Another Windows Genuine Advantage screw up

Stop running windoze!

If you are not going to stop using this stuff, stop whining about how it invades your privacy, endangers your data, and treats you like a criminal.

hurrah wind0wsr3fund, at last we have something we agree on! Amen, bro.

I'll say amen to that, too.

Testify!

Yeah, I have no sympathy for that... It took far less than that to have me looking for something... anything other than Windows.

YES!!!!! Amen Brutha!! Preach it!!

I tell my friends that "friends don't let friends do windows!!" (or M$, as the spirit moves!!)

Don K.

> I tell my friends that "friends don't let friends do windows!!

Very nice, but of little use if they aren't motivated. Fortunately, MS is increasing its motivational factor exponentially.

All I can say is -- C'mon WINE!! Bring more programs into the fold.

Some folks need programs that are available only on Windows.

Mind you, such vendors deserve to go out of business. It borders on immoral, and certainly unethical, to offer business-critical software only on a cheesy platform like Windows.

> if they aren't motivated.

I just point to the fact that I've never had a virus in linux, my computer doesn't "phone home", etc. Usually that gets them started thinking that it might not be a bad thing.

> I just point to the fact that I've never had a virus in Linux, my computer doesn't "phone home", etc.

the security aspect is a motivator for those who are technically astute. For the rest, it is having the apps that individuals need. Until you have those, it's amazing what some will put up with.

Alas, it's even worse than that - it's the expectations of people too silly to even hold or click a mouse which will probably forever prevent them from using something better... An example: my bro upgraded from Breezy to Dapper. Fine. Or not so: now his Thunderbird-/Enigmail-Combo doesn't work, and OpenOffice all of a sudden stores in some different format than .doc - I haven't seen it, but let's assume it's some open document format. He finds that embarrassing and blames it on Ubuntu. Another one is my boss, who says "of course we are using Linux, but not for the sake of it". You may think that from a business point of view this could be correct, but he doesn't even remotely understand the freedom (as in speech) thing - like my brother doesn't, sadly. Only when users start to understand that they cannot simply take and - in case of it not being what they expected - then blame it onto someone, things will get better. These guys have to learn, and maybe even the hard way, that contributing and assembling your own dream setup are what it's all about. It's easy to just lean back and consume, but that are not the people I want to deal with... cheers, wjl

Mind you, such vendors deserve to go out of business.

Yes, that's meant for you, f%&)*n Autodesk! The fact that AutoCAD needs SP2 doesn't make it work under Wine, and neither Cedega. Plain annoying, I can't run it now. It isn't even integrated with OOffice AFAIK... (Darn OLE objects!)

(hkwint works with AutoCAD every day)

Isn't it great? M$ is only 'looking out' for my best interests, right?

I mean, if I bought a computer several years ago, isn't it about time that I went and bought a new one anyway?

and Microsoft is just checking on their software anyway, they don't snoop around my computer and log what's on it..right?

:-)

I think it's wonderful that MS works so hard to drive their users to other systems.

> ...it's amazing what some will put up with.

That's not just a software thing. It's amazing the cruelty I put up with, as a teen-ager, even though I really didn't have to. Are we onto something here?

> Are we onto something here?

Very probably. We can all point to situations that were intolerable, yet we still endured for reasons that we later realized were plain stupid.

hkwint: >"(hkwint works with AutoCAD every day)"

QCad can handle AutoCAD files.

> QCad can handle AutoCAD files.

Well.... sort of. Qcad handles a dxf import from autocad. That doesn't always get all the proprietary stuff.

How many critical systems run on a laptop running XP?

I spent half an hour learning how to make Windows Update's "Do you want to restart your computer now?" nag stop popping up every 15 minutes on a Windows 2003 server at work.

> How many critical systems run on a laptop running XP?

You have to ask that? All of XP's systems are critical - in critical condition, that is. ;-)

> How many critical systems run on a laptop running XP?

From all the recent news reports of companies losing critical customer data from laptops, I'd have to say quite a few. Scarry huh?