Posts by A M Street

Microsoft promises no patent prosecution of open-source .NET

@ AC

"Some people spending too long doing dental examinations of gift horses if you ask me..."

See also: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."

Looks like the second situation here to my mind.

Tory plan for MS, Google, others to hold NHS records floated

@mike smith

I had to check the date that the first post was made.

The reference to Tony Blair is what fooled me, I thought it was still 2007. The current PM is Gordon Brown, remember him? Not for much longer though, eh? Pity the icon looks a bit like Clem Atlee, now there was a good PM.

A nightmare on the way

It is just as well that there is an opt-out regarding your health records. There is no way that I will allow either Google or Microsoft within a mile of my personal data. I can just imagine Google dribbling at the thought of what use thay can put these record to. Personalised drug recommendations, perhaps? This makes the Labour party's mania for data collection look like Dixon of Dock Green. Don't be evil? A true nightmare.

Think tank rumbles over gov data-hogging

A little difficulty here I think

"would require all public services to use open data standards" That should eliminate MS from any such project then.

Microsoft trades goodwill for TomTom Linux satisfaction

@AC re. It had to happen. But in the long term will be good

No, I think that this will reinforce the reputation that MS has.

I'm not sure who are more stupid, the fools that think up these stunts or the fools who buy into the rubbish spouted by MS about wanting to play nice with FLOSS.

As for those who actually by MS products, well, as Lincoln said "you can fool some of the people all the time..."

Bah!

The Google-isation of all the net's access points

Bah!

Every time I read about Google My heart sinks a little more. It does truly seem as if they are bent in making the internet into their own image. I like Firefox as it is and the reason I use Linux is because I don't want anyone telling me what I can and cannot do with my machines. Still I gave up using Google as a search engine long ago and there is nothing that will persuade me to use the so called "cloud"

Our boxes are, apart from the stuff from Apple, called PCs. People should stop and remember that this stands for "Personal Computer". I for one wish them to remain that way and not be morphed into a dumb terminal controlled by the mega corporations wanting to part me from as much of my money as they can get away with. Yes. Google included.

"Do no evil, but look out for ways of ripping the poor saps off."

L and S looking for your wallet

Google: 'Even in the desert, privacy does not exist'

Walk away

I used to be a big fan of Google in their beta days. I used to point everyone at the site and was really pleased to get away from all the clutter and adverts of their competitors. That said I wouldn't touch Google with a barge pole these days. They are overbearing, arrogant and far too big for their boots.

My solution? I currently use Alta Vista, yes it's still about, though I have been looking at Cuil and once the teething troubles are over may well move to them.

So don't use Google if you are unhappy just vote with your mouse and leave. After all, we made them what they are today and hopefully we can cut them down to size.

MS products just too cool to comprehend, say MS geeks

Beta release? They've heard of it

I love the way Microsoft has been pulling the wool over punters' eyes for years.

They release a new, more convoluted O/S then, when things start going pear shaped they always come back with the reply "Oh, things will be better on release of the first, second, third etc service pack." And yet they still get people to pay for this sort of scam.

No wonder people are moving over to Apple and Gnu/Linux where things just work. I hear some people saying "Linux ?" Yes, that's right, most distros these days with the exception of Gentoo and its ilk just load and run. Having just retired from supporting Microsoft's product I certainly do not miss the scrabbling around looking for drivers, loading on anti malware, waiting for patches etc. Needless to say I run Gnu/Linux.

Smiley because billg and his appalling messes kept me in a well paid job for years cleaning up after him.

Re-jigged Intel mobile Linux stack dumps Ubuntu

A couple of points

Reading Hohndel's remarks raised a couple of points in my mind.

As a long time user of Mandriva nee Mandrake I've used and suffered with the RPM system for nearly ten years. Anyone remember "dependency hell"? Things have improved over time but having recently tried PClinuxos and apt-get I feel that moving away from the Debian system to RPM is a real step backwards. Still I suppose that if Hohndel is ex Suse then perhaps he feels more comfortable with RPM. Still a mistake imho.

Secondly, FOSS users and developers are particularly sensitive to perceived bad behaviour and the difficulties that Intel has been having with the EU over allegations of improper business practices. This may well have deterred a number of developers. After all how many free and open source developers are queing up to work with Microsoft?

Asus Eee PC storms Euro PC maker chart

Lincoln was right

@Paul R.

Well! to quote Abraham Lincoln "You can fool some of the people all of the time"

I thought that the idea of the Eee was to be cheap but by putting XP on it you have managed to inflate the price by about 25% to 30%.

Can't handle Linux? My six year old nephew took to it like a duck to water, still I suppose the older you get the more inflexible and resistant to change you become.

spegru is right, after all the money spent in vain to protect your Eee you might like to try Linux again, after all what do you want to do with it, use Photoshop or Autocad?

Dell guilty of defrauding New York customers

Dell service

I was working at a large company in Shannon, about ten miles from the Dell factory in Limerick. We had just ordered a large consignment of Optiplexes for the call centre when the HDD started dropping like flies, about thirty to forty percent were dying on us only a few days after the were delivered. At first a technician arrived with the replacements, we did not need him to do the swaps as we were fully qualified to do this, but it was a nice gesture. Eventually, however the HDDs were delivered by our Dell account manager who explained that the problem was not Dell's but was with the HDDs, IBM, if I recall correctly, some of you may remember this fiasco. Well, anyway, Dell not only replaced all the faulty drives with WD ones but upped the spec. on them as well, so we were pleased by the level of service, still I suppose working for GE Capital didn't hurt.

Having said that the build quality of the Optiplexes was a bit iffy, looked and felt like the cases were made of cardboard and they bowed under the weight of the monitors unlike the Compaq Deskpros they were replacing which were build like battleships.

Windows XP SP3 blame game begins

Ah me!

I'd just like to say that my Mandriva system is in full working order