> > Thanks for the kind words regarding CB! > Not a problem, Dale - I've been lurking on here for several years, actually - just not getting that active. And I think CB is the better for almost all games than anything else - heck, a friend of mine and I use CB to play games that we COULD set up in our homes, just because it doesn't take up the 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. (I'm talking about YOU, Terrible Swift Sword!)
> > In a sense Microsoft should be pro-piracy since it guarantees them a lock > on the market. :) I sometimes wonder if they are, in a sideways sense. Of course, they're the largest, so that's primarily why everyone likes to pick on them for viruses and such - it'd be like making a virus that only infects Yugos - why bother when you can make something that infects Toyotas? > I actually like XBox! I think it's a great product. > Halo 3 Beta - March 16th, for about 3 weeks or so! > It turns out I do have some close ties with Microsoft in the embedded space > (winCE and .NETcf). I've been out to Redmond many times to talk to > developers on those teams. > > One thing I've learned is that Microsoft is tenacious. If they mess up they > do it again until it works. However, I think they screwed the pooch with > Vista. > The way it was explained to us in Vegas at our pre-launch conference was this: Hardware can make exponential leaps quicker than software. Thus, you've got custom systems now that can run multi-dual core processors, 4 GB or more of RAM, 1 TB of hard drive space - and that's where the consumer market is ALSO headed. We all know 95 and 98 had limitations on how much you could actually do with the hardware - and XP was coming up on some of it's limits. So what they did was rewrite the code to give it more bells and whistles - and incidentally, make it easier for the average computer user to NOT infect or screw up their machine. You and I both know how easy it is for someone to get into settings or do a regedit and just completely screw things up. Vista was designed for Joe Average to NOT screw things up. Unfortunately, Joe Average also doesn't need DX10, 512MB of graphics memory, or anything else. He needs a system that he can browse the net and get his porn, get his e-mail, and send pictures of the kids to the grandparents. So in that respect, Vista isn't that great. OTOH, I do like the search feature - and when I get a new computer that actually can run Vista, I'll probably get it. Until then, I'll keep plugging along with my 3 networked XP machines. I don't think they are > totally evil like some. It's funny - when I'm in retail and people ask me who I work for (even when I'm wearing a Microsoft branded shirt with a Microsoft namebadge, they STILL ask) - I tell them I work for the evil empire. :) They didn't change to XP until 2000 wasn't viable anymore. I know the enterprise edition came out months earlier than the retail version, in an attempt to get corporations online with it. By the same token, though, XP actually does work - as opposed to some products that MSFT put out. (Millenium!) > They would literally rip out the XP that came with the box and put on > Win2000. IT groups HATE change. > > Of course none of this has anything to do with Linux. But, if MSoft doesn't > capture the hearts of the young, those same people become the IT decision > makers of tomorrow and entropy may catch up with Microsoft. Oh, I'm certain that there will be issues at some point. The question is - how well does MS Office work with Linux? THAT'S going to be the key thing - because Office is ALSO the standard for the corporate world. What gets annoying is when you're running newer versions on one computer, and you have to go work on an older version, and your shortcuts don't work anymore.
