Though you are preaching to the choir (Mac user) about how worthless Microsoft is, there is a reason they can't really improve their products. You see, they would work flawlessly if Microsoft actually made a computer. Hence the Apple "complete package" theory that allows OSX to be solid as a rock. Microsoft is like UPS. they make boxes in general sizes but nothing to fit a specific product. Microsoft makes operating systems for general purposes, but doesn't create it's operating system for one specific computer.

They are; however, the best answer to most problems. Well, Hotmail sucks, plain and simple... but for the most part, they try... the problem usually spawns from manufacturers trying to create a computer that will apply to the most common uses because they have no idea how any one person is going to use that computer. It would kick ass if you could call up HP and say "Hey, I use my computer to download music, make sure it has iTunes ready for me, and I need these codecs." Unfortunately computer manufacturers are working on too large a scale for that. Therein lies the problem with Microsoft. They are twice removed from their users and end up catering to the computer manufacturers instead of the people who use the computer.

I will admit that MS IE got it's act together with Service Pack 2. Albeit intrusive, since I added SP2 I haven't seen a single pop-up. Firefox is great for most uses but won't work on a lot of heavy Java sites without a little pro tweaking. In fact, Firefox is so great Apple made it the official browser of OSX and renamed it Safari.

Well, enough rant on Microsoft... they are good at what they do, but they could easily be better by doing what they don't!

Posted by J at November 25, 2004 08:51 AM

After spending all of last night desperately trying to restore the second PC that's crashed on my parents in less than a week... I would like to withdraw my comments about Microsoft being the best at what they do. I don't know what I was thinking. This time I know it is their falty software's fault because the only one who used this computer was me. The only sites I navigated too were Mircrosoft sites to do their updates. In addition the firewall was set, and I had removed all the spyware that spyware Dr. could find...

GET A MAC, save yourself the frustration! If you must have windows, buy virtual PC for your mac! One additional note... HP Photosmart P1000 printers suck... avoid them like the plague! They print great pictures if you can get them loaded onto your computer... even then they will constantly loose their connection and give you little warning windows. LOL Perhaps I should go write a blog about this instead of using your blog as a forum for my rants.... yes... well then, this rant shall be continued in my blog!

Posted by J at November 28, 2004 06:44 AM

I thought that you'd gone momentarily insane for awhile...but that's okay. We all have our moments. ;-P

BTW: the "hiragana" in big letter's says " 'zakennayo "...which can be translated as "fuck you", for those that are interested.

Posted by Zoso at November 28, 2004 11:15 PM

> In fact, Firefox is so great Apple made it the
> official browser of OSX and renamed it Safari.

Actually, that's not quite true - Safari predates Firefox. While it's true that Firefox is based on Mozilla's "Gecko" rendering engine (which predates Safari), Apple didn't use that either.

In creating Safari, Apple actually appropriated the 'KHTML' rendering engine, which comes from the KDE web browser 'Konquerer' (KDE is a graphical desktop environment for Linux). Of course, they also made some enhancements to the engine, most of which have since been contributed back to the open-source community.

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-980492.html

Aside from both rendering engines being more modern than IE's, there is no connection between Safari and the Mozilla/Firefox rendering engine (well, other than the fact that they hired away some old Mozilla/Netscape people - most notably Dave Hyatt - so some of the coding techniques used may be similar).

As an aside: OmniWeb uses KHTML as well, and is in many ways a much better browser than Safari. Apple has also made the browser functionality available to 3rd party applications in a library known as WebCore, although it's not quite low level enough to code a full-featured browser with (Omni uses 'raw' KHTML, not WebCore).

> GET A MAC, save yourself the frustration!

Damn straight. Here's an interesting test someone did to see how clean installs of various operating systems would stand up security-wise:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-11-29-honeypot_x.htm

Results: In one case, a Windows PC was compromised within 4 minutes after installation. There were no successful Mac OS X or Linux break-ins, though there were nearly as many attempts.

Admittedly, SP2 does go a long way toward fixing these issues, and you are moderately more secure if you religiously update your Windows installation. However, all this really means is that crackers haven't _yet_ found the holes in your OS, not that they don't actually exist. Given that Microsoft's track record on fixing holes within a reasonable amount of time after they are found has been less than encouraging, I'm still paranoid about this Dell PC I have sitting here, even though I keep it updated continuously (Yes, J, I am 'slumming').

Posted by Jeff at December 1, 2004 09:33 AM