Posts by Graham Whiteside 5 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Apr 2009
"obsolete and ersatz software like UNIX"
Don't make me laugh. If you want real work done (reliably) use a UNIX or Linux box.
I have several really old, relatively slow (by today's standards) HP-UX servers doing easily 10 times the work of brand new Wintel machines, and they do it without constant preening and without being rebooted three times a week.
And the reason OS-X is so stable? That'll be UNIX too!
There's nothing wrong with basing an OS around UNIX. Often it's the graphical environment that needs some design work - a more user focused approach. I often wish M$ would swallow their pride and follow Apple and Google's lead - a Microsoft graphical environment on top of a secure and robust Linux platform would be a winner IMO.
Far from being 'obsolete', UNIX (and OS based on the UNIX model) is resurgent. Windows hasn't lived up to it's promises and people just want reliable systems that work ... and don't need 2GB of RAM and a dual core processor just to run a browser!
</rant>
Incandescent bulbs don't waste energy - they help to heat your home. If you change to low energy ones the central heating has to take up the slack. Result in CO2 - little difference!
Now factor in that fluorescents use toxic metals and probably have more embodied CO2 from manufacturing than old simple bulbs - I think the old ones are more green!
At least Google develop products that work!!!
People use Google because they _want_ to, not because they _have_ to through devious lock-in tactics. M$ have abused their monopoly status at every opportunity, corrupting standards, and doing their very best to break inter-vendor interoperability.
Google have succeeded through excellence at what they do.
I've never been against a big software company doing well if they deserve it. Micro$oft don't.
Microsoft's core operating system is totally rotten. We once had an NT server with a file system containing millions of files. We wanted to copy them to another drive. Bread and butter stuff for an OS one might say. It managed to skip a whole LOAD of files (seemingly at random) without giving any kind of indication an error had happened - made a total balls of it. (no - there weren't any files open by apps) We spent _days_ developing perl tools to verify if all of the files had been copied correctly - enterprise OS my arse!
An HP-UX box deployed in a similar situation managed to do it without fuss, first time. Needless to say we try to avoid Windoze now unless the client REALLY must have it.
They should have the balls to do what Apple did and use BSD UNIX as the core with a Microsoft Windows Manager / Graphical Environment.
If they did this and stopped trying to play the "lock in" monopoly game, people might actually WANT to use Microsoft products again rather than using them because they're locked in.
As for the pricing - £200? They're having a laugh. OS-X is £80 and way better. Just wish apple would release it for use on commodity PCs.
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