Bill Gates isnt all bad afterall

[iceblue]

hah. good thing i never used their services to start off with.

[ShawnD1]

if you have ever used hotmail, MSN mail or MSN messenger, then yes you have.

[cbh]

I have been using Windows since I bought my first computer in 1997. I think!

Well! Win95 is the best OS I have ever seen and used. It's quite stable and user-friendly at that time. Now I stick to Win98 SE and I don't really like Win XP. Microsoft tends to make its OS into a security-oriented software and I fear that our computers can be 'intruded' very easily by Microsoft and not hackers.

Even my cable modem company can hack into its customers' PCs very easily.

[ShawnD1]

oh yer a puter youngin huh, i been using puters in my house since 1992 using only the MS Dos Shell which was an old school dos version of Windows Explorer. the puter eventualy got Windows 3.1 on it and Office 6 i think it is. Office is like 20mb, it takes a significant portion of the hard drive space .
great puter, has never crashed, not even once.

you're right though about MS being a bigger security threat than a hacker. have you actually read the MS EULA? i read that thing and it scared the hell out of me. they have the legal right to look at my stuff any time they please.

[cwin]

Can you send a copy of the EULA - i never read it

[ShawnD1]

i've only seen the eula when installing, i dont know how to get it any other way

[cbh]

Well! What can we possibly do about the problem? We need Windows in our daily activities and Microsoft need our financial support to survive. Eventually, Microsoft will use that money to pay up all the lawsuits. And still survive in the end! Amazing! Bill Gates really knows how to maintain and stabilize his company. He's an intelligent and capable guy.

Who can say? Maybe Microsoft will create a Matrix-like system that provide VR entertainment for everyone.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Your obsessed with the matrix

My biggest gripe with Gates is that most of his products are direct ripoffs of work done by Jobs and even Workbench on the old amiga's. The whole WIMP revolution wasnt started by MS at all, they just half inched the best features of all the other existent WIMP GUI's and put them in one

--Jakk

[Slade54]

Many people say Gates is a great business man.

And quite frankly anyone who doesnt believe that is an idiot.

Look at all hes done. I may not like they guy, but you got to admire what hes been able to do with his life and his company, even despite all the **** hes taken in the process.

Still doesnt give him the right to rip me off though

And thats one reason i havent bought a MS product since '99.
And no, im not just pirating, i simply get around on all my "old" software. 98se and office 97 work just fine thank you very much.

Eventually ill have to upgrade, but thats why ive also been looking at Linux. Got Mandrake 9.1 burned last nite, gonna fiddle with it today

[KenKeith]

There was a time when comp manufacturers had their own operating system and installations had to employ app programmers. Cost ran into the five figures. Gates' input to the industry has made PCs an affordable household item.

An allegation of unfairly pricing of his product does not appear and is not obvious to me. A ripping off analysis goes both ways. The cost of the product could be reduced if his intellectual property wasn't infringed in an on-going basis.

I am not sure Gates is a great business man, but he certainly was in the right place and the right time with a product that meets many needs of the general population. The guy is a technological genuis surrounded with competent management personnel.

I would place M. Dell in the category of a very successful business man who has outdone his competitors in marketing, pricing, and the ability to gain customer confidence, etc.

[Slade54]

Uh.....Gates wasnt the one who first delivered a product that didnt cost thousands of dollars to implement. Ever heard of DOS??

Thought so, and he wasnt the one who made it, he bought it.

And are you telling me Apple didnt accomplish this first?

Last time i checked, Apple sued MS for infringing on their rights.

MS won that battle, and thats what really paved the way for them.

The funny thing is when MS sued Lindows a while back, Lindows brought that case back up, so MS prolly wont get far in that suit, but it is MS, and theyve got some good lawyers, thats for sure.

MS hasnt been the first to do many things. Theyve just manage to do it better then most.

[iceblue]

Originally posted by ShawnD1
if you have ever used hotmail, MSN mail or MSN messenger, then yes you have.

which means no. how could i possibly trust hotmail with as simple of a task as email?

and that MSN garbage is the first thing i wiped off my system when i first installed winXP.

[Greg Harper]

I haven't bought a windows item since 2000 and for the same reason as Slade. I tried Linux and the more I use it the better I like it. At first it was a search for an alternative but after seeing the capabilities it's much more although if your a gamer(which I'm not) it has it's drawbacks and is harder to setup but it can be done. The system is not quite ready for the average home user but at the rate it's going it will be soon and Gates knows that hence the M$ interest in the SCO case against Linux.

[ShawnD1]

i dont buy MS stuff because there are always alterior means.

i do not quite understand why MS and the PC started to beat Apple. back in tha day, both were about the same price but Apple was the first to have a GUI, first with a mouse, they were easier to use and they had just as much software for them. what happened?
Apple started to price themselves out of the market AFTER MS was the king.

[cwin]

Found a copy of the EULA in my system32 folder.
Still need to get round to reading it though.

If you dont want people accesing your data, try and get your hands on a version of PGP 3.0 - PGP 1 & 2 have been sucessfuly hacked, and PGP 4 thru 7 (possibly higher) have a backdoor so that police, and government officials can get into it. --well so i've heard