"Smitty Two" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Arfa Daily" wrote:

I must admit to being a little confused now

FWIW I don't remember your posts having a quoting problem before.

But I'm confused, too: I don't understand why so many people use an
operating system that has to be patched every three days, and software
that has to have third party **** added to it to work properly.

Well, part of it is that I don't look good with a beard, or in sandals. I
also find riding a bike a bit too much like hard work ... :-)

Seriously though. My computers are just tools. They are not a hobby where I
like to tinker with software and so on. I understand probably more than most
average Joes about how they work, and how to keep them working, but the
vagaries of operating systems and so on, are way, waaaayy over my head. For
that reason alone, I just leave them with the Windows OS on them that they
came with, but as a side issue, I like to know that if I buy or download a
piece of software, chances are it can be thrown onto the machine, and will
just work with a minimum of fuss.

Gates-bashing seems to be an international pastime, and one that I don't
really understand. OK, so the guy makes a lot of money, and some of his
company's policies might be a bit monopolistic, but so what ? He puts a lot
back into the community, and I really don't think that his business
practices are any worse than many other large corporations. It also has to
be remembered that pretty much single-handedly, that company has been
responsible for spreading affordable and powerful computing throughout the
world, from the poorest to the richest countries, and with a common platform
that allows anyone from any of those countries, to develop software that can
be used by pretty much anyone *with* a computer.

As to it needing patches every couple of months, it has to be remembered
that it is a large and complex piece of software, trying to please all of
the people, all of the time. Of course there are going to be bugs, and as we
all know, patching one - in any piece of software let alone an OS - is
likely to cause other problems that just can't be forseen until they occur.
Many of the patches are security-related, and wouldn't be necessary if the
little toe rags who think it's funny to attack computers and wreak havoc in
the commercial world, were properly targetted, and jumped on from a great
height. Anyway, updating with those patches is no great shakes, is it ? My
Windows machines check with MS regularly, and just get on with downloading
and installing any updates, with little intervention from me.

And before everyone starts squawking at me in self-rightous indignation for
being crass enough to use, and actually *like* Windows, I really don't care.
It does what I need it to do, without me having any deep understanding of
either it, or the computers it runs on, and does it pretty much faultlessly
the majority of the time ... d;~}

Arfa