Jim Davis
_____
From: Kevin Graeme [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2003 12:22 PM
To: CF-Community
Subject: Re: Microsoft Rant.
I think he's right. He does need to get out of the business.
First, the deal with the NICs and speeds isn't MS's fault. That's whoever
that hardware vendor is. I've had similar problems.
As for the cascading upgrade, that's the way things are. You upgrade one
piece and you will inevitably have to upgrade other pieces. Oh, but they're
breaking things and thus intentionally forcing users to upgrade?!? Have you
ever redesigned a web site to use CSS? Have you ever told your users that
Netscape 4.7 just isn't good enough? Same thing. You had your reasons for
moving to CSS and those in turn required a change in the client.
Does it drive me bat shit crazy sometimes? Damn straight. But so long as I
agree to work in tech I agree to put up with the merry go round of upgrades
and what that means for my pocket. Some days I do consider that I might
actually have more money by working at a lower paid non-tech job. But right
now I like playing with computers and I'm willing to pay for it.
-Kevin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Angel Stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Community" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2003 10:36 AM
Subject: Microsoft Rant.
> This from a Trinidad computing list.
> A Rant about Microsoft and their effects on computer technology and the
> way we use these machines:
>
> "<severe rant>
>
> What a week! I learned a lot of things I didn't want to know.I am tired
> now, really tired. Tired of Microsoft products. My soul is sad. I have
> fought and fought and I have lost.Time is on their side. There are too
> many of them.I need to leave this work, find something else to do.
>
> Found out this week that you can't just change a 10Mbps hub for a
> 10/100Mbps switch and not have problems.Found out that different
> motherboard/NIC combos default to different speeds when responding to
> DHCP. Weird. Some try to connect at 10Mbps, some at 100Mbps. Didn't
> expect that. I thought that the switch would sense the speed of the NIC
> and set the port to that speed. Not so. Am I doing something wrong?
> Anyhow, it totally screwed my LAN setup. Real pain. I'm going to have to
> do some research on this.Found out some subtle things about Excel97, SQL
> Server 7.0 and the protocols used to get them to talk to one another.
> Found out that Microsoft deliberately breaks things that were working in
> order to force users to upgrade. They seem to have this need to force
> users to have a PDC on their LAN. Things that shouldn't need a PDC,
> somehow have to have a PDC. Maybe it's coz a PDC means another server
> license sold. And of course, you can't have a PDC without a BDC. So
> that's another license.
>
> Let's assume I'm Joe User. I'm happily using Excel97 on Windows95. Then,
> I need to have a company database. Jack Vendor sells me a "solution"
> which requires SQL Server. Okay cool. So now I need a new machine to run
> SQL Server. Which means I need to have, at least, WindowsNT. Now, I can
> run my database machine as a standalone server without needing a PDC.
> I'm just using it as a database server, right?In order to connect my
> client workstations to SQL Server, I install Excel97 with Data Access
> and the drivers for SQL Server. This really means I'm installing ODBC on
> my client. But ODBC is not a networking protocol, so I need a networking
> protocol. No problem. SQL Server can use several, among them Named Pipes
> and TCP/IP. There are others but for the purpose of this discussion,
> they're not important.
>
> What is important is that Named Pipes under Microsoft requires user
> authentication. This is separate and distinct from, AND in addition to
> the user authentication the database requires. This is the key point.
> User authentication at the network level, in the Microsoft scheme of
> things, requires a separate server called a PDC. Which means that
> instead of a single, simple database server, Joe User now has to buy two
> machines. And Jack Vendor is going to STRONGLY suggest that Joe buy a
> third server as a BDC. Just in case.
>
> So now, we have three machines, three server licenses, and one copy of
> SQL Server. How can we avoid buying the extra things? We use a protocol
> which does not require a PDC and a BDC. This is where Linux comes in.
> Since we probably are going to need a file server at some point in the
> future, let's get an old box and stick Linux on it. Linux can be our
> cheap user authentication server, running Samba. So now we can ensure
> that only valid users can login onto our file server.Instead of Named
> Pipes, we run TCP/IP to access SQL Server. But there's a problem.
> Excel97 does not successfully connect to SQL Server 7.0 via TCP/IP.
> Amazing but true. The client software that comes with SQL Server 7.0,
> spews indecipherable error messages.
>
> Now this threw me. Excel97 connects perfectly with SQL Server 7.0 using
> Named Pipes, but not TCP/IP. Weird. After two days of trying to figure
> this out, I sat back and said to myself, "This worked perfectly with SQL
> Server 6.5. But now it doesn't work?"So I dug out my old 6.5 install CD
> and installed the client software from that. Hey presto! now Excel97
> connects perfectly to SQL Server 7.0 using TCP/IP.
>
> Understand this. Understand the sneakiness of this. Excel97/TCP/ip was
> working in 6.5. It stopped working in 7.0. Named Pipes worked in 6.5.
> Named Pipes still works in 7.0.
> Why? Coz Named Pipes *requires* a PDC. Which leads to a BDC. Which leads
> to two extra server licenses.There's no other reason. TCP/IP allows you
> to get rid of a PDC/BDC.
> Ergo, TCP/IP is a threat. Therefore, it must be broken.
>
> Microsoft. You don't get to choose.
>
> No doubt, the Microsofties out there, will say, "Hey, no problem.
> Excel2003 works fine with SQL Server 7.0 and TCP/IP. Just upgrade."
> Wonderful. It's a safe bet that Joe User has more clients than servers.
> So instead of just having to buy two extra servers, two extra server
> licenses, Joe User is now forced to buy Excel2003 licenses for each one
> of his clients. Microsoft wins again. And Joe User loses again.I never
> got to find out whether Excel97 on Windows2000 works with TCP/IP or not.
>
>
> That's coz it gives a really stupid error message when trying to create
> the DataSource. Something along the lines of "You must have given an
> invalid filename". Really insulting.It's insulting becoz it suggests
> that the user did something wrong in providing a filename. Except that
> the same procedure on Windows95 never gives any such error. Ever.
> Something changed in the OS to break the procedure.
>
> I could kinda understand this if Excel97 was produced by a different
> company. But Microsoft builds both products. Surely, they have people to
> test these things.I could understand if this was an isolated incident.
> But Outlook97 does more or less the same thing. The same Outlook97 can't
> open a .PST file created by Outlook97 when it runs under Windows2000,
> but it works fine under Windows95. Why?
>
> Isn't anybody else fed up with this crap? Am I the only person who hates
> this?
>
> I have worked hard to create a stable LAN where I work. I boast of
> having the most stable installation of Windows PCs on the planet. I have
> carefully removed anything that can crash my network. I have padlocks on
> all the PCs. Disabled all floppies, CD-ROMs, serial, parallel and USB
> ports. Nobody can get inside my boxen without a chisel. We are
> anti-virused and firewalled up the wazoo. I have images of all my
> configs on a boot server. I can download and reload any PC in 3 minutes.
>
> But stablity comes at a price. We need to support a certain software
> configuration. Any change must be resisted to the max.Change is the
> problem. Change is forced from outside.The people forcing change, say
> "This is better. You will be more productive. Upgrade." When they can't
> get you to upgrade, they go to the hardware manufacturers. They say,
> "We'll give you a discount if you pre-load our software. If you don't,
> you'll have to sell bare-bones."
>
> So Joe User, when buying new machines, either has to buy parts and build
> his own, or buy a pre-loaded machine. So what's the problem?One thing is
> that the hardware manufacturers now support things which only work with
> the new versions of the software. They no longer provide drivers for the
> older versions of the OS. Hey, no problem. The new OS has backward
> compatibility, right? Nope. Things like TCP/IP support gets broken. In
> subtle ways.
>
> I expected file formats to change between Office97 and the later
> versions. OK, that's not nice, but I suppose you could fool yourself and
> say, "Well, they added extra features, so the file format had to
> change." But networking protocols? Standard stuff like a protocol which
> is as old as the hills, is going to break? And it is only broken when
> Excel97 uses it. That's right. I have another product which connects to
> SQL Server 7.0 which has no problem using either Named Pipes or TCP/IP.
> It's only Excel97 that has the problem. Can you believe this crap?
>
> I'm a dinosaur. I'm really a dinosaur. I thought computers were going to
> set us free from drudgery. Save us time. Free us to be more productive.
> Help us to be more productive.That's not what has happened. Computers
> have become toys. We can't get people together to form a serious
> lobbying group, but we assemble in droves for a LAN party. We are our
> own worst enemy. We put up with the crappiest software every day. St.
> Clair King is right. We are consumers, not producers.
>
> Bill Gates has tapped into the deepest vein of human weakness, and like
> Dracula, he is sucking our life blood out. And like Mina Harking, we get
> off on it.
>
> I've got to get a new work.
>
> </severe rant>"
>
> -----
>
> What do you think?
>
> -Gel
>
>
> ---
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>
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