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MystikShadows
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Post by MystikShadows »

Why does it have to be so difficult for anyone to go and have a coffee with Bill Gates? Or Steve Jobs for that matter (although it would probably be easier to get Steve Jobs for a coffee ;-). Or whoever runs IBM, APPLE, M$, INTEL, AMD and the other big leaders of the computing industry? Admit it everybody, We'd all love it is these people were readily available to have a coffee with us just to talk about things. Write an email to microsoft and address it to bill gates. Chances are he'll never even know he (or any of them) will ever had an email from the likes of us. Chances are that the email will never make it passed whoever receives the email first and I'll garantee you that this person is nowhere near the top of the corporate hierarchy. You go to a restaurant, you eat your food, you hated it, you ask to talk to the chef, or the manager or the boss, chances are you'll get to see them. but if you're not satisfied with Windows, go ahead and try to tell them "I wanna talk to the boss". Don't hold your breath. and even if you don't hold your breath, you'll die before you get to see them big bosses.

What's the point I'm trying to make here? Simple, no matter how much we're not satisfied with windows, our beloved Bill Gates won't ever know about it. Anyone that can actually make a decision to change the way windows work won't ever get to see it and therefore won't ever know we're not satisfied. If you go to the restaurant and just bitch at the waitress that you hated your food and never ask to see anyone else that could fire the cook, next time to come, you'll eat the same food you hated and bitch at the waitress again. That's what the customer support of these big industries is all about. Making the company look good and making you look bad. They have some incompetent low level person who's just is to keep you away from those that can actually answer your questions or your complaints the right way. That goes for a hell of alot more than one computer related business. Why? because they're so concerned about the money they make, the values of their stocks that they couldn't give a rat's ass what we, the customers, think about their products. If that's what happens when you get too big, then I'll set a ceiling to any business I start. and either stop or quit when I get there.

Let me rephrase my statement I made previously in this thread. I don't hate microsoft products, they have 1000s of coders and when they finally get together and work they can do very nice things. What I hate is the business practice in itself. I hate knowing that the big boys at M$ will never know the things I don't like about their software (if any) or instabilities or whatever. That's on the side of the customers. As a business, I hate the fact that I'll either have to empty my financial resources to take them to court time and time again until I have to shut down the business cause I can't afford to keep on bringing them to court (and that goes like that whether I'm right or wrong in my case). I hate the fact that if I make something that is 100 times better than M$'s way, I'll either have to get sold (forcebly or I'll have to do the court cycle) or just take whatever amount they are offering just so I can't be the one to revolutionize the computing industry it always has to be one of those "big boys".

It took a damn long time for Windows to be what it is. Plenty of companies went through the windows hell just like I did as a person through windows 286 and 386, windows 3.0, 3.1 (ok getting there but oops, it's obsolete so Windows 95 came along and screwed us over twice as hard. and so on and so forth. as a consumer, this is all I need to remember of microsoft. so when Windows XP came along, it took me a hell of a long time to finally say, "They've finally got it" and now they're changing it in windows vista. I predict another couple years of hell for that transition. I mean, it looks good, from the screenshots I've seen, but of course there's probably plenty of screenshots I haven't seen that doesn't promise such a spectacular OS. When they made the first windows 95 presentations and that blue screen appeared (I'm sure you all remember this). M$ should have been shot where they stand and good ole reliable bill gates should have had allot more to say than "That's why we didn't release it yet" stupid comment. I as a user didn't like that blue screen that popped up. and business wise, I'm sure they didn't like it either for even more reasons than my own.

As a hardware manufacturer, I just can't believe there's an advantage to being M$ only, you can't convince me of that. and today, you can't quite say that 90% of users are on windows, that wen't down considerably even in the last year. and I'm talking users here. Business that are on windows today do it because they invested so much money in their windows products, I'm sure a good 40% of them AT LEAST would not be on windows today if it wasn't a question of money. ATLEAST 40%....This is just like when the AS/400 came along from IBM and made companies sign 5 years (i'll only use you) contracts ... all of them didn't renuew their contracts, but it was cool cause IBM still made their money for a whole 5 years. Talk about income security.

And what about the overlaps, How many people in all the users, have a dual boot Linux/windows on their systems? where, in the stats, do we put these people? how many of those people use windows more than they do Linux? this isn't to bring down Microsoft here, it's the sheer reality. Microsoft is loosing it. Like all businesses I wish them success, but they're gonna have to kick themselves in the butt to get that success. Windows Vista won't really help them. ok it might a little bit, but they';ll need more than that. Especially with those corporate Linux that popped out these past 2 years, who do you think they aim? ;-). Microsoft is gonna have to take their fingers out of their collective asses while they still can.

My two cents (well more like 2$ lol). But look around, and I'm not that far off of reality here.
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a reply (mostly to mysticshadows and also pete)

Post by mennonite »

out of nothing but a desire to be reasonable, i'll backpedal a little on the security issue, but i won't retract it, because although it's a valid point that the widest base is the one attacked the most, the fact is that microsoft is also bloated and possibly the sloppiest software building in existance... no one makes it easier for hackers regardless of the number of attackers. there are a wide number of reports on why this is true, and i won't pretend i can get behind any of them and vouch for them entirely, i don't claim to be a security expert any more than pete claims to.

microsoft can go rehash what's offered by google and firefox but we can't do the same. that's what software patents are about... patenting Ideas (Which you're not supposed to be able to do because it hurts industry, inventor, and user alike)

i said complaints bring change (little else brings change. without complaints, ie demand, no one has reason to change things.) i didn't say that bill gates would listen.

complain enough about something and inventors become aware of a market. the kid that put firefox together knew how many angry people would love it. i'm not holding my breath for bill gates to save us from bill gates, but someone, given time, will.

i'm a grownup, at least, like most of them, i'm usually a grownup. when i was younger i thought you became a grownup and had to master your feelings, become mature, act according to your own rules and be reasonable. heh, i don't know many people even 50 years or older that are as mature as they seemed when i was younger and more naive. i do my best to hold myself to my own standards...

(which reminds me... (i'll say again) a standard that is used in one OS only and will be abandoned in the next version is a specification... not a standard. that's the problem. these specs are being called standards, we embrace them, and then microsoft changes them again. they're not standards. they're sand we build our apps on. i'd like to see Real standards. like x86 instruction set. that is a real standard. that's why dos still runs on your machine, and thus win98. no matter what pc you buy from any brand, from the 386 to the pentium 4... if only ANY standard was built like that today! and DRM stands to crush it.)

nonetheless, however my post may be phrased, as a grownup i don't have energy to hate microsoft with. i DO too, hate their practices, and hate when the software doesn't work. everyone hates it when things don't work. so i hope i've clarified something there.

if these things worked both ways, yay. but they don't. if any of us wanted to start a professional project, we'd have a choice between microsoft and linux. we probably couldn't afford anything else. and they're trying to make it so our only choice is microsoft and microsoft, which means we're only allowed to invent when it's worthwhile (ie profitiable) for bill gates.

yeah, as someone formally interested in real software development, i have to say i resent that. as a user, i'm inconvenienced, not helped, and hence, i complain. i'll then wait for the market to be created to pander to me, and far from this, when i see something i can do to help, i'll do that too.

but the rest of do complain, and we do it for a damned good reason. in fact, several. these efforts microsoft is behind differ little from the riaa trying to take little kids to court over mp3s, and they will continue to differ less and less.

i have a bad feeling about this...
mennonite

i'm taking a break by the way

Post by mennonite »

i'll be back soon, i guess, if the thread is still here.
i need a break.
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Post by Pete »

An editorial from Cool Tech Zone:
(Reprinted from: http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?o ... ew&id=1645 )
Is It Wrong to Love Microsoft?

Microsoft is perhaps the most hated company in the history of business. Anointed with names such as the Redmond Giant, Microshaft, Microsloth, so on and so forth, the nicknames and jokes are perhaps exceeded only by the vengeance with which people hate it.

The question is why do they? I love Microsoft. Absolutely adore it and what?s more, I hate Linux. I think it?s the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!

What has Microsoft given us? It has given us Windows, sure, it was buggy earlier and a lot of things didn?t work like they were supposed to (plug and play springs to mind) but it was a pioneering effort. No one was even close to the ease of use that Windows offered. Sure, Mac OS was a lot prettier but then it cost the moon and the stars along with both your arms and legs.

I understand the criticisms about the security of the software, the critical flaws and what not but again, we must look at things in the proper perspective. More than 95 pecent computers in the world use one form of Windows OS or another. The remaining being divided between Linux, MAC etc. now lets say MAC has 1 percent, does it make sense for a hacker to create a virus that can at best infect just 1 percent of the computers in the world? It doesn?t, therefore you don?t have as many security threats for other software as most of the people developing Linux probably sit at night writing up malicious code for windows!

In a nutshell, it?s not so much as that the software is secure; it?s simply that no one is interested in spending sleepless nights writing a virus that won?t give them the satisfaction they get from causing havoc. Considering the fact that everyone who knows how to write two bits of code dreams of hitting windows with a virus, the guys at the "Redmond Giant" are doing a spectacular job.

XP is such a joy when it comes to simply connecting a device and watching the pretty little bubble detecting it and saying "its installed and ready for use" makes the slightly high price absolutely worth it. In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem! Give me a break guys, Linux is light years behind Windows XP and I am sure it will be further back biting the dust when Longhorn (now Vista) comes out.

This reminds me of the bundled issues with the antitrust lawsuits being slammed on it. It?s just sad, unfair and uncompetitive. Basically what the stupid courts in Europe said was, hey, you?re doing a great job, and you must pay for it! This coming from a bunch of people who couldn?t even agree on a constitution!

And of course, the long list of lawsuits that Microsoft is straddled with. I am sure it is a business model for companies such as Sun and Oracle to just sue Microsoft whenever their profits are down due to insanely stupid and useless products that no one is buying.

Every year, just before the FY results are out, Mr. McNealy sits with his board and shakes his head, guys, we are in the red, what do we do? How do we turn it around? Suddenly a bright face says, I know, let?s sue Microsoft for a billion odd! Bill can afford it, after all, he makes such smashing products that everyone buys them, making him rich! That ought to be a crime in SOME court!

Microsoft made some products which it would like to ship together with its OS, no where in the EULA does it say that "you are not authorized to install other software" If Mr. John Doe thinks media player is the worst piece of software he has ever used, he is free to go and download Winamp or Musicmatch Jukebox (neither of these offer free full versions).

Lets be fair and honest about this. Here is a company that single handedly created the market for Personal Computers, brought computing to ordinary folks like you and me, made it affordable by encouraging mass acceptance and constantly strives to provide us ease of use in every sphere it touches. From tablet PCs to handhelds to media centers but he didn?t do it for free and wants to protect it?s own interests. What is wrong with that? After all, the people who are suing Microsoft, aren?t they looking after their interests as well? Why do we think or believe that if they were in the position Microsoft is in, they would do things differently.

I do not for a moment think or believe they would be philanthropic and give away years of toil away for free or act in the best interests of everyone but themselves. It is about time we stopped being hypocritical and appreciated a job really well done.

Just some food for thought.
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Post by DrV »

Hmm, I think that guy has a stick up his 4$$; I personally don't love Microsoft, but I don't hate them, either. However, I understand that Linux does do something useful and does it very well - specifically, it is a stable, well-supported, and secure server operating system, in combination with other open-source software (the traditional LAMP setup or mail server using sendmail, for example). I'm sure that the various Microsoft server products (Windows, IIS, SQL Server, Exchange, etc.) do a decent job of this also, but I don't think too many people with experience using both Linux and Microsoft servers would say that a Microsoft server is 'terribly good' at doing anything that a Linux server isn't.
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Help Has Arrived

Post by depot1 »

do you have a video card
or on board video
with on board video you will get very poor performance
a video card will make your programs run 10 times faster
and 5 times faster for the CPU
also you can get magictweak or tuneup utilities
and take out the programs that run at start up
also you may be running too many services
there are lots of info about tweaking PCs on the internet
although you are right
and they engineer windows to support the economy
Not to save us money
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Post by DrV »

Wrong thread? :lol:

But yes, I do have a video card (GeForce 6600 = happy DrV). :D
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Re: Help Has Arrived

Post by Deleter »

depot1 wrote:and they engineer windows to support the economy
Not to save us money
thats the only thing I see that shows this is in the right thread....
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Post by {Nathan} »

Why is it wronge to hate him? HE DID NOTHING!!!

All he did is have a friend tell him IBM wants an official operating system, so he borrowed 50k from is mom and bought dos, sold it to IBM. Made money. Hired people to make more versions and other sh*t. Made more money. IBM wants a GUI. Bill hires more people to make it. He just sat around, said "ohh, go make a mouse. go upgrade this. go make a new keyboard. make things easier." He probably hired people to even think for him.

HE DID ABSOLUTLY NOTHING TO GET WHERE HE IS! IT WAS fork LUCK!
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Post by Pete »

Nathan1993 wrote:HE DID ABSOLUTLY NOTHING TO GET WHERE HE IS! IT WAS fork LUCK!
Clearly you don't know very much about Bill Gates if you think that he "lucked out." Gates practically invented the personal computer industry as we know it today. It is his incredible business sense and marketing skill that has dominated the industry for the past 25 years. Maybe he doesn't sit down and actually write the code, but he *tells his programmers what code to write*. Maybe he doesn't come up with any huge innovations, but Bill Gates realizes which technology innovations people will want -- and then he turns them from a simple curiosity, a "goofy prototype" used by niche market, into a household item used by everyone. Designing the right software that people will want to buy is easily ten times more important than the actual nuts-and-bolts coding. Microsoft is a company that is successful because its leaders know what people want, and know how to sell it. I wouldn't say that creating an entire industry is doing "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING".
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Post by lurah(cant log in) »

In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That guy knows nothing.
does it make sense for a hacker to create a virus that can at best infect just 1 percent of the computers in the world?
And he doesnt even know for what reason viruses exists...really does.

Yes, B.G invented personal computer industry as we know it today.
Yes he did. He bought something that were allready done, used it on hes own name.

B.G havent invented much. Expect great business skills.Noosing around and watching what other peoples does, copying it and using monopoly state to crash those inventions and practically stole those inventions at own os is way other thing than inventing something from own mind.

B.G gives peoples what they want, because of money. There are lots of peoples who want to give that same, for free.

Ok, so FreeBasic get very popular soon(?). B.G notices this and makes WinBasic32BIT, simular to FB, maybe with some cool ide and of course, it has easy ways to go on internet and so on. You just think, ok, WinBasic... is better so thats for FreeBasic. Hey, is that syntax patendet? If not, B.G gets one and no one ever makes new basics...except B.G.

btw, often i have noticed that you someones sayd that microsoft created QB. LoL, that same syntax was there ages before B.G even know what basic is.

So, what Microsoft have invented, really invented. Not stealed, cheated or bought?
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Post by Pete »

You people talk as if making money is a bad thing -- as if Microsoft making a big profit somehow means that they're screwing over their customers. That doesn't make sense. The money comes from the consumers when they buy your product, and they're not going to buy your product unless it is what they want. If Microsoft's business was based around screwing consumers, they would not be the multibillion dollar corporation they are today.

Lurah: I never said MS invented BASIC. What Microsoft did was make the QB compiler, and thereby *perfect* the BASIC programming language. As I said in my previous post, Microsoft takes established/successful ideas and make them accessible to the masses. Before QB, BASIC was much more complicated and annoying to use -- line numbers were required, there was no IDE, you had to use GOSUB subroutines instead of separate Subs/Functions, etc. With the release of QB, BASIC evolved into something that was not only easier to use, but also intuitive and fun. It became a product that almost anyone could use and would want to buy.

The same is true about Internet Explorer (which a few years ago was clearly the best browser on the market), the Microsoft Intellimouse (which turned the scrollwheel into an essential component of modern mouses), and the entire Windows operating system. These are all other peoples' ideas, repackaged and reinvented in a high-quality, perfected end product that everyone would want to buy and use.

Microsoft has done this time and time again with its products, and that's why they are the most successful software company in the world. Coming up with new ideas is a noble thing to do, but taking good ideas and turning them into something that accessible to everyone is what makes money.
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Post by lurah(cant log in) »

Well, i think B.G is one of the smartest leaders on world what comes business industry. He knows how to make money. Hes number 2 on my "top 3 " list.
First is Nokia's leader Jorma Ollila who made rubber boots and car tyre company as leading mobile phone company in world. B.G is second what comes "how to make money" things.

Anyway, Microsoft steals, cheats and uses its monopoly state to keep theyr programs at top. No matter how they do it.

History has shown what happens when some one/ something gets too big and dominating place.

Why should anyone invent anything anymore, because microsoft copyes it, and uses it as "only windows support" way? Usually, the original code wont work anymore...hell, prolly B.G gets patent for that idea soon, that was originally given for free.

So why i should pay for windows? I have w98 and xp but i havent payd a single coin for em. Why should i? Im just doing the same than microsoft, stealing. Alltough, i got to say that im not using those OS's anymore. Im pissed and bored to wait and wait and wait, thats what i need to do most when im on windows OS.

Microsoft aint capable for free competition what is main purpose of this global world.

Anyway, they are in panic now, because several countryes has turned into open-source. Practically whole asia is goin to open-source and thats a place where are future markets.

Yes, MS "perfected" basic. So hooray for it.

I dont hate microsoft, i hate way how theyre are handling things.
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Post by MystikShadows »

Of course it's not wrong to make money when you're in business. It never was. But lurah is making a good point. The only good deal I've heard of from microsoft was when they made a deal with Novell, they would use their network technology in their windows NT at the time and they would provide Novell with GUI interfaces to their networking technology. Microsoft was specialized in making things look good, an Novell was specialized in making a network work good they combined their efforts and created what we all use today. That to me was among the greatest acheivements of Microsoft done the right way. Some might remember that at the time, Microsofot was alos more popular than it is today.

But like lurah said, it's hard for anyone to come up and invent something today because if it's two good, you're either gonna get bought out, or brought down. It's the sad truth. For example, that WinBasic that Lurah mentionned. If FreeBasic takes the place of too many "sellable copies" hence represent a considerable loss in M$ Basic sells. They might see if they can suddenly accuse FreeBasic of copying their syntax or something. There's many undersides and small writings in copyright material and if anyone knows them all, it's Microsoft. They might have the heart to talk to Victor first, see if they can't buy him out ;-).....or something....but the truth if the matter is that M$ doesn't like competition unless it makes them look good (which hasn't happened too often so far). so they will buy competition out, or just take them to court (many times over until the competition's resources are dried out and they either sell their business or close their doors (I've witness that first hand more than once in more than one subject). Like I said before M$ isn't the only company that's in this style of business management, and I hate all those that do practice this kind of thing.

I mean sure many people or business like being bought out. Here you are coding away at making something very good and you hope to make money out of it one day. And you work, and you work, and you perfect it and you make it known suddenly Microsoft things you worked hard enough and want to "relieve" you of your burden give you a nice big fat check (enough to make your eyes roll out of their sockets) and say, there you go. Microsoft is Nice, the check is nice, and it suddenly becomes a very different ball game as to whether you'll sell your hard work or not. in Many cases (those that don't make the news) that's when the transaction is close and everybody's happy. But if you start to think "ok M$ wants this, it must be good, they wouldn't want it unless they can make money out of it and you decide that sorry M$ but I'm not selling. There's just no telling what the consequences to this decision could be. All depends on which field of competition you're playing with.

But that's all fine, because at that point it's all between the company and Microsoft and that's all good, it's comeptition, it's the kind of thing that makes software as great as they are today. One of my main issues is that they are taking away my right to compete with them in alot of ways. I can still compete in some fields, but one by one they are dissapearing. And that's when I hate the business and that even if they reach that point all legally and peacefully. I can't make an OS because hardware companies won't give me the info. Cause they are microsoft only. It's not fun to see that if I'm gonna make a GUI or my own windows, it's gonna have to be shitty because I can't get hardware information on the hardware that's "hot" today cause it's Windows only hardware. I don't hate microsoft for that part, I hate the hardware manufacturers for making that move.

So yeah I can create whatever I want as long as it's for Windows (this means that if I create something awesome, it's still Windows that gets sold, because they will want to use my revolutionary software. so in the end, my work makes M$ sell more copies of Windows and if I dare integrate some office automation, then Windows will sell more Microsoft office. and whatever feature I add to the program, it's some part of microsoft that sells more. That's what I mean when I say that hardware manufacturers shouldn't just support one OS like they do, yes they go where the money is (so they think) but they are all just helping microsoft sell more of their product that's all that happens in the end. It's like sure compete with me but don't step on my toes and don't go in my territory (which is kinda hard to do when Microsoft is a global business).

And that's really what I'm talking about. Anyone goes into business to make money. They're businesses after all. But to me, it never will make sense that a video card will be Windows Only. M$ went well beyond their limits to make the hardware industry bounded to microsoft that way. It just doesn't and never will make sense to me. I don't think it will happen anytime soon, but imagine if Microsoft closed their doors tomorrow (technially, what's stopping anyone from closing their businesses anytime they want? it's not just microsoft that's gonna go down, they'll be taking alot of other "seemingly unrelated businesses" down with them. Why? because those business decided today to go the microsoft way.

Relating to my description of the "good deal" with Microsoft and Novell. That to me is business as it should be. Different people with different specifializations uniting to give consumers one damn good product that's better than what either of the two companies could have made on their own. That's what makes the software better than it was and keeps the creative technological wheels turning. It's not buying out competition that puts a big stick in their wheel and well eventually, if they keep this up, the stick will be big enough to actually stop the microsoft wheel. And that's why I keep on saying that microsoft is shooting itself in the foot.

I respected microsoft when they did this deal with Novell because they finally admitted, back then, their ignorance and at the same time it showed they were willing to take the next step to make sure they weren't ignorant for too long. If they didn't do this deal with Novell, Windows NT (and subsequently, 98, ME, 2000, Server 2XXX, XP and Vista just wouldn't be the same today. that's why windows NT was so stable and robust. Because of Novell's networking technology...it was so easy to use because of Microsoft's exquisite GUI designers that made sense out of all the network by giving iit a user interface people could understand. That's how you build a future. Not by their other ways of doing business. and from their own past, they should know better....they should know what real parts of their own history made them progress into being number one like they are.
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okay say i license petesqbsite

Post by mennonite »

)after all pete can do what he wants with it right?
only i add a few features, and people really like them.
so pete wants to add some features to compete, but i point out how his ideas are similar to my ideas, and that i didn't give him permission to use them. my site has grown 5 times as big, and i can get people to take down your website or ddos it if you get in my way. (or lawyers, i dunno, pick a metaphor) but it's all free internet right? i mean, the principle of the thing is i have an audience and they should get what they want, so what i'm doing is okay. so in a fit of pique, pete says "screw this" and takes his site down.
and then i add a few more features, *and* i convert all the old features into ones that are *integrated with the new features. only in order to view the new features (and the old features) you need a new webbrowser, because "you can't expect me to support outdated standards" and there's only one browser that actually works with the site. but the browser requires a pentium 7, so everyone has to go buy a new computer. so people start going to some smaller site, like chooo!!!!! because at least it doesn't require a new computer to work with, and everyone's like "don't complain about mennonite's qbasic site" (which it's now called) just use something else if you don't like it. only everyone hangs out at mennonite's qbasic site. and then i start charging money for access.
but i'm a *hero*, even though i essentially stole something and exploited not only a superb designer but an entire user base, 'cause the site has some new features. Blah! Blah! Mennonite's QBASIC Site wouldn't be what it is without my innovation!
riiiiiight...
mennonite

oh and that's another thing

Post by mennonite »

you talk about making money like the only way is to have a superior product. but that's insane... betamax was a superior format with higher quality recording and smaller tape boxes, but it lost out cause of politics, and vhs became what you had, and if you liked beta, can't afford to support outdated standards.

when microsoft pulls a new "standard" out of their ass everyone has to write a piece of software to work with it even though at first they won't tell anyone how. and yeah, it's totally based on a format someone else invented, maybe an open one, but it has new features. so finally someone figures out how to work with the format, but microsoft has moved on to something "better"

the point of standards, i'm tired of saying, is to have things work. yeah, microsoft stuff works with microsoft standards but nothing else can. technically "it works" but if it was open it would "work" way, way more often. so our "outdated" standards don't matter, because they've suddenly become "outdated" by microsofts ripoff of those standards. they can't be expected to cater to the likes of us, but we should be expected to support them and their formats, and pay through the nose to do it.

that seems fair.
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Re: oh and that's another thing

Post by Pete »

You're giving way too much credit to my site here, buddy.

EVERYTHING on my website is blatantly STOLEN from other websites. I can't think of a single new idea that I came up with for Pete's QB Site. I merely took features of other websites that I thought were useful or cool and recreated them here. The game reviews? The format was based off of the Game Boy site DMG Ice, and other websites had been doing game reviews for years before I started. QB Express? Just a rehash of older QB magazines like QB:TM and QB On Acid. The QBasic Dance? A blatant rip-off of The Hamster Dance. The tutorials, links, downloads, etc.? Every QB site in history has those!

Not only that, a large part of the content on this website is directly stolen from other QB sites. The QB Zines section, the tutorials, the downloads, etc. all came from other QB sites. I've reprinted it all here, mostly *without permission*.

There is nothing new on my site at all. In a sense, you could say what I've done is similar to Microsoft. I've stolen good ideas from all kinds of other people, and put them into my product, without coming up with anything new on my own.

And guess what? Stealing ideas and content results in a damn good QBasic site. I consider my site to be an excellent QB resource, even though there isn't anything truly unique here.

The difference between my site and the ones that I copied is that I put in enough work to follow through and present the content in a format that would benefit the most users. Sure, every QB site has a tutorials section, but how many have a tutorials section with 600+ tutorials? The same can be said about almost all of Microsoft's products. They steal ideas and perfect them, so that their products attract the most users. People don't want new/unique features if they're poorly incorporated and in a goofy prototype stage. They want a polished finished product.

So if you blatantly stole content from my site and made Mennonite's QBasic Site a bigger and better QB site than this one, then I guess I had it coming. Very little of the content on this site is unique. It's almost all copied/stolen. If I took off the content generated by other people besides myself off my site, and removed all the content here that is available on other QB sites, my site would be empty. It wouldn't be worth anyone's visit.


And now for your other post:
mennonite wrote:you talk about making money like the only way is to have a superior product. but that's insane... betamax was a superior format with higher quality recording and smaller tape boxes, but it lost out cause of politics, and vhs became what you had, and if you liked beta, can't afford to support outdated standards.
Yes -- BetaMax was a superior format *technically*. It delivered slightly higher quality video. But it DID NOT deliver the features that the users truly wanted: cheapness and ease. BetaMax tapes were severely limited because they had a shorter running time than VHS tapes... so you couldn't even fit most feature films on a single tape. That was a big problem, because it made watching movies more complicated and expensive. BetaMax tapes and players were also more expensive, and to most users the extra cost wasn't worth the marginally better video. But the main downfall was that the VHS format was licensed to far more movies than the BetaMax format. There were simply more choices available on VHS -- movies, instructional videos and Pornography in particular (Sony prohibited the licensing of pornography on the BetaMax format). BetaMax lost the format war mostly because it wasn't tailored to the needs of everyday users.
mennonite wrote:when microsoft pulls a new "standard" out of their ass everyone has to write a piece of software to work with it even though at first they won't tell anyone how. and yeah, it's totally based on a format someone else invented, maybe an open one, but it has new features. so finally someone figures out how to work with the format, but microsoft has moved on to something "better"

the point of standards, i'm tired of saying, is to have things work. yeah, microsoft stuff works with microsoft standards but nothing else can. technically "it works" but if it was open it would "work" way, way more often. so our "outdated" standards don't matter, because they've suddenly become "outdated" by microsofts ripoff of those standards. they can't be expected to cater to the likes of us, but we should be expected to support them and their formats, and pay through the nose to do it.
You can't use the same standards forever. The rest of the world demands progress, and nobody's going to hold back technology for you. Just because you're using a ten year old computer on Windows 98 and DOS doesn't mean that's what everybody else uses. Almost everybody has faced the facts and gotten a newer system with better software and hardware. They want interactive content, multimedia and fast-loading webpages, and HTML 1.0 standards and Netscape Communicator 3.0 just won't cut it anymore.

And web designers like myself are not going to make our websites suck just so that EVERYONE in the world can view them. I'd rather have a spectacular website that can be viewed by 95% of the world than a shitty text-based HTML site that can be used by everyone.

Besides, if you're so into keeping standards and backwards compatibility forever, then why aren't you complaining because your IBM computer from 1985 with a 9600 baud modem can't access this message forum anymore? I mean, you used to be able to view every BBS in the world with it! That's so unfair that the standards have changed! Now .000000000000000001% of the users in the world can not even view my message forum!

Should I really tailor my site so that any computer in history can view it, at the expense of content and presentation? Hell no. As long as my site works on every modern platform with a sizable userbase (Mac OS X with Safari/Netscape/FireFox/IE, Linux with Mozilla/FireFox/Konqueror/etc. and Windows with IE/FireFox/Opera/Netscape/etc.), I think I'm doing a phenomenal job. If you refuse to use one of these systems and still expect me to adjust my site for you (at the expense of the other 99% of users) -- Screw you, I don't want you to visit my site. I'd be glad if you left. Come back when you get a modern system...and a life. (Not you specifically, mennonite, just in general.)
Seb McClouth

Post by Seb McClouth »

I've had my share of MS, Linux and even Apple.

Let's just say that MS made crap and good stuff. I have cursed the software a lot of times (sometimes praised it), and gladly it stills works.

Pete is right when he says that most ppl use MS-stuff because it's well known, and what is easier to use: sumfin you know, or the unknown.
MS-security is how you secure your system yourself. But even how advance you secure it, it won't be safe if they want to hack you, or infect you with a virus. As long as it works, I'm happy.

Just remember that it was Bill who gave us Basica, GW-Basic, QBasic, QuickBasic, PDS, Visual Basic, and all the other develop languages. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't be here... So somehow I feel we should thank him for it...

Just remember next time if your software fails, every programmer can make mistakes. Just like us. '
They are no perfect people, only perfect intensions.
Take care of yourself, and each other.
grtz
Seb
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