You Can't Coach That

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Ed Bott writes for Zdnet about all things Microsoft and while he appears to be an avid Windows user he generally writes in a thoughtful manner and is not afraid to highlight problems with his operating system of choice.

I have just finished reading entry number 17 in his Vista Hands On series where he discusses a fix to a Windows Vista resource problem. A couple of things in the article caught my attention.

First, he has a fix for the issue that involves editing the registry. He includes a suitable warning about the dangers of editing the registry manually and the potential havoc it can wreak on a the unsuspecting novice. It worries me when I see problems that require a manual change to the register to fix them. Many users are not equipped to make such changes.

Second, he notes that this issue is not a new one:

The problem, as it turns out, is as old as the Windows NT family. I’ve found references to this issue that date back to the mid-1990s and Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5. The fix for Vista, just as for those much older versions of Windows, involves editing a key in the Windows Registry.

A problem in the shiny new Vista that has been around since the mid 1990’s? One would think that a brand new operating system would inherit such problems. Maybe it’s not as “new” as we are told.

“You can’t coach that”

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

What follows is likely to be an irrational, emotional and somewhat futile rant. If you are bored, offended or annoyed by such writings, well you’ve come this far you may as well keep reading.

I bloody hate Windows. There, I’ve said it. I am not a linux or Mac fanboy, in fact as I have said before they make me laugh. I just hate Windows.

The source of my current frustration is the fact that the simple act of scrolling in Firefox makes my system completely s@#t itself. It freezes as cold as an Eskimo’s bum during “moon you neighbour” week. So far tonight I am onto my fourth restart and of course each time I see that lovely message telling me “your system has recovered from a serious error, would you like to send a report 5 kiloton nuclear device to Microsoft?”. No s@#t Sherlock - I thought it was perfectly normal that my $4,000 laptop turns itself into a boat anchor every half hour or so. To make matters more frustrating, this is happening on a brand new install of Windows. It is less than two weeks since a complete reformat and install.

So, what do I do about this situation? Look forward to Vista of course. Hang on a minute, what do you mean that my perfectly good 4 year old computer won’t run Vista? It’s an operating system for the love of all that is holy. Isn’t the operating system supposed to make the system operate? Is it too much to expect that the operating system will just do its job in the background and leave most of the system resources to the applications to use? After all, I don’t own a computer to run an operating system, I own a computer to run programs that actually do useful things. Windows only makes it possible for me to run those applications, it is not the primary focus of my computing experience.

I will be forced to update my hardware before too long. At that time I will decide whether to use Vista or stay with XP. I will be forced to use one of these operating systems due to the need to use certain applications. There is little doubt that Linux will also play a major roll in my future computing habits. Dual booting with Windows and Ubuntu is becoming a very serious proposition. I currently use Linux as a test server on my home network so it holds no fears for me. In fact, it is in some ways more simple to use than Windows.

Hmmm, Apple give a 12.5% discount to educators, and a Mac can run Windows. Quad core you say? And that’s about what I would pay for a system from Dell. Food for thought.

“You can’t coach that”

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Sometime in the not too distant future I hope to successfully lobby the Minister for Finance to make the appropriate funds available for the acquisition of a new PC. That new PC is more than likely going to Windows Vista running the show. I have therefore started to consider what flavour of Vista to select.

All the computer magazines I have been reading lately have included stories on Vista and the April issue of PC Authority included a nice brief table on some of the key differences.

I was quite annoyed to see that Remote Desktop is not included in the Home version. Do the Microsoft decision makers think that home users would have no use for this tool? I for one make regular use of it to control my Media PC on another room. I am admittedly using XP Pro.

Oh well, I guess I will be spending a little more on the business edition of Vista as well.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

From Wikipedia:

Fanboy or Fanboi is a term used to describe an individual (usually male, though the feminine version fangirl may be used for females) who is utterly devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession. Fanboys remain loyal to their particular obsession, disregarding any factors that differ from their point of view. Fanboys are also stereotypically aggressive and hateful towards the opposing brand or competition of their obsession regardless of its merits or achievements.

I really become quite amused when I come across examples of fanboys in the wild. The obsession can be anything, Linux, Apple Macs, Windows are the ones I see on line most of all but the list can be extended to off line areas as well. Makes of car I suppose could be an example.  Here is the latest example which amused me, found in comments to an article on the top 10 Linux distributions:

Microsoft’s borrowed operating system is extended after embracing any succesful (sic) project, be it active X or mysql and released by a criminal monoply (sic) . It comes with a minimal set of applications (a calculator, a few games, some networking tools, an Internet browser.. etc). Software can be obtained by users from various sources and installed on the operating system ,Usually without any interaction or knowledge of the unsuspecting user.

What is most amusing in this example is that the original article had nothing to do with Windows whatsoever. There hadn’t even been any Windows related comments to the article before this one. I could understand perhaps such a comment if the story was comparing Linux to Windows and there are plenty of those if you look for them (On second thoughts, no I couldn’t - criminal monopoly!? Please!). No, this was Linux compared to itself in its many flavours. It is also worth noting that while the article is not trying to say one distribution is better than another but rather that which one is best depends on what you need, there was still plenty of debate (to use the term loosely) about which is the best.

[Source: Overview of the 10 major linux distributions]

“You can’t coach that”

Afterthought - I use both Windows and Linux depending on what I am doing and would relish the chance to try Mac but funds do not permit.