Why do you still use Windows XP?

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:57:22 -0600, "BillW50" wrote:

I am always logged on as an administrator (I know *big* security no-no).
But that still doesn't help a portable application dropped in the
Program Files folder under Windows 7. While I am searching for a better
explanation of what I mean, here is what Windows 7 did to the "Documents
and Settings" which is my second beef with Windows 7 among countless
other problems for now.

Access denied to the "My Documents and Settings" folder - Microsoft
Answers
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...5-468ee51e9484

As a computer user with decades of experience, (a claim you've made
repeatedly), I'm surprised to hear that a minor shuffling of folder
structures caused you more than a few seconds of downtime. It
shouldn't have taken longer than that to see what the new folder
structure was and get back on track.

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:27:41 -0000, Lostgallifreyan
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote in
news
On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:18:36 -0600, Lostgallifreyan
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote in
:

If he's that sloppy with web
development, is he equally sloppy with his software development?


I suspect he's an engineer, not a marketer. Better than than the other
way
round!

Agreed, but in the meantime, it's not very confidence inspiring.



Maybe he'd prefer to see people try it and find a deeper reason for it.

Personally, my only beef with that presentation is the indugence in the
shiny-white-box culture of software sales. If I thought he was being
satirical I might like it better. Fortunately the actual software really
IS
good. Die-hard proponents in the past, of things like Outpost and AtGuard
would probably like it. Some of those purits might want to separate the
'anti-trojan' bit from the firewall, but I wouldn't. One of its
strengths is
detecting some program, and enabling filtering for that program, only
when
the program is loaded and needing it. It's a clever and efficient use of
directed switching that keeps things fast, optimised to whatever is
running.
When LnS started out, the main alternative was Zone Alarm. *shudders*

Kerio?

--
[dash dash space newline 4line sig]

Albi CNU

Per Char Jackson:
...I'm surprised to hear that a minor shuffling of folder
structures caused you more than a few seconds of downtime. It
shouldn't have taken longer than that to see what the new folder
structure was and get back on track.....

Maybe this is more a comment on my lack of gray matter... but, as
another computer user with decades of experience, I post rants on
a regular basis on the subject of Microsoft's gratuitously moving
the furniture around.

Yeah, coping with a given function may only be a few lost
minutes... but those minutes add up over many functions and
hopping back-and-forth between OS' doesn't help any either.

If it were only the few hours total that a retail user like me
lost, I guess it would be no big deal in the grand scheme of
things. But for a company with 20,000 employees - all of whom
are going to lose those few hours and maybe more if they wind up
going to some sort of class on the new sys..... I would say
that's a *very* big deal man hour-wise.

I would think that, for any new OS, Microsoft would have a
committee to approve UI changes. If, for instance, somebody
wants to rename the "Add-Remove Programs" control to something
else and bury it in a new hierarchy they would have to justify
that change to the committee in functional (not marketing...)
terms.

But that doesn't seem tb the way it is... and the folks at MS
have probably forgotten more than I'll ever know... so go figure.
--
Pete Cresswell

"Harry Vaderchi" wrote in newsp.v9xgbyn81r0rdn@dell3100:

Kerio?


Never used it. I read that it, and another firewall, had been based on
AtGuard or some other small firewall, and grown a bit. LnS was what I wanted.
I looked at a few at the time, but I only remember much about what I stayed
with after that much time.

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
[]
There's this notion that W9X is the Neanderthal of the human species, but
actual Neanderthals are now known not to have been separate, but to have been

Hmm. I wouldn't go as far as "known" ... results from, AIUI, one site
_suggest_ that to be the case, and even if it is ...

a part of the genetic legacy we all have now. So the question is: Do we build

.... we don't _all_ have it, only (roughly) the northern of us.

on it, or throw it away? I never did like waste.

Me neither (-:.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We know that primitive man felt anger, as is evidenced by the deep kick marks
that archeologists have found in prehistoric vending machines." - Dave Barry

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
"Harry Vaderchi" wrote in newsp.v9xgbyn81r0rdn@dell3100:

Kerio?


Never used it. I read that it, and another firewall, had been based on
AtGuard or some other small firewall, and grown a bit. LnS was what I wanted.
I looked at a few at the time, but I only remember much about what I stayed
with after that much time.

It's generally agreed that Kerio bloated after 2.1.5, which is still
used by lots of us. (Eventually became - taken over by or renamed, I
can't remember - Sunbelt; a good product, but bigger, and also not I
think free. Nice newsletters though.) [IIRR KPF 2.1.5 doesn't work under
7.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We know that primitive man felt anger, as is evidenced by the deep kick marks
that archeologists have found in prehistoric vending machines." - Dave Barry

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
[]
About the overlapping but different interests, that relates to that firewall
bit I posted yesterday, trying to satisfy a wide user base can make them
unreliable, as conflicting interests arise. So modularity is the only way

Ah. Thought you were talking about the OS in general, sorry.

out, or alternative choices. Micosoft's problem is that for decades they
actively conspired against BOTH, which is a hell of a foot-shoot. It likely
explains why Apple are so dominant now too. And the increased takeup of

Sorry, not sure I'm disentangling your sentence (I know, I shouldn't
talk!): are you saying modularity is what's helping Apple (i. e.
"apps"), or something else?

Linux. I think an even bigger change is going to come when people who were

[I don't think Linux is going to make much impact any time soon. It's
best chance was a few years ago when netbooks started to appear, and a
few with a (very strapped down, i. e. the user wouldn't know _what_ OS
it was) Linux OS came - but they disappeared. From the high/main street,
I mean.]

used to microcontrollers as toys start reaching the age of 20 or so. Not long
now.

If you mean they will have experience in compact coding, I hope you are
right, but I fear not - even in microcontrollers, hardware has kept pace
with the requirements of bloat )-:.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We know that primitive man felt anger, as is evidenced by the deep kick marks
that archeologists have found in prehistoric vending machines." - Dave Barry

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
[]
From what I'm (slowly) learning about compilers, the main weakness is some
nonstandard ways of doing basic stuff on a commandline. (Commandlines have a
BAD rep, but shouldn't, most people know how to write a one-line note or text
message instructing another person on something).

(Interesting comparison. But a sketch can make a post-it easier to
understand too ...)

Another is that even without the higher level stuff, there was a tendency to
bloat, especially in C++ templates. Comments screaming their way in green ink
across a paragraph's worth of page, all nesting a little variable
declaration! That's just obscene. Encountering that is like walking into a
room where someone shouts at you to force you to get a message, hurts your
head with the noise, and who shouts ever louder not understanding why you do
not get it. No wonder it's hard to learn properly.

Ah, now there I agree with you that some people write far too much in
the way of comments - but that shouldn't lead to bloated code: a
compiler ought to remove comments, and AFAIK all do. There's the
half-way house of debug code, the compile-time flag (and which the wrong
use of was alleged to be the reason Netscape 6 was such a dog that it
killed the company), but that's not quite the same as comments.
[]
Imagine having to rebuild part of a house, using the parts that survive
dismantling of the original structure. it is always easier to unwire socket
boxes and put them aside, than have to drag them all still attached to
original wiring and somehow make that fit the new walls! But in a lof of high

But only if you made a note of which coloured wires went where (-:!
[]
have. No-one would expect to drag the carpet from room to room with furniture
still in place on it. For whatever reason, people don't want to beleive that

But equally, they wouldn't always move everything to another room just
to do a little dusting. (I've forgotten where we're going with this
analogy!)
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We know that primitive man felt anger, as is evidenced by the deep kick marks
that archeologists have found in prehistoric vending machines." - Dave Barry

In message , BillW50
writes:
[]
And what many just don't understand (especially newer computer users)
about the horrors and Vista and Windows 7 places on experienced Windows
users is this. As what made Windows what it is today was that if you
knew how to use one Windows version, you knew how to use them all.

Vista and Windows 7 broke that rule. It is my guess is all of the older
programmers have long retired from Microsoft by now. And now
inexperienced younger programmers are now running the show and are
clueless about such rules.

Ah, your familiarity has made you forget. Going from 3.1 to 95 _did_
mean accepting quite a few changes - for example, the close box moved!
(Though - and I think even in 7 - the old context menu is still
available by clicking at the top left, a fact I suspect becoming little
known!) And there were other things - I forget now, but I did find there
were quite a lot of them at the time. And, actually, 95 to 98: though it
was more of an upgrade, the new fancy GUI (especially the obsession with
making everything webby) was quite a shock. (OK, most of us soon knocked
those on the head, either via lite or doing it properly like LG is in
the process of doing.) Although more of an under-the-bonnet major
change, I found the 98SElite to XP transition less of a shock, though
(to give just one example) I see no reason they removed the lines from
the tree pane in Explorer (let alone stopped that being the default).

And without following these older rules, the inexperienced don't
understand what made Windows great will cause it to unravel. As let's
say you were evil and say you ran Microsoft. And you wanted to burn
Microsoft to the ground. One sure way would make the users relearn each
new Windows version that comes out. And we see that happening now with
Vista and Windows 7.
[]
Now if a user has to relearn each new Windows version from now on. What
is the incentive to upgrade? And if you are forced to relearn each new
OS, why bother with Windows anymore? Why not use another OS who has the
smarts of not making the user to relearn each newer version?

Because Windows - the latest version - is all that is available (other
than Apple, which even dim potential users can see costs rather more -
unless they buy Sony - for roughly the same capability, though some of
them may choose to buy it anyway). And most users just fire up their
favourite applications and care little for the underlying OS - and use
the default folders for everything.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"We know that primitive man felt anger, as is evidenced by the deep kick marks
that archeologists have found in prehistoric vending machines." - Dave Barry

In message ,
Lostgallifreyan writes:
"BillW50" wrote in :

The part you don't seem to understand is something my mentors said back
in the early 80's when there was no top dog in the OS race. And they
wisely said that you don't pick the OS first. You first pick the
applications that you want to run and then pick the OS that will run
them.

Oddly enough, even decades later... this is *still* words to live by
(and oddly enough seemingly nobody but me says this today).

No, you're not alone there. I say it too. Strangely, even when I point out
that I have several grand's worth of HARDWARE that requires W98, never mind

Hmm. I don't doubt that you have a lot of money's worth, but do you have
in mind 1. the original price of the equipment, 2. the current
second-hand price, or 3. the price of new equipment that will do the
same things (probably under Vista/7/Apple)?

several good programs that need it, being reliant on specific low level
drivers built for it, there are still people who say I should 'upgrade', the
instant I mention that I'm on W98! But I can't add to that without repeating
stuff I said very recently so I won't.

Although I will say I prefer to be a competent madman than an incompetent
moron, if that's the choice forced on me.

Indeed. I certainly resent the "duh" mentality that Microsoft (and
probably Apple) assume is the default. (Though they're probably right
for the majority!)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Dogs come when they're called.
Cats have answering machines and may get back to you." - Phil Musiak