scott wrote:
>> Are you crazy?? Most of the software I see around me costs £20 - £40. 
>> £350 is seriously expensive!
> 
> 60 pounds for a pretty complex word processor, spreadsheet and 
> presentation package seems completely reasonable to me.
> 
> 290 extra pounds for an email client, desktop publisher and database 
> seems a bit extreme, but this is aimed at companies, not individuals, so 
> of course they make the price higher.
> 
> The alternative is to charge 100 pounds for the home edition, and 200 
> for the professional edition, but I suspect they would make vastly less 
> money that way.
> 
> 

Its not aimed at companies though. Companies "generally" don't go around 
installing single machines, but buy "bulk" licenses, which gives them 
"discounts" on installs. Sometimes they can even talk MS into handing 
them the stuff for free (though not the upgrades).

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> MS... doesn't. Their goal is just to make things look impressive, and do
>> enough to sell the product. Its not until it becomes obvious that they
>>
> 
> Part of this has been disgussed here before - MS lives by selling
> software (and hardware) and most of computer users don't have a clue of
> what's happening under the bonnet, so they have to do (also) visual
> changes (which aren't always improvements) to make people see a
> difference to older system. Hence one goal automatically is to make
> things look impressive.
> 
> -Aero


And, if they where doing something more than just sticking the "shell" 
of this:

http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?s=technology&c=news&l=on&pic=080324-aptera-car-02.jpg&cap=The+electric+hybrid+Aptera+(greek+for+%22wingless+flight%22)+is+a+3-wheeled+motorcycle+registered+with+DOT+and+the+California+DMV.+The+production+model+will+go+85+mph+and+get+300+mpg%2C+the+company+states.+Credit%3A+Aptera.com&title=

on this:

http://www.omnieye.com/mc/ad-pics/22140345.jpg

I might be a bit more impressed. ;) lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Darren New wrote:
> I had no problem moving my home directory to a different partition.
> 
Home, yeah. But.. You don't want to do this "before" you install some 
things, or they break (and yeah, yeah, they don't follow spec, blah, 
blah.. But geeze...), and somehow I doubt that it moved "everything", 
not just the documents.

Main point is, must Linux allow you do do this when setting it up, you 
don't have to "manually" change it later on, when you have been using it 
for weeks, and realize you screwed up.

>> to defraggers that still, to this day, don't have the common sense to 
>> defrag the "unused" space, 
> 
> Sure they do. Have for ages.
> 
Just ran mine recently and watched. It may now crunch the unused space 
(badly though), but not the other.

>> or optimize program access (never mind all the third parties that 
>> figured that one out as far back as Win3.11), to.. an endless list.
> 
> They do that too, and have for ages.
> 
No they don't. Or not visibly, and/or obviously. If anything, load times 
on some things have gotten "worse" since the last defrag I did...

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Seen the lists, seen the rebuttals. Still not impressed. Especially 
>> when some of them are things like "Added a mess of new features to 
>> DirectX", 
> 
> There's a bunch of internal stuff, as well as things like Media Center, 
> .NET, etc.
> 
>> unless it is something in the class of user interfaces, and those tend 
>> to be used to "hide" things you don't want people mucking with,
> 
> Sounds like One True Scotsman syndrome to me.  Because Microsoft doesn't 
> innovate, anything Microsoft does is, by definition, not innovation.
> 
>> FOSS has an excuse for this, they don't have thousands of developers 
>> working 24/7 on *one* project, trying to make it bloody work right. 
> 
> Actually, it's worse. FOSS actually discourages getting projects 
> "finished" and easy to use and reliable, unless it's infrastructure for 
> the people working on other projects. Apache and gcc work great, because 
> on top of *that* people can write code that you can sell without giving 
> it away (like google does, in other words). But if you actually turned 
> out a professional-quality piece of software that needed what it did and 
> it had to work well, you couldn't make money off of maintenance. Hence 
> the dearth of games, accounting software, user electronics, and so on.
> 
Why in the hell would I ever want something that is "finished", in any 
such sense. I want something where the stuff already "in it" is 
reliable, but people are still looking at how to improve it. MS stuff... 
The damn thing gets patched so often fixing things you never "see" that 
a month after you install it the entire OS must have been replaced with 
new binaries... Which means, most of it wasn't working quite right to 
start with, and probably still isn't, even after being patched 500 
times. By comparison, FOSS projects I use, usually, only send out 
"stable" patches, or ones with "significant" changes, unless they, on 
rare occasion, do have a serious bug, in which case it comes out, 
updates without rebooting, (thought XP and Vista wasn't supposed to need 
that BS so much any more?), remembers what it was doing before you did 
restart the program, if you even did, and the patch comes out the moment 
they have it, not a week later.

Either your argument is that FOSS is "just as bad" as MS stuff, because 
neither is ever "finished", or your arguing that MS stuff is, because 
they spend 5 years to come out with a whole new OS, instead of 2 months 
to come up with a patch that adds some features. Either way, I don't 
think its a winning argument.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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scott wrote:
>> Seen the lists, seen the rebuttals. Still not impressed. Especially 
>> when some of them are things like "Added a mess of new features to 
>> DirectX",
> 
> Huh? How many programs have you written using DirectX9 and DirectX10?  
> Why do you think the improvements are a mess?
> 
Mess as in "a bunch of", not "disaster". Otherwise, I really don't care 
what "special" BS MS gets to use, but no one else does, because everyone 
added all the features to the cards/drivers, in a way that is unusable 
to anyone that doesn't want to spend $2,000+ upgrading everything from 
hardware and memory, to the OS, to run stuff it would be cheaper to buy 
an XBox 360 to play.. Yeah, I "prefer" the changeability you get from a 
PC platform, which is locked down on consoles, but not at the "cost" of 
doing it, especially when nearly every dang thing for PC now is using 
something like Steam, which defeats the whole fracking point of running 
without internet, if you need to, and I am stuck with an OS I don't need 
for "anything else" to do it.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The damn thing gets patched so often fixing things you never "see" that 
> a month after you install it the entire OS must have been replaced with 
> new binaries...
Oh, and FSM forbid they "ever" patch anything that isn't the OS to 
something, unless the problem is so critical its crashing thousands of 
corporate networks, never mind "adding" anything useful to it, including 
fixing their documentation when its wrong.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> I had no problem moving my home directory to a different partition.
>>
> Home, yeah. But.. You don't want to do this "before" you install some 
> things, or they break (and yeah, yeah, they don't follow spec, blah, 
> blah.. But geeze...), and somehow I doubt that it moved "everything", 
> not just the documents.

Um, no.  Zero problems with it.  Indeed, it's done *exactly* the same way 
you do it in Linux.

Alternately, you can go and change your home directory setting in the 
registry after you copy all the files over, and you're good again.

Since you haven't any idea how I moved things, I'm not sure what basis you 
have for doubting it moved everything.

But OK, we get it, no amount of actual rational discussion will change your 
mind about how evil Microsoft is or how sucky their products are.

> Main point is, must Linux allow you do do this when setting it up, 

So does Windows.   Not by default, but certainly if you use the more 
advanced setting up options.

>>> to defraggers that still, to this day, don't have the common sense to 
>>> defrag the "unused" space, 
>>
>> Sure they do. Have for ages.
>>
> Just ran mine recently and watched. It may now crunch the unused space 
> (badly though), but not the other.

They don't optimize program access? It's been doing that since like Win 3.1 
or so. What's "the other" you're talking about?

> No they don't. Or not visibly, and/or obviously. If anything, load times 
> on some things have gotten "worse" since the last defrag I did...

You've actually measured this scientifically, then?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Why in the hell would I ever want something that is "finished", in any 
> such sense.

I dunno. My TV, Microwave, and automobile are all "finished".

> updates without rebooting, (thought XP and Vista wasn't supposed to need 
> that BS so much any more?), 

They don't.

> Either way, I don't think its a winning argument.

Because you did not read what I actually wrote. That whole bit had NOTHING 
TO DO WITH microsoft. :-)  But your hatred runs strong in you, so I'll just 
drop it.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Oh, and FSM forbid they "ever" patch anything that isn't the OS to 
> something,

Huh?  You mean, like the way they don't patch Office, say?  Unless you ask 
them to?

> unless the problem is so critical its crashing thousands of 
> corporate networks, never mind "adding" anything useful to it,

Uh, sorry. They add lots of stuff over time to *my* machine. Maybe you're 
looking at the wrong update site.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> 
> That kind of depends on whether you need the complicated bits, don't you
> think? The opposite of "unnecessarily complicated" is "lacking features."

Somehow they've managed to pretty far miss both with Excel - it can bend
to incredible counting pretty easily, but it's still easy to use for
just basic-level report creating etc. Word seems to "suck" more on the
easy part - sometimes it seems to miss a button that says "disable
automatics, forget styles etc, just let me do this damn 1-page document
quickly out of way).

> MS has some of the best documentation out there, and they teach classes
> in using their stuff. Just because you never learned it doesn't mean it
> isn't out there.

Excel is one of the very few graphical programs that I've actually had
help from the help system - because it's help documentation is freaking
good.

> Somewhat. Much of that is due to people not installing patches or people
> not using the system as designed.

And another much is just the users, which break the security of any
system :).

> 
> Why is it that OpenOffice can't do something that Word can?
> 

I think mostly because the developers haven't seen those features
necessary (at least yet) and not enough users have asked for them.

-Aero

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