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Theo Zourzouvillys wrote:
re mssql - I have a fully up to date development version - I have to keep it switched off as it has the slammer virus - the fix offered is to 'upgrade'! that's OK cos I can run any number of OS databases - even thought they don't integrate with Visual Studio - the one decent product Microsoft have. But that's probably because its based around .NET which is also fantastic - but that's probably because its an open standard - something Microsoft try and avoid. And even with that I'd have to upgrade to Server status for a couple of facilities that would be useful.On Tuesday 11 July 2006 22:13, Tom Potts wrote: MSExchange - you obviously haven't had to support it in a real environment. I had to spend 3 weeks continuously assisting 3 £500 a day MCSE engineers attempt to fix our Exchange 5 set-up that had gone pear shaped when the database became corrupted. They gave up recommending full reinstall - loosing some 2Gig of messages and details of 5000 users. I wrote a few simple bits to crack and fix the database and had it working in two days. That would probably be illegal today! And I could read every message ever sent - secure - NOT! £50000 pounds of software and servers and licences and support that could have been replaced by any number of free solutions but microsoft lied and said it was a working product. It might be now but at what cost to the users? Office is a great product - well maybe if you don't know any better. I don't live in little hole preaching - I have 32 years computing experience. If you want to cripple your organisation using office go ahead. I wouldn't use MS office or Open Office for that matter if I wanted my organisation to USE computers and not pointlessly imitate paper. Follow the herd into that wilderness if you must but when you finally realise that fourteen thousand fonts and formats does not make the data in that document any more computer friendly you too will realise you've been sold a pup. It was another corporate evil Sun that wrote most of Open Office in hatred for M$ - if they'd hadn't wasted their time with that a written a web based version we'd all be a lot better off. No, not a lot, a massive amount! Have a read of 'A computer called Leo' . Then ask yourself how most organisations today who use a million times more computing power per desk are more poorly integrated than a company using one valve computer was in the early 1960's. Because M$ have been telling them that their product is good for them. Alas too many people do not realise that all that glisters is not gold and have bought all the pretty bells and whistles without looking at the bottom line. Schools teach microsoft word processing and how to produce bloated HTML documents from the same. Computing, however, is 'data with semantics' not 'data with formatting'. We have a whole generation of people under the illusion that 1+1=4 is fine so long as you use the corporate style manual and can segue it from blue to red in powerpoint. I've watched computing hurtle forwards until the early nineties when, to my mind, M$ deliberately tried to stifle the internet but fortunately it was too resilient. Since then its moved like treacle. Mainly because Microsoft have abused their monopoly position and tried to shut out all competition. Microsoft may not be evil but if they're not they're either in denial or criminally ignorant. They have sold the idea that computing is easy - that's their big lie. Its not and your going to have to live with that and learn how to safely, securely and efficiently manipulate data - not its appearance! Microsoft don't appear to have the tools for this thought they do have some tools that will allow you to do some pretty things. To my mind usability is about what a product does for me and not how easy it is for me to do the wrong thing. Having to 'upgrade' all my software every now and then is not usable. The 486 with RH6.1 that allowed me to browse the web, and acted as a firewall for 6 years and was NEVER compromised is usable - or it was until I found I couldn't fit it in my new house! Emo Phillips had a wonderful sketch about how there was a special door in his house that he was not allowed through. When he got to eighteen his dad finally opened the door. Through that door he saw amazing things he'd never dreamed of: like the sky, birds, trees and other people. Microsoft is that closed door. MCSE is the padlock on that door. Kick it down. Tom te tom te tom. |
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