Just me singing the praises of Linux.....again.

Judland

Electoral Member
Don't mind me. I know you all will get pretty tired of me writing about Linux all of the time, but I just can't help it.

Today at the office I was asked to burn a CD of a bunch of files off of the corporate network. This is the first time I've burned a CD under Microsoft XP... Ever!

As I got started, I was very surprised to see XP tell me that I should close all other applications that may be running before proceeding with my burning. It warned me that having other apps running could interfere with the burning process, causing my CD to be unusable.

What? Is it serious or is XP just playing with me? I thought Microsoft Windows was suppose to be able to handle multi-tasking.

I'm at home right now, working on my Linux desktop. At this very moment, I'm writing this message, burning a CD and downloading some MP3s. I can guarantee that my message will be posted, my CD will finish burning, and my MP3s will download without any problems what-so-ever. I don't get any such warnings (and there's no need for them either) from my Linux OS.

Do you know that I can watch an MPEG file and/or listen to an MP3 AS it's being downloaded?! That's pretty remarkable to me, coming from a MS-Windows background. I still could never pull something like that off with my top of the line XP computer at the office.

Oh well, just goes to show you that you don't always get what you pay for. Well, I guess you would if you expected nothing but crappy software from ol' Billy G. and Co. :D
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Don't mind me. I know you all will get pretty tired of me writing about Linux all of the time, but I just can't help it.

Today at the office I was asked to burn a CD of a bunch of files off of the corporate network. This is the first time I've burned a CD under Microsoft XP... Ever!

As I got started, I was very surprised to see XP tell me that I should close all other applications that may be running before proceeding with my burning. It warned me that having other apps running could interfere with the burning process, causing my CD to be unusable.

What? Is it serious or is XP just playing with me? I thought Microsoft Windows was suppose to be able to handle multi-tasking.

I'm at home right now, working on my Linux desktop. At this very moment, I'm writing this message, burning a CD and downloading some MP3s. I can guarantee that my message will be posted, my CD will finish burning, and my MP3s will download without any problems what-so-ever. I don't get any such warnings (and there's no need for them either) from my Linux OS.

Do you know that I can watch an MPEG file and/or listen to an MP3 AS it's being downloaded?! That's pretty remarkable to me, coming from a MS-Windows background. I still could never pull something like that off with my top of the line XP computer at the office.

Oh well, just goes to show you that you don't always get what you pay for. Well, I guess you would if you expected nothing but crappy software from ol' Billy G. and Co. :D
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Don't mind me. I know you all will get pretty tired of me writing about Linux all of the time, but I just can't help it.

Today at the office I was asked to burn a CD of a bunch of files off of the corporate network. This is the first time I've burned a CD under Microsoft XP... Ever!

As I got started, I was very surprised to see XP tell me that I should close all other applications that may be running before proceeding with my burning. It warned me that having other apps running could interfere with the burning process, causing my CD to be unusable.

What? Is it serious or is XP just playing with me? I thought Microsoft Windows was suppose to be able to handle multi-tasking.

I'm at home right now, working on my Linux desktop. At this very moment, I'm writing this message, burning a CD and downloading some MP3s. I can guarantee that my message will be posted, my CD will finish burning, and my MP3s will download without any problems what-so-ever. I don't get any such warnings (and there's no need for them either) from my Linux OS.

Do you know that I can watch an MPEG file and/or listen to an MP3 AS it's being downloaded?! That's pretty remarkable to me, coming from a MS-Windows background. I still could never pull something like that off with my top of the line XP computer at the office.

Oh well, just goes to show you that you don't always get what you pay for. Well, I guess you would if you expected nothing but crappy software from ol' Billy G. and Co. :D
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
It puzzles me that M$ dominates the OS market. Linux is far superior. The only thing to remember is that Microsoft's primary market is huge corporations and government; Boing, Spar Aerospace, Nasa, the Pentagon, etc. All the priority goes there. The home system is pretty much an after thought.
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
It puzzles me that M$ dominates the OS market. Linux is far superior. The only thing to remember is that Microsoft's primary market is huge corporations and government; Boing, Spar Aerospace, Nasa, the Pentagon, etc. All the priority goes there. The home system is pretty much an after thought.
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
It puzzles me that M$ dominates the OS market. Linux is far superior. The only thing to remember is that Microsoft's primary market is huge corporations and government; Boing, Spar Aerospace, Nasa, the Pentagon, etc. All the priority goes there. The home system is pretty much an after thought.
 

Paranoid Dot Calm

Council Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,142
0
36
Hide-Away Lane, Toronto
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. And what are corporations gonna do with all those employees which they trained in MS certification education?

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

About multi-tasking:

My NewsReader is downloading tunes and software 24-7 (every hour of every day and without exception.) It's been this way for more than 2 years now.
Sometimes, I even have 2 applications of my NewsReader downloading at the same time.

Plus; I'm able to perform any task I want with my puter even though it is constantly downloading.

I use WinXP Pro and my twin uses WinEnterprise

Calm
 

Paranoid Dot Calm

Council Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,142
0
36
Hide-Away Lane, Toronto
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. And what are corporations gonna do with all those employees which they trained in MS certification education?

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

About multi-tasking:

My NewsReader is downloading tunes and software 24-7 (every hour of every day and without exception.) It's been this way for more than 2 years now.
Sometimes, I even have 2 applications of my NewsReader downloading at the same time.

Plus; I'm able to perform any task I want with my puter even though it is constantly downloading.

I use WinXP Pro and my twin uses WinEnterprise

Calm
 

Paranoid Dot Calm

Council Member
Jul 6, 2004
1,142
0
36
Hide-Away Lane, Toronto
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. And what are corporations gonna do with all those employees which they trained in MS certification education?

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

About multi-tasking:

My NewsReader is downloading tunes and software 24-7 (every hour of every day and without exception.) It's been this way for more than 2 years now.
Sometimes, I even have 2 applications of my NewsReader downloading at the same time.

Plus; I'm able to perform any task I want with my puter even though it is constantly downloading.

I use WinXP Pro and my twin uses WinEnterprise

Calm
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Microsoft dominance in the marketplace, in my opinion, is simply due to their marketing tactics. This is the only thing I'll say that Microsoft is the best at.... Marketing.

I also like my multiple desktops and sessions that I can run under Linux. I'm logged in right now, but if my wife wants to check her own e-mail, I simply switch from one virtual terminal to the other. She then logs in to her account, does what she needs to do and then I switch back over to my running desktop without missing a beat.

Virtual desktops/terminals are great! :D
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Microsoft dominance in the marketplace, in my opinion, is simply due to their marketing tactics. This is the only thing I'll say that Microsoft is the best at.... Marketing.

I also like my multiple desktops and sessions that I can run under Linux. I'm logged in right now, but if my wife wants to check her own e-mail, I simply switch from one virtual terminal to the other. She then logs in to her account, does what she needs to do and then I switch back over to my running desktop without missing a beat.

Virtual desktops/terminals are great! :D
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Microsoft dominance in the marketplace, in my opinion, is simply due to their marketing tactics. This is the only thing I'll say that Microsoft is the best at.... Marketing.

I also like my multiple desktops and sessions that I can run under Linux. I'm logged in right now, but if my wife wants to check her own e-mail, I simply switch from one virtual terminal to the other. She then logs in to her account, does what she needs to do and then I switch back over to my running desktop without missing a beat.

Virtual desktops/terminals are great! :D
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
Paranoid Dot Calm said:
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. . . .

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

Sure. It's the old axiom updated. It used to be, You can't go wrong with IBM." It has been replaced with, "You can't go wrong with Microsoft." It's the safe choice.

But, that puzzles me too. There are techies out there who aren't curious beyond what their bosses dictate. It's an human problem. I used to work with some un-curious techs. They drove me crazy with their smugness. Those of us with curiosity were frequently in trouble, but we were the ones who found creative solutions.

Did you ever hear or see Tod Maffin on CBC? http://vancouver.cbc.ca/nerd/ He talks like he is employed to sell to idiots. I have never once heard him admit that Linux could be an option for some users. [/i]
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
Paranoid Dot Calm said:
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. . . .

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

Sure. It's the old axiom updated. It used to be, You can't go wrong with IBM." It has been replaced with, "You can't go wrong with Microsoft." It's the safe choice.

But, that puzzles me too. There are techies out there who aren't curious beyond what their bosses dictate. It's an human problem. I used to work with some un-curious techs. They drove me crazy with their smugness. Those of us with curiosity were frequently in trouble, but we were the ones who found creative solutions.

Did you ever hear or see Tod Maffin on CBC? http://vancouver.cbc.ca/nerd/ He talks like he is employed to sell to idiots. I have never once heard him admit that Linux could be an option for some users. [/i]
 

Mooseskin Johnny

Electoral Member
Dec 23, 2004
134
0
16
BC
Paranoid Dot Calm said:
Perhaps the reason why Microsoft continues to dominate a workplace environment is because of Training. . . .

Corporations would need to invest billions into re-training their workers how to use Linux.

It would be like asking all your employees to learn the French language when they were used to English.

Sure. It's the old axiom updated. It used to be, You can't go wrong with IBM." It has been replaced with, "You can't go wrong with Microsoft." It's the safe choice.

But, that puzzles me too. There are techies out there who aren't curious beyond what their bosses dictate. It's an human problem. I used to work with some un-curious techs. They drove me crazy with their smugness. Those of us with curiosity were frequently in trouble, but we were the ones who found creative solutions.

Did you ever hear or see Tod Maffin on CBC? http://vancouver.cbc.ca/nerd/ He talks like he is employed to sell to idiots. I have never once heard him admit that Linux could be an option for some users. [/i]
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Not to be-little anyone, but our company's "non-curious" IT staff tends to spend a lot of the company's money.

My boss accidentally deleted his MS-Outlook calendar (well XP did as it allowed his PDA driver to delete the contents without confirmation).

Anyway, when he asked how long it would take for IT to restore his calendar from a backup, they told him the better part of 4-5 hours.

Holly crap! That's a pretty expensive (manhour-wise) fix. If it were my system at home, I'd just restore my .kmail folder from my last backup and I'd have everything back to the way it was. That would take me, what, five minutes at the most.

In my opinion, if that's the cost of doing business with Microsoft, it's too much. But, then again, I know of better ways to handle such issues.

In this example, the company accepts these expenses 'cause, hey, that's just Microsoft. They've been programmed to expect nothing more.
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Not to be-little anyone, but our company's "non-curious" IT staff tends to spend a lot of the company's money.

My boss accidentally deleted his MS-Outlook calendar (well XP did as it allowed his PDA driver to delete the contents without confirmation).

Anyway, when he asked how long it would take for IT to restore his calendar from a backup, they told him the better part of 4-5 hours.

Holly crap! That's a pretty expensive (manhour-wise) fix. If it were my system at home, I'd just restore my .kmail folder from my last backup and I'd have everything back to the way it was. That would take me, what, five minutes at the most.

In my opinion, if that's the cost of doing business with Microsoft, it's too much. But, then again, I know of better ways to handle such issues.

In this example, the company accepts these expenses 'cause, hey, that's just Microsoft. They've been programmed to expect nothing more.
 

Judland

Electoral Member
Not to be-little anyone, but our company's "non-curious" IT staff tends to spend a lot of the company's money.

My boss accidentally deleted his MS-Outlook calendar (well XP did as it allowed his PDA driver to delete the contents without confirmation).

Anyway, when he asked how long it would take for IT to restore his calendar from a backup, they told him the better part of 4-5 hours.

Holly crap! That's a pretty expensive (manhour-wise) fix. If it were my system at home, I'd just restore my .kmail folder from my last backup and I'd have everything back to the way it was. That would take me, what, five minutes at the most.

In my opinion, if that's the cost of doing business with Microsoft, it's too much. But, then again, I know of better ways to handle such issues.

In this example, the company accepts these expenses 'cause, hey, that's just Microsoft. They've been programmed to expect nothing more.