Okay, I have not run into "that" little issue (yet), but I have my own little rant to tack onto yours, Ken...
David Johnston (business associate) and I have a commercial client that is learning the "techie ropes" from us. But every once in a while they do something akin to innocently tossing a monkey wrench into the works with simple enough little mis-steps. Here is a situation where several M$ goofisms stacked up one after another and caused me a little grief. The other week one of the M$ critical enough updates that "we deem so important that we will ignore your setting your OS (which is really 'our' OS) to not receive or run updates automatically" ran on an AMD 2900 CPU based machine of mine. It is (was) a production machine, and the impact of a defect in that update manifested itself by causing the PC to go into a perpetual reboot mode when I try to light it up (a known issue). Usually I can simply go into Safe Mode and remove XP SP3 and fix the problem, but not this time. Having my back to the wall with a deadline I was trying to hit with multiple 42, 40, 27, 29, etc., hour long stints straight-through with not a moment to sleep, I decided to simply take the data files off its backup HDD and place them into a VMWare Virtual PC I use for other production processes. Bullet ducked, it worked like a champ. I was going to get back to the AMD machine another day and recover a recent Norton Ghost image, but for now at least I was saved. So this morning, as I am relishing having gotten the first 6+ hour night of sleep in 2 weeks, having completed the project's Phase One on time, I get an eMail from David advising I need to convert a data file from our client from an Excel .xlsx format into .xls so he could use it to finish populating some setup files for the next phase of our project. No problem, except it was my AMD 2900 PC that had Office 2007 on it. Drat, okay, I will just grab the conversion utility from the M$ site and use it on my on machine with Office 2003, which has all the latest updates (all other machines have Office 2000, which works great for all out needs). So I download the app from the M$ site, and find it has no directions re: how it is to be used, where it is located, or anything else (thanks, guys...). But I figure I can start by going into Excel 2003 and seeing if it is now an add-in feature to open Office 2007 XML format files, after which I would simply open and save as. Now, bear in mind Office 2003 has worked great for years on this machine, and again, it has the latest updates and patches installed. Excel 2003 opens fine, but when I go in to do a File|Open, when it comes time to select the Drive/Path where the source file is the app hangs. A hard hang. I had to use Task Manager to kill it. Damn! I uninstall the M$ conversion app, and still Excel 2003 hangs. Kill it again via Task Manager. I reboot the PC, same problem. Bastards! I bite the bullet, and end up uninstalling Office 2003 and installing Office 2007 Ultimate (thankfully I have MSDN Universal, and can do this without paying so much as a dime more to M$). Now I have Office 2007 on this nice AMD 2.0Ghz machine with 2Dg DDR2 RAM, and compared to Office 2003 I find said Office 2007 runs as slow as a frozen turd in the dead of winter in the Arctic Circle when it comes to seeking a file to open. Once the file is open all seems to be fine, other than the fact I should not have had to go through so much as one part of the grief that led me to this point. I got the .xlsx file open, and did the File | Save As successfully. But these idiots at M$ ought not get away with crap like that without suffering some kind of loss similar to mine. My vengeance came within hours, where a gal at a local restaurant that knows I am into computers advises me of her latest Virus woes with an XP machine she had built in 2002, and tells me she is going to get a new PC. She asks what I suggest she get. "Go to the Apple Store in Victor (NY)," I respond. "But I have to learn a new Operating System!", says she. "With Vista you have to relearn one anyway," came the response, "And you will have the same level of potential exposure to viruses, adware, spyware, etc., with Vista with a nice, new shiny PC as your older 7 year old XP machine. Get a Mac, do not look back, and I will migrate your files from your old hard drive onto the mac for you for free. And if you can't afford a Mac, bring your PC in to me and I will install Ubuntu Linux for free, and then migrate your files. Linus is like the Poor Man's Mac, and runs just as safely as the Mac OS. Both kick ass all over Windows Vista, and you will never have to get an AntiVirus app ever again." She was going to get a new PC at Best Buy, with Windows Vista. She assured me she can afford a Mac, and promised to get a Mac after some nearby patrons gave her an encouraging thumbs up with my recommendation. Fuck you, Microsoft weenies. You have hosed me a few times too many to ever be in a friendly camp with me again. Little shit like what I have had to put up with over the past few years, much less today, not the least of which is trying jam Vista down my throat, and then try to convince consumers at large how good Vista is with your claims of how well it is selling - therefore it must be great, have alienated you from the crowd that knows better. I only work with M$ Windows products because my clients must do so. I truly wish I could so everything I need to do for them using Linux, or even Mac. The day is coming when M$ will begin to feel the bleeding, nibble by nibble. And I will be right there nibbling away with the best of them... Grrr... Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: profoxtech-boun...@leafe.com > [mailto:profoxtech-boun...@leafe.com]on Behalf Of Ken Kixmoeller/fh > Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 3:34 PM > To: profoxt...@leafe.com > Subject: [NF] I deeply disparage Outlook! > > > <rant> > OK, my wife-kids' laptop (which was my experimental Vista machine > before the kids took it over) was running very, very slow. New-ish > machine, no new software, checked all of the usual culprits (virus > protection, etc.) -- nothing would get it going faster short of > rebooting, then it would slow down again the next time I saw it. > > So just now I'm up there trying to help my daughter with something, > and the machine is so painfully slow as to render it a virtual > doorstop. So what's going on? Daughter is running Outlook & iTunes, > so that is part of it -- both horrible, bloated pigs of programs. But > still -- should be responding *some*. > > Flip over to my wife's login -- nothing special there -- her usual > Outlook and a single Word document. But, I sorta-accidentally look at > the Outlook icon in whatever-the-hell-they-call-the-lower-right-part- > of-the-status-bar. A whole boatload of checkmarks in the menu -- AND > THEN I SEE IT: "Hide while minimized" -- On. Oh, sh|t. I turn it off, > and 5 -- count 'em -- 5 copies of Outlook are running simultaneously! > > Now I get it. Wife comes to computer, flips to her login. "Oh, I > guess somebody shut down my Outlook. <expletive>! I wish they > wouldn't do that." So she starts it up. Little does she know that the > word "again" needs to be added to that sentence. OK, so you say: "She > oughta know better." But here's the thing: the last version (and > maybe this, I don't know) had this "feature" -- it is always running > in the background -- you couldn't kill it -- and puts an icon in that > same position when you have an eMail waiting. She has no way of > knowing. Not to mention that NO OTHER piece of software behaves this > way. And *why* allow a second copy to run at all? On the *same* > login? Why?!?! Nobody needs 2 copies running at the same time. Much > less 5. > > I deeply, deeply regret bringing Vista and Office 2oo7 into my domicile. > </rant> > > Sorry to waste your bandwidth -- I just *had* to vent.... > > Ken > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/ndbblhfmcdkpegpoiiapoegebkab....@gilhale.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
