenOffice getting ISO 9002 certification for the .odt format, and they way they’ve only adopted the bits they decide they want in the Internet Explorer rendering engine.
Some say that Google is becoming too powerful, and heading towards a monopoly like Microsoft largely is. My own take on that statement is that whilst Google are enveloping the online world, by and large, unlike Microsoft, they are using standards that are already in place, and not trying to bend and change them to suit their own business practices.
Tags: inroads, iphone, market windows, microsoft, mobile computing, mobile market, mobile phones, niche product, overwhelming majority, phone calls, population, redmond giant, reputation, search engine, verizon, windows os, yahoo
