On Tue, 10 May 2011 21:49:36 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

On 5/10/2011 9:26 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 12:26:16 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

On 5/10/2011 12:14 PM, said this:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 07:03:16 -0400, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

In ,
says...

On Mon, 09 May 2011 08:10:13 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

On 5/6/2011 6:11 PM, said this:
On Fri, 06 May 2011 08:49:50 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

On 5/5/2011 8:03 PM, DGDevin said this:


"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message ...

And the perfect solution for this is .... letting the *government*
run it, right?

Did I say that? No? Well then.

In other wealthy nations the govt. has a significant role, sometimes just
setting the rules, in other cases serving as the single payer while
doctors and hospitals remain independent, sometimes actually operating
health care right down to the doctor's office. A mixed public/private
system seems to work well in many places. The Swiss system is
interesting, buying insurance is compulsory but the insurance companies
have to provide basic coverage on a non-profit basis (and they cannot
turn away anyone), they make their profits on supplemental coverage.

In any case the current U.S. system is untenable, with costs spiraling
out of sight and an increasing percentage of the population without
coverage. A bloated, top-heavy insurance industry that sucks money out of
health care and has a tendency to put its own profits ahead of patient
care would seem to be a big part of the problem, got any ideas on what
might be done about that?

That's all true as written, but is missing an essential point:
The *reason* things are the way they are is *because* government
got into the healthcare business in the first place. That
"bloated top-heavy insurance industry" is simply mimicking its
paymaster - the government. Adding more government - particularly
at the Federal level - will simply make things worse.
Unless you take the bloated, top-heavy, greedy insurance industry out
of the mix entirely, so there is only ONE level of top-heavy, bloated
buerocracy involved.

And just how do you propose to do that? At the point of a gun?
Canada did it with no shots fired. Basic "health insurance" is
provided directly by the government. Inefficient as all get out, but
al least only one level of incompetence.

The thing is, the American public doesn't want the government to be
running medicine. If they did it would already be a done deal. So
instead we get cosmetic lunacy like Obamacare.
Let's face it, the "average american" doesn't want the government
involved in ANYTHING that cost's money, or anything that might help
someone who either won't or can't hepl themselves. Still looking for a
Pinko in every corner.

That's not really the problem. The Sheeple want lots and lots and lots
of "free" (to them) social services. They do not wish to personally
pay for it, so the political types peddle this fantasy of "We can help
if you'll just vote for us."

But what that inevitably ends up meaning is, "We'll create a bureaucracy
that is more self-interested than interested in serving the constituency."
This makes the Sheeple further dependent on their Congress Critters -
exactly what all incumbents, especially, love.

This then leads to financial disaster and the politicians start selling
"Let's make the rich pay more" even though the "rich" pay over 90% of
Federal taxes in the US.

I share your view that the US system is insane because it props up
two inefficient bureaucracies: The private-sector delivery and
insurance system, and the government payment system. But the
way to fix this isn't to get rid of the private sector. It's to
get rid of the government bureaucracy and let markets fix the
private sector as they do so well.
Markets do NOT fix the private sector where "essential services" are
involved.
If they did, you would have private fee-for service fire protection,
and "policing" as well. When a private company/consortium, like, say,

Policing requires force and force is legally (almost) the sole domain
of government for a variety of reasons.

BIG OIL gets a monopoly, they have the country (and the world) by the
short and curlies - and they will NOT let go.

The only Western monopolies that ever existed that were *predatory*
were the ones enabled by government. Predatory monopoly can only
exist with force. Without it, the overpricing will be corrected by
government. Think public utilities vs. IBM or Microsoft. No
truly private monopoly can get away with predatory pricing and
survive.

The same is VERY TRUE of health care. Your private health care
providers (HMOs?) make obscene profits strictly because they can. Your

Businesses exist to make a profit. You think doctors, nurses,
pharma researchers, and their supporting staff should work for free
maybe?

Not at all. A couple hundred thousand a year for the professionals
listed is sensible. A couple million is criminal, when the average
skilled worker makes something like $60 thousand.

financial companies, banks, and insurance companies do the same, for
the same reason. CEOs and CFOs, as well as managers all down the line
get multi-million dollar bonuses while the companies are loosing
money and shareholders are bleeding - because they CAN. And the CAN
because your government hasn't got (and never has had, regardless
which party in in power - the jumbos or the jackasses) the balls to
stand up to them and regulate them into acceptable behaviour. They

Typically wrong. These healthcare providers don't have to be efficient
because they are *guaranteed government payment* no matter how well or
poorly they perform. It is the absence of markets, not the absence
of government that has created the mess.

Guaranteed government payment in the American system pre-Obama????
Absense of markets when there is a doctor shortage in almost any major
city (at least in Canada)?

And what about the insurance and financial companies???

haven't the balls or the stomach to do it because they know they will
not get elected to a second term if they do, because Americans do not
want their Government involved in their lives PERIOD.

That's the best part of being an American.

Also the worst.

Regulating banks and financial institutions is the tip of the wedge
that will turn their country into a communist state like North Korea,
or North Vietnam, or their good friends and financial "benefactors"
the Red Chinese. And government controlled/paid HEALTH CARE!!!!!
That's half way up the wedge.The poor cannot afford health care?

I grew up poor, long before US government run healthcare. This
is baldly false and unhinged from reality. We always had essential
healthcare even when there was only $20 for food.

As long as you didn't get sick you could live.

Tough. It'll cull out the "weak" - and the "weak" are the "socialist
scum" that drag down your great country - making it more difficult for
the rest of the unwashed masses to grab on to the AMERICAN DREAM.

That is true.

And a very sad commentary on the American culture.


Like Marie Antoinette said when told the peasants had no bread - "let
them eat cake".

I'm glad I don't live in the USA. And I hope and pray that out
government doesn't drag us down the American garden path.

Thank goodness we didn't elect the American University Prof as our
PM!!!!

I was born in Canada. It's a wonderful place with largely terrific
people. I chose to become an American citizen.
Glad you are happy with your choice.

On Wed, 11 May 2011 13:42:13 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

On 5/11/2011 12:55 PM, Douglas Johnson said this:
Tim Daneliuk wrote:

[...] The Sheeple
[...]the Sheeple
[...]

You've got to love the term. It does such a nice job of separating us
enlightened ones, who have a clear view of Truth, from those nasty, ignorant,
unwashed masses.

-- Doug

Anyone that thinks government will give them something for "free"
is Sheeple.
And anyone who has half a brain KNOWS it is not "free" We all know
this because we see the taxes we pay. It is not "free health care" it
is "universal" or "government funded" health care.
We know we are paying for it. - We are (pre) paying it on the
installment plan - or a "budget payment plan" if you like - knowing
that we will never have to lose our home or life savings just because
"our number comes up" and we either fall ill or have a serious
accident.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
Big oil a monopoly? How can seven same-sized companies constitute a
monopoly? Nevertheless...

Call it collusion then, it all adds up to esentially the same thing.

Monopolies are, in almost all cases, GOOD.

Not in this case (referring to current pricing in Canada). We're currently
being gouged for over 1.40 a liter which is close to $5.30 a gallon. Along
with that comes the sad realization that we haven't yet reached summer where
the gouging skyrockets even more. And, there's no chance in hell of any
pricing limitatations by our current majority federal government considering
all the tax dollars they rake in from our oil.

Upscale wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
Big oil a monopoly? How can seven same-sized companies constitute a
monopoly? Nevertheless...

Call it collusion then, it all adds up to esentially the same thing.

Might as well call it a toad. I believe there have been at least fifteen
high-level investigations of the oil industry regarding price-fixing,
collusion, and such since the oil embargo of the Carter years. To my
knowledge, not one has turned up evidence of any untoward dealings.


Monopolies are, in almost all cases, GOOD.

Not in this case (referring to current pricing in Canada). We're
currently being gouged for over 1.40 a liter which is close to $5.30
a gallon. Along with that comes the sad realization that we haven't
yet reached summer where the gouging skyrockets even more. And,
there's no chance in hell of any pricing limitatations by our current
majority federal government considering all the tax dollars they rake
in from our oil.

Price controls don't work. See my comment on Marie Antoinette. Her husband's
price control scheme cost her her head.

wrote:

And anyone who has half a brain KNOWS it is not "free" We all know
this because we see the taxes we pay. It is not "free health care" it
is "universal" or "government funded" health care.
We know we are paying for it. - We are (pre) paying it on the
installment plan - or a "budget payment plan" if you like - knowing
that we will never have to lose our home or life savings just because
"our number comes up" and we either fall ill or have a serious
accident.

Ah! So THAT'S why Canadians live such risky lives. Hockey, for example.

On Thu, 12 May 2011 06:35:30 -0500, HeyBub wrote:

To my
knowledge, not one has turned up evidence of any untoward dealings.

And never will as long as big oil keeps pouring the money into
congressional pockets.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On May 12, 1:23*pm, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Thu, 12 May 2011 06:35:30 -0500, HeyBub wrote:
*To my
knowledge, not one has turned up evidence of any untoward dealings.

And never will as long as big oil keeps pouring the money into
congressional pockets.


They do??? Say it isn't so, Larry...
..
..
..
..
..
..
*smirk*

On 5/10/2011 10:49 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

The only Western monopolies that ever existed that were *predatory*
were the ones enabled by government. Predatory monopoly can only
exist with force. Without it, the overpricing will be corrected by
government. Think public utilities vs. IBM or Microsoft. No
truly private monopoly can get away with predatory pricing and
survive.

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

Of course while government could have fixed this when the DOJ filed suit
for anti-trust in 1994, and found Microsoft guilty of horrendous
violation of the Federal Anti-trust laws, The DOJ APPEALED it's VICTORY
and the judge was removed from the case. This had to have cost
Microsoft a TON of money. It's not everyday the VICTOR in a lawsuit
appeals a ruling in it's favor.

The Judge said that the violations were so ****ing bad he sent the the
consent decree back as insufficient based on the degree of violations.
In other words the judge, after reviewing the case decided that the
redress sought by the DOJ was not nearly enough based on the severity of
the violations.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they are
getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating system.

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is a
prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government allows
competition to wither on the vine.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/11/2011 9:17 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

And - for the record - in modern times, there have been 4 nations
that stuck together to help each other and free the world: Australia,
Canada, United Kingdom, and United States.

Yeah, every time anyone in the world screws up or gets rained on, the US
sends them billions of dollars, and too often it's children to die.
Nothing against the three nations you listed, but all their help is not
much more than a fart in the wind.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/12/2011 9:54 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

A few random facts:

- There are something like 7 major oil companies - hardly a monopoly.

- At least in the US, the major oil companies pay about the same
in taxes as they make in profit.

- The biggest component in the price of gas is the price of
crude:

The working class pays something like 88 cents direct tax on every
gallon of gas to the government, far more than the people that own the
gas companies, and that is not including the large indirect taxes the
working class pays when the oil companies indirectly charge them for the
38% corporate tax the people pay.

None of this stops the Usual Suspects from whining about how
unfair it all is, how they are being gouged, and how they deserve
what they want at a price they think is "fair".

Exxon-Mobil's profit margin is 8.2%. MicroSoft, a true corrupt monopoly
that everyone stupidly loves, has a profit margin of 30%. In addition,
MS return on investment is almost 2x's that of Exxon-Mobil, yet
dickheads at all the major media, including Bill O'Reilly, think XOM
makes obscene profits. I suggest they all buy stock in XOM, and get
filthy rich if they think the oil companies make sooo much money.

BTW, Exxon-Mobil is the the most heavily taxed (actually you pay the tax
when you buy gas) corporation on earth, paying like $30 BILLION in taxes
whilst GE pays NOTHING. Again, dickheads around here think OIL
companies are buying off congress, while GE give billions to OBAMA and
the socialist anti-amerikan dems to avoid taxes completely.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

Viruses on an MS o/s is a pathetic example and discussed many times only to
meet the same conclusion.
Why would a virus writer bother with an o/s with a poor turnout? Popularity
is not an indicator of bad quality as your points indicate (see attached
below).

Yes MS are immoral *******s but not because they are popular or good
marketers.

----------------
"Jack Stein" wrote in message ...
Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

Of course while government could have fixed this when the DOJ filed suit
for anti-trust in 1994, and found Microsoft guilty of horrendous
violation of the Federal Anti-trust laws, The DOJ APPEALED it's VICTORY
and the judge was removed from the case. This had to have cost
Microsoft a TON of money. It's not everyday the VICTOR in a lawsuit
appeals a ruling in it's favor.

The Judge said that the violations were so ****ing bad he sent the the
consent decree back as insufficient based on the degree of violations.
In other words the judge, after reviewing the case decided that the
redress sought by the DOJ was not nearly enough based on the severity of
the violations.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they are
getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating system.

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is a
prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government allows
competition to wither on the vine.

Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?


The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.


Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making money.

On 5/13/2011 7:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?

The problem was and is simple. The buyer was blocked from buying
competing products at the store. MS forbade retailers from selling
competing operating systems with threat of removing the retailer as one
of there markets. The result of these tactics left the consumer with
being willing to buy a home pc with the worlds worst operating system,
or whistling Dixie.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

I am NOT willing to use any Microsoft product, yet I have never bought a
PC w/o a microsoft operating system. Whilst I despise Microsoft I
"willingly choose" to buy and run the worlds worst OS because there is
little choice unless you want to swim upstream all day long. I have
been a Unix administrator and am more familiar with UNIX than 99.999% of
computer users, and I am smart enough not to swim up stream, there is no
chance that the other 99.999% of PC users could figure out how to use
something like Unix. My wife gets ****ed when Firefox upgrades itself
because something changed. Microsoft took advantage of this by
illegally and immorally forcing its system on unknowing consumers.

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

You're right, explain it to me.

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making money.

Microsoft has NOT come up with a new operating system since he bought
DOS from Patterson. The system was garbage then, and still is. The
unknowing public thinks they are getting viruses when 99% of the time it
is simply an operating system that does not work. The reason they, and
I, am using this piece of **** is because MicroSoft totally controls the
market. They control the market because of past illegal marketing
practices. I was in the market at the time, and experienced what was
going on.

When federal anti-trust Judge Stanley Sporkin heard the case against
Microsoft in 1994-95 he was appalled, and found for himself what I and
many already knew just from being in the game.

I think it was/is far worse than he discovered, and imo it was not just
MS, but also Intel and IBM and the 3 of them have been in collusion (can
you say cartel) to insure you the consumer can willingly buy any color
you want, as long as it's black.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy
and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC
from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the
first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it
would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want
windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are
getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking their
ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

If the PC manufacturer wants to provide me with
a Window-less PC and reduce the price accordingly, M$ threatens to take
them off their approved list and either not provide Windows for those
who want it or charge them much more for ever copy.



Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up
with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay
for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making
money.





--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/13/2011 1:15 PM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
On 5/13/2011 9:48 AM, Jack Stein said this:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.
Of course while government could have fixed this when the DOJ filed suit for anti-trust in 1994, and found Microsoft guilty of horrendous violation of the Federal Anti-trust laws, The DOJ APPEALED it's VICTORY and the judge was removed from the case. This had to have cost Microsoft a TON of money. It's not everyday the VICTOR in a lawsuit appeals a ruling in it's favor.
The Judge said that the violations were so ****ing bad he sent the the consent decree back as insufficient based on the degree of violations. In other words the judge, after reviewing the case decided that the redress sought by the DOJ was not nearly enough based on the severity of the violations.
The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating system.
Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government allows competition to wither on the vine.

http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa352.pdf

I don't need this guy to tell me what went on or what was good for me.
I was there, and while he makes a point here and there, he is simply off
base. He particularly lost me when he said:

"The price of Windows, on
a comparable features basis, has plummeted.Windows 3.0, which required
the added purchase of DOS, was introduced in April 1990 at a combined
price of $205."

First, there was no "Addtional purchase required, the OS was MSDOS and
windows was simply a shell that ran on top of DOS. You could not run
windows w/o dos, period.

The "combined price" was bogus, and MS charged retails way, way, way
less than that, as long as they towed the line, meaning they sold PC's
with DOS, and nothing else. This is partly why the hapless consumer
got hosed, and is consequently running the worlds worst OS. Gates spent
all his time controlling the market rather than producing a robust OS or
going out of business.

http://www.cato.org//pubs/pas/pa-405es.html

Having intimate experience with DOS/windows, UNIX and OS/2, I don't need
someone to tell me Microsoft's anti-trust violations somehow produced
something good, it simply didn't. The proof is on my PC as we speak.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 05/13/2011 04:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?


The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows. If the PC manufacturer wants to provide me
with a Window-less PC and reduce the price accordingly, M$ threatens to
take them off their approved list and either not provide Windows for
those who want it or charge them much more for ever copy.



Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making money.

You shop at the wrong computer stores then.

When I buy individual components and build my own (all except one over the
years), where is the MS royalty installed? MoBo, PS, CPU, HDD????

When I buy a decent computer without the spamware installed I don't pay any
MS royalty. That was an old wives tale based on old sucker practices for the
brand names.

If you don't want to support Microsoft don't buy from the locked in company
suppliers. Get a real computer from a builder that uses decent quality
components.

I mean...come on...you can use a odd O/S but have to buy a brand-name on the
box hardware?

--------------------

"Doug Winterburn" wrote in message
eb.com...
Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows. If the PC manufacturer wants to provide me
with a Window-less PC and reduce the price accordingly, M$ threatens to
take them off their approved list and either not provide Windows for
those who want it or charge them much more for ever copy.

On 5/13/2011 7:49 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking their ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

There are more choices today than ever. This is directly attributable to the fact
that the Microsoft-Intel duopoly created a de facto standard onto which other
systems could be grafted.

If Microsoft is a monopolist, they are a very poor one. Their product comes
with incrementally greater numbers of features, their product price falls
in real terms, and they have very real competitive threats from companies
like Google.

But most of all, it is simply nobody's business what Microsoft does with
their own property. The anti-trust charges were trumped up and entirely
political, concocted by Netscape, Sun, et al because they didn't have a clue
how to compete in the consumer space.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been *good*
for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their products ...

On Fri, 13 May 2011 18:57:02 -0500, HeyBub wrote:

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this
week from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they
can, most often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their
wallets and the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

And they're voting with the same expertise they use in elections. They
have no idea what they're voting for. They've just been seduced by
clever marketing.

Same thing happened with chips. National Semi's 32016 (or was it 16032)
and Motorola's 68xxx chips were both way better than the Intel offerings
in their time. But they fell to Intel's better marketing.

Need I mention Rand vs IBM?

If you want an example from elsewhere than computers, there's always
bottled water :-).

It's always been "sell the sizzle, not the steak" since marketing was
born.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On Fri, 13 May 2011 20:45:15 -0400, Jack Stein
wrote:

On 5/13/2011 7:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?

The problem was and is simple. The buyer was blocked from buying
competing products at the store. MS forbade retailers from selling
competing operating systems with threat of removing the retailer as one
of there markets. The result of these tactics left the consumer with
being willing to buy a home pc with the worlds worst operating system,
or whistling Dixie.

Not completely true. As a manufacturer we COULD sell competing OS, but
DOS had to go with the machine. We sold a LOT of computers into the
SCO Unix and Xenix world, as well as the old business basic and
another pre-dos OS that I can't remember the name of, worlds. They
had to have DOS in the box, but that was small potatos compared to the
cost of, say, windows 7 professional, today.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

Because applications work with it - the overwhelming majority of all
available software on the world market today, from ANY supplier, will
run on Windows.

I am NOT willing to use any Microsoft product, yet I have never bought a
PC w/o a microsoft operating system. Whilst I despise Microsoft I
"willingly choose" to buy and run the worlds worst OS because there is
little choice unless you want to swim upstream all day long. I have
been a Unix administrator and am more familiar with UNIX than 99.999% of
computer users, and I am smart enough not to swim up stream, there is no
chance that the other 99.999% of PC users could figure out how to use
something like Unix. My wife gets ****ed when Firefox upgrades itself
because something changed. Microsoft took advantage of this by
illegally and immorally forcing its system on unknowing consumers.

Forcing? You can always "swim upstream"

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

You're right, explain it to me.

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making money.

Microsoft has NOT come up with a new operating system since he bought
DOS from Patterson. The system was garbage then, and still is. The
unknowing public thinks they are getting viruses when 99% of the time it
is simply an operating system that does not work. The reason they, and
I, am using this piece of **** is because MicroSoft totally controls the
market. They control the market because of past illegal marketing
practices. I was in the market at the time, and experienced what was
going on.

When federal anti-trust Judge Stanley Sporkin heard the case against
Microsoft in 1994-95 he was appalled, and found for himself what I and
many already knew just from being in the game.

I think it was/is far worse than he discovered, and imo it was not just
MS, but also Intel and IBM and the 3 of them have been in collusion (can
you say cartel) to insure you the consumer can willingly buy any color
you want, as long as it's black.

Any computer customer in the "free world" can buy all the components
required to build a computer, and assemble it, following relatively
complete and simple instructions, in half an hour or less. He can run
whatever flavour of whatever OS he wants on that machine, with no
interference from Microsoft or anyone else - and it can be totally
"intel free" if he is stupid enough (inmy opinion) to go that route.

There are small computer shops in every reasonably small town that
will assemble the computer for you for a relatively small cost - and a
dozen or more "geeks" in every populated area of any consequence that
will do the same.

On Fri, 13 May 2011 20:02:00 -0700, Doug Winterburn
wrote:

On 05/13/2011 04:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?


The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows. If the PC manufacturer wants to provide me
with a Window-less PC and reduce the price accordingly, M$ threatens to
take them off their approved list and either not provide Windows for
those who want it or charge them much more for ever copy.



So do like "geeks" around the world do every day. Assemble your own
computer. The VAST majority of computer "manufacturers" today don't
manufacture their own boards, or even cases. They assemble from
Chinese sourced components that YOU can buy as easily as they can. You
can have exactly what you want -processor, RAM, video, sound, storage,
case, power supply, cooling, etc - and usually for very close to the
equivalent (if you can buy it off the shelf) brand name machine. No
Microsoft required.

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making money.

On Fri, 13 May 2011 20:49:38 -0400, Jack Stein
wrote:

On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy
and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC
from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the
first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it
would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want
windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!


Windows does not come installed on replacement hard drives. They are
virtually ALL shipped blank.

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are
getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking their
ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

If the PC manufacturer wants to provide me with
a Window-less PC and reduce the price accordingly, M$ threatens to take
them off their approved list and either not provide Windows for those
who want it or charge them much more for ever copy.



Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up
with a
new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would pay
for,
it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still making
money.

On May 14, 12:27*pm, Larry Blanchard wrote:


It's always been "sell the sizzle, not the steak" since marketing was
born.


Sometimes it is both. A quality steak is simpler to sell (with sizzle)
and the 'sell-through' is more effective.
Which is why, as we speak, Apple is the most valuable brand in the
world.
Those of us who remember the Apple Performa fiasco are well aware that
sizzle alone is a short-termed proposition.

The product has to be there. THEN add sizzle.

One has to remember the KW area is pretty computer savvy and it isn't always
that cheap or easy to assemble your own machine in other parts of the world.

$275 doesn't buy you much of a custom assembled system in most parts of the
States or even T.O. I always thought it was the two universities and
multiple colleges that drive the areas tech prices.

------------------

wrote in message ...
Any computer customer in the "free world" can buy all the components
required to build a computer, and assemble it, following relatively
complete and simple instructions, in half an hour or less. He can run
whatever flavour of whatever OS he wants on that machine, with no
interference from Microsoft or anyone else - and it can be totally
"intel free" if he is stupid enough (inmy opinion) to go that route.

There are small computer shops in every reasonably small town that
will assemble the computer for you for a relatively small cost - and a
dozen or more "geeks" in every populated area of any consequence that
will do the same.

The HDD with MS O/S on it is all just the supplier and nothing to do with
MS.

This guy is taking two plus two and coming up with eight all the time.

I have purchase about 25-30 HDDs (from a whopping 10 MBytes++) in my life
and never had an O/S installed on one yet.

----------------
"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
news There are more choices today than ever. This is directly attributable to
the fact
that the Microsoft-Intel duopoly created a de facto standard onto which
other
systems could be grafted.

If Microsoft is a monopolist, they are a very poor one. Their product comes
with incrementally greater numbers of features, their product price falls
in real terms, and they have very real competitive threats from companies
like Google.

But most of all, it is simply nobody's business what Microsoft does with
their own property. The anti-trust charges were trumped up and entirely
political, concocted by Netscape, Sun, et al because they didn't have a clue
how to compete in the consumer space.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been
*good*
for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their products
....

-----------------
On 5/13/2011 7:49 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy and
try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC from Gateway
and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the first month,
Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it would come with
windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want windows installed on it,
they said there was no choice. Indeed!

www.newegg.ca
www.newegg.com

It will arrive the day after you order it.almost guaranteed.

-----------------
wrote in message ...
So do like "geeks" around the world do every day. Assemble your own
computer. The VAST majority of computer "manufacturers" today don't
manufacture their own boards, or even cases. They assemble from
Chinese sourced components that YOU can buy as easily as they can. You
can have exactly what you want -processor, RAM, video, sound, storage,
case, power supply, cooling, etc - and usually for very close to the
equivalent (if you can buy it off the shelf) brand name machine. No
Microsoft required.

On 5/14/2011 11:52 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
On 5/13/2011 7:49 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy
and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC
from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the
first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it
would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want
windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are
getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking
their ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

There are more choices today than ever.

There never was much in choices. Saying it doesn't make it so.

This is directly attributable to
the fact that the Microsoft-Intel duopoly created a de facto standard onto which
other systems could be grafted.

It is directly attributable to Microsoft using the gift granted to them
by IBM to prevent retailers from marketing competitive products.

If Microsoft is a monopolist, they are a very poor one.

If Microsoft was not violating federal anti-trust laws, anti-trust Judge
Sporkin would not have been horrified when he heard what Gates had been
up too.

Their product comes with incrementally greater numbers of features, their product price falls
in real terms, and they have very real competitive threats from companies
like Google.

The one feature there Operating System doesn't feature is quality. It
does not work well because it's competition had been stifled by
anti-competitive tactics.

But most of all, it is simply nobody's business what Microsoft does with
their own property.

It is my business when I am forced to use the worlds worst OS because of
illegal, anti-competitive tactics of Microdsoft.

The anti-trust charges were trumped up and entirely political, concocted
by Netscape,
Sun, et al because they didn't have a clue how to compete in the
consumer space.

They all have a clue. It doesn't take genius to take a market bestowed
on you by IBM, use that market to force retailers to carry only your
product, or die. Judge Sporkin is/was clean as it gets, unbribable and
unafraid of the Billions and Billions of ill-gotten gains of Microsoft.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been
*good* for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their
products ...

Personally, I used UNIX system 7 for years, OS/2 for years, and Dos/Win
for years. DosWin is a PERFECT example of how anti-competitive
practices can result in the worlds worst product dominating a market.
Judge Sporkin was made keenly aware of this when the DOJ brought charges
against MS. Unfortunately, imo, the DOJ was more interested in bilking
MS of $ than fixing/addressing the problem. This was made clear when
the DOJ appealed their own court VICTORY.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/14/2011 12:27 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2011 18:57:02 -0500, HeyBub wrote:

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this
week from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they
can, most often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their
wallets and the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

And they're voting with the same expertise they use in elections. They
have no idea what they're voting for. They've just been seduced by
clever marketing.

No, they were "seduced" by anti-competitive, illegal marketing practices.

Same thing happened with chips. National Semi's 32016 (or was it 16032)
and Motorola's 68xxx chips were both way better than the Intel offerings
in their time. But they fell to Intel's better marketing.

Need I mention Rand vs IBM?

Well, you can mention Intel and IBM. All part of the IBM/INTEL/MS cartel.

It's always been "sell the sizzle, not the steak" since marketing was
born.

Marketing types tend to stifle competition when the opportunity knocks,
thus the reason for anti-trust laws that attempt to keep competition
alive without stifling a free market.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/14/2011 12:39 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2011 20:45:15 -0400, Jack
wrote:

On 5/13/2011 7:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?

The problem was and is simple. The buyer was blocked from buying
competing products at the store. MS forbade retailers from selling
competing operating systems with threat of removing the retailer as one
of there markets. The result of these tactics left the consumer with
being willing to buy a home pc with the worlds worst operating system,
or whistling Dixie.

Not completely true. As a manufacturer we COULD sell competing OS, but
DOS had to go with the machine.

Who said DOS had to go with the machine? God? Big Brother?

We sold a LOT of computers into the
SCO Unix and Xenix world, as well as the old business basic and
another pre-dos OS that I can't remember the name of, worlds. They
had to have DOS in the box, but that was small potatos compared to the
cost of, say, windows 7 professional, today.

Small potatoes my ass, it's the very reason most of the world is stuck
with the worlds worst OS.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

Because applications work with it - the overwhelming majority of all
available software on the world market today, from ANY supplier, will
run on Windows.

Well, when OS/2 was the only working version of Windows, everything
worked with OS/2, including DOS and Windows. You couldn't buy it easily
however, because MS would raise holly hell with any large retailer that
carried it, or installed it. IBM was not particularly interested in
selling it either, imnsho because rather than get busted again for
running a monopoly, they wanted MS to run to OS end of the business.
This became clear when after several years of non OS/2 marketing by IBM,
they pulled the plug exactly when OS/2 was reaching critical mass of 1
million copies a month, despite all efforts to stifle the market.

I am NOT willing to use any Microsoft product, yet I have never bought a
PC w/o a microsoft operating system. Whilst I despise Microsoft I
"willingly choose" to buy and run the worlds worst OS because there is
little choice unless you want to swim upstream all day long. I have
been a Unix administrator and am more familiar with UNIX than 99.999% of
computer users, and I am smart enough not to swim up stream, there is no
chance that the other 99.999% of PC users could figure out how to use
something like Unix. My wife gets ****ed when Firefox upgrades itself
because something changed. Microsoft took advantage of this by
illegally and immorally forcing its system on unknowing consumers.

Forcing? You can always "swim upstream"

When IBM decided to stop selling OS/2 (They never really actively
marketed the product) and Microsoft deliberately made WIN98 incompatible
with OS/2 for no reason other than to kill OS/2 (Certainly with IBM's
blessing) I was given no choice but to use the worlds worst OS. Most
users never had any choice because it was next to impossible to by a PC
with any other OS installed on it. My wife had trouble turning the
computer on, let alone removing the operating system, and installing
another one. Most people are in my wife's category of PC users, and far
to computer illiterate to realize they have been HAD. Instead they
think they are too ****ing dumb to make a computer work consistently, or
think they got another non-existent virus.

Any computer customer in the "free world" can buy all the components
required to build a computer, and assemble it, following relatively
complete and simple instructions, in half an hour or less.

And I can buy all the components to put a spaceship on the moon. Most
people I know have trouble immediately after locating the on switch, and
generally buy a new computer after their lame ass MS registry gets so
****ed up nothing works right, and other than rebooting every five
minutes, they give up and buy another computer.

He can run whatever flavour of whatever OS he wants on that machine, with no
interference from Microsoft or anyone else - and it can be totally
"intel free" if he is stupid enough (inmy opinion) to go that route.

Stupid enough why? Because 99% of all the software he can buy at Best
Buy only runs on the latest garbage release of the worlds worst OS?

There are small computer shops in every reasonably small town that
will assemble the computer for you for a relatively small cost - and a
dozen or more "geeks" in every populated area of any consequence that
will do the same.

Meaningless gibberish. The only real competing product with MS was OS/2
because it ran all the software DOS ran, including Windows, and ran it
better, far, far better. It was windows that worked. MS and IBM made
sure you couldn't easily buy it, and when millions of people began
finding ways of obtaining it, and using it in spite of IBM and MS
efforts to sit on it, they (IBM and MS) deliberately killed it. Had MS
not practiced anti-competitive and illegal marketing practices, who
knows what wonders the PC world could have moved into. For certain,
OS/2 was at least 20 years ahead of windows, and so far, windows still
had not caught up to what OS/2 was in 1994.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/15/2011 2:22 AM, Rich wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

I think it was/is far worse than he discovered, and imo it was not just
MS, but also Intel and IBM and the 3 of them have been in collusion (can
you say cartel) to insure you the consumer can willingly buy any color
you want, as long as it's black.

I don't know what the big deal is.

The big deal is for the past 23 years or so, most of the world has been
running some lame version of the worlds worst operating system on their
home PC.

I've been running linux since 2001 and haven't looked back.

I guess it doesn't bother you that 99% of the software available doesn't
run on linux, or that only a computer geek can possible know where to
get it, how to install it, or how to use it.

I have no worries about getting a virus and haven't since 2001.

I've had one virus with DOS/WINDOWS in about 25 years. I ran a BBS
where the whole world had access to my computer 24/7, including
uploading and downloading files directly from my home pc. One virus,
and that was in the past year. All other virus appearing problems were
NOT viruses, but poor OS design.

There has been times when I got frustrated with software
developers not porting to linux but I lived with it. Most everything is
covered today. I am ****ed that google doesn't build a Sketchup for linux
but I just use my wives Apple. Haven't run windblows in over 10 years and
haven't seen a blue screen for the same amount of time.

Yes, I understand fully. Some people, like you, are willing to swim
upstream to avoid the worlds worst OS. I did it myself until MS and IBM
made the current too much work to swim against. Linux is a nightmare
compared to what OS/2 offered the user. OS/2 appeared like windows and
dos, but, it worked. It ran all the software of DOS/WIN with none of the
problems of DOS/WIN, plus it had a robust, solid OS running everything,
so developers could write awesome software. It only died because IBM
and MS killed it, just when it was attaining critical mass.

UNIX was a super OS and had Bell labs/AT&T developed it for the consumer
market it would have been a good competitor with OS/2. They didn't, and
LINUX, being shareware, has too many problems for the non-geek user to
deal with. There was a time I thought LINUX might do something
worthwhile against MS, but I'm afraid if that ever happens, I won't be
around to enjoy it.

OH, google sketchup is one of my favorite apps.... Guarantee it would
have run under OS/2 as a WIN Program, and twice as good if it were
developed as an OS/2 program.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

On 5/15/2011 9:28 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
On 5/14/2011 5:32 PM, Jack Stein wrote:

It doesn't take genius to take a market bestowed
on you by IBM, use that market to force retailers to carry only your
product, or die. Judge Sporkin is/was clean as it gets, unbribable and
unafraid of the Billions and Billions of ill-gotten gains of Microsoft.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been
*good* for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their
products ...

Personally, I used UNIX system 7 for years, OS/2 for years, and
Dos/Win for years. DosWin is a PERFECT example of how anti-competitive
practices can result in the worlds worst product dominating a market.
Judge Sporkin was made keenly aware of this when the DOJ brought
charges against MS. Unfortunately, imo, the DOJ was more interested in
bilking MS of $ than fixing/addressing the problem. This was made
clear when the DOJ appealed their own court VICTORY.

Your understanding of 'forced' is, um, bogus. No one forces you to use
Windows, or for that matter a computer *at all*. It's absurd to complain that you cannot
buy what you want at the store.

Not absurd at all. If I go to any large retail store, and can buy only
the worlds worst os because of illegal, anti-trust marketing practices,
and most all home software products are professionally developed ONLY
for the worlds worst OS because of past illegal, immoral, anti-trust
marketing practices, then I, and particularly the average user, is
'forced' to run the worlds worst OS on their home PC.

Hardware vendors voluntarily entered into a deal
with Microsoft to get preferential pricing.

Bear in mind, that NO hardware
vendor had to agree to Microsoft's terms. They could simply have sold bare metal
and let the consumer decide what to put on it. They didn't because they (rightly)
understood that consumers wanted a turnkey system.

Wrong. Any vendor that decided to increase their market by installing
say, OS/2, and allowing the consumer a choice of OS's was met with
threats of losing the ability to sell DOS/WIN. The OS cost them a few
dollars, but if they sold say, OS/2 installed, they either would not get
to sell DOS/WIN at all or would no longer get the "discount" price and
would pay hundreds for the OS. This would spell the death knell to any
retailer dependent on the home PC market. The result of these anti
competitive tactic's was the retailer and the consumer (and the software
developers) had NO CHOICE, they would be using the worlds worst OS. Why
do YOU think most of the home market is using the worlds worst OS?
Everyone is just too ****ing dumb to buy something better, right?

For about a decade now, there have been a dozen or so Linux
distributions, 3 or 4
major BSD variants, FreeDOS, WINE, and host of other lesser choices
available
for *free*... And the consumers still have consistently chosen Microsoft
over all the above.

Last time I was at best buy, I could not buy a PC with LINUX installed
on it. Last time I watched my wife and children on the PC, looked like
they would have no clue how to remove windows and install a shareware
version of UNIX that would not run any of their software.

This is not the behavior of a predatory monopoloy.

Yes, it is. Without illegal marketing practices, people would have
chosen to buy an OS that worked installed on their home PC, and
developers would have developed software for that market. MS would have
had to come out with a solid, smooth working, multitasking OS or go out
of business. The consumer would have been the winner.

It is the evidence of a satisfied customer base, nothing else.

Nope, it is evidence of the results of stifled competition. People do
not choose to use the worst product available when given a choice. When
choice is stifled, the consumer ALWAYS loses.

Microsoft makes "good
enough" technology. It's good enough for most people, most of the time.

Nothing is good enough if there is other stuff available that is better.
Windows sucks the big one, most everyone hates it but don't know why.
Mostly they blame it on their own "computer illiteracy" or on
non-existent viral attacks. It's the OS stupid!

It's
not "great" because consumers wouldn't pay for great ... or at least
they haven't been willing to thus far.

Consumers could have had great had they been able to purchase OS/2
installed on their PC's. They could have had great in spite of MS
illegal anti-trust marketing had IBM not pulled the product the moment
it became clear OS/2 was about to explode on the market as it reached
critical mass of 1 million copies sold a month, despite the difficulty
of finding it for sale, and having to remove the worlds worst OS and
installing something that actually worked yourself. Had IBM provided it
to the retailers, and MS not threatened retailers, Win would either have
gone out of business, or developed something better than OS/2. Neither
happened.

You're grumbling because the Chevy dealer won't put Ford sales
literature in the showroom...

Wrong, I'm grumbling because most all retail outlets sold ONLY MS
operating systems. They did this because of illegal marketing practices
of MS.

I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. I'm grumbling because most of
the software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds
worst OS. I'm grumbling because most of the hardware developed works
only with the worlds worst operating system. All because of the things
that horrified a great federal anti trust judge, Stanley Sporkin.

--
Jack
You Can't Fix Stupid, but You Can Vote it Out!
http://jbstein.com

Jack Stein wrote:

On 5/13/2011 7:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

Microsoft has survived so far, and at the consumers expense, clearly
demonstrating why monopolies and corrupt government is bad, directly
opposite of HeyBubs contemplations.

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?

The problem was and is simple. The buyer was blocked from buying
competing products at the store. MS forbade retailers from selling
competing operating systems with threat of removing the retailer as one
of there markets. The result of these tactics left the consumer with
being willing to buy a home pc with the worlds worst operating system,
or whistling Dixie.

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this
week from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they
can, most often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their
wallets and the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

I am NOT willing to use any Microsoft product, yet I have never bought a
PC w/o a microsoft operating system. Whilst I despise Microsoft I
"willingly choose" to buy and run the worlds worst OS because there is
little choice unless you want to swim upstream all day long. I have
been a Unix administrator and am more familiar with UNIX than 99.999% of
computer users, and I am smart enough not to swim up stream, there is no
chance that the other 99.999% of PC users could figure out how to use
something like Unix. My wife gets ****ed when Firefox upgrades itself
because something changed. Microsoft took advantage of this by
illegally and immorally forcing its system on unknowing consumers.

Capitalism only works well when competition thrives, and Microsoft is
a prime example of what happens when a corrupt, inept government
allows competition to wither on the vine.

You don't understand. Microsoft's biggest competitor is itself !

You're right, explain it to me.

An operating system is not a consumable. If Microsoft did not come up
with a new OS every few years, with desirable features that people would
pay for, it's revenue stream would wither. Last I heard, they're still
making money.

Microsoft has NOT come up with a new operating system since he bought
DOS from Patterson. The system was garbage then, and still is. The
unknowing public thinks they are getting viruses when 99% of the time it
is simply an operating system that does not work. The reason they, and
I, am using this piece of **** is because MicroSoft totally controls the
market. They control the market because of past illegal marketing
practices. I was in the market at the time, and experienced what was
going on.

When federal anti-trust Judge Stanley Sporkin heard the case against
Microsoft in 1994-95 he was appalled, and found for himself what I and
many already knew just from being in the game.

I think it was/is far worse than he discovered, and imo it was not just
MS, but also Intel and IBM and the 3 of them have been in collusion (can
you say cartel) to insure you the consumer can willingly buy any color
you want, as long as it's black.

I don't know what the big deal is. I've been running linux since 2001 and
haven't looked back. I have no worries about getting a virus and haven't
since 2001. There has been times when I got frustrated with software
developers not porting to linux but I lived with it. Most everything is
covered today. I am ****ed that google doesn't build a Sketchup for linux
but I just use my wives Apple. Haven't run windblows in over 10 years and
haven't seen a blue screen for the same amount of time.


--
"You can lead them to LINUX
but you can't make them THINK"

Man. 2010.1 Spring
KDE4.4
2.6.33.5-desktop-2mnb

On 5/14/2011 5:32 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 5/14/2011 11:52 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
On 5/13/2011 7:49 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy
and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC
from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the
first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it
would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want
windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are
getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking
their ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

There are more choices today than ever.

There never was much in choices. Saying it doesn't make it so.

This is directly attributable to
the fact that the Microsoft-Intel duopoly created a de facto standard onto which
other systems could be grafted.

It is directly attributable to Microsoft using the gift granted to them by IBM to prevent retailers from marketing competitive products.

If Microsoft is a monopolist, they are a very poor one.

If Microsoft was not violating federal anti-trust laws, anti-trust Judge Sporkin would not have been horrified when he heard what Gates had been up too.

Their product comes with incrementally greater numbers of features, their product price falls
in real terms, and they have very real competitive threats from companies
like Google.

The one feature there Operating System doesn't feature is quality. It does not work well because it's competition had been stifled by anti-competitive tactics.

But most of all, it is simply nobody's business what Microsoft does with
their own property.

It is my business when I am forced to use the worlds worst OS because of illegal, anti-competitive tactics of Microdsoft.

The anti-trust charges were trumped up and entirely political, concocted by Netscape,
Sun, et al because they didn't have a clue how to compete in the consumer space.

They all have a clue. It doesn't take genius to take a market bestowed on you by IBM, use that market to force retailers to carry only your product, or die. Judge Sporkin is/was clean as it gets, unbribable and unafraid of the Billions and Billions of ill-gotten gains of Microsoft.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been
*good* for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their
products ...

Personally, I used UNIX system 7 for years, OS/2 for years, and Dos/Win for years. DosWin is a PERFECT example of how anti-competitive practices can result in the worlds worst product dominating a market. Judge Sporkin was made keenly aware of this when the DOJ brought charges against MS. Unfortunately, imo, the DOJ was more interested in bilking MS of $ than fixing/addressing the problem. This was made clear when the DOJ appealed their own court VICTORY.


Your understanding of 'forced' is, um, bogus. No one forces you to use Windows, or for
that matter a computer *at all*. It's absurd to complain that you cannot buy what
you want at the store. Hardware vendors voluntarily entered into a deal with
Microsoft to get preferential pricing. Bear in mind, that NO hardware vendor had
to agree to Microsoft's terms. They could simply have sold bare metal and let the
consumer decide what to put on it. They didn't because they (rightly) understood that
consumers wanted a turnkey system.

For about a decade now, there have been a dozen or so Linux distributions, 3 or 4
major BSD variants, FreeDOS, WINE, and host of other lesser choices available
for *free*... And the consumers still have consistently chosen Microsoft over
all the above. This is not the behavior of a predatory monopoloy. It is the
evidence of a satisfied customer base, nothing else. Microsoft makes "good
enough" technology. It's good enough for most people, most of the time. It's
not "great" because consumers wouldn't pay for great ... or at least they haven't
been willing to thus far.

You're grumbling because the Chevy dealer won't put Ford sales literature in the
showroom...

"Jack Stein" wrote in message
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. I'm grumbling because most of the
software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds worst
OS.

It's really noticeable how you've tip toed around Apple and its operating
system. Most windows programs of any importance in today's computer worlde
have been ported over to Apple. I regularly hear about professionals such as
graphic artists choosing Apple as their preferred operating system. So,
what's your excuse? There's certainly other working operating systems out
there right now, but you choose to whine and grumble about what's past, not
what's current. My only guess is that you're too stupid or too lazy or too
cheap to do anything different than to follow along with the pack, the same
pack that you've been whining about.

On May 15, 11:00*am, "Upscale" wrote:
"Jack Stein" wrote in message
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. *I'm grumbling because most of the
software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds worst
OS.

It's really noticeable how you've tip toed around Apple and its operating
system. Most windows programs of any importance in today's computer worlde
have been ported over to Apple.

And, of course the reverse where Apple had certain professional
publishing programs first. (Adobe..yes many Adobe products were ported
to Windoze from Mac.) Microsoft Word was available for the Mac 4 years
before the Windoze version. Excel was available for Mac 3 years before
the Windoze version.
One reason for the publishing industry's use was the Laserwriter
printers and scanner software available for small desktop publishers.
Photoshop was available on the Mac 4 years prior to the very bad
Windoze version.

I just love the advertisements on TV which has some paid shill say:
"Widows 7 was MY idea."
To which Steve Jobs replied once by saying: "actually it was MY idea,
except we called it Mac OS 9. TEN years before Win7. (Of course we
went to a UNIX based OS with OSX in 2000.... and I have yet to crash
any of my family's Macs since OS X) (I do use some PC software for my
CNC's G-coding and that seems to be reasonably stable as long as I
don't try anything 'out-side the envelope'.

So Macs have a unique place as it caters to the dumber computer
operators on one end of the spectrum, due to its ease of operation,
and it caters to the ultra creative/bright operators on the very
demanding end of the spectrum, due to its immense scope and power....
and everybody in between.


I regularly hear about professionals such as
graphic artists choosing Apple as their preferred operating system. So,
what's your excuse? There's certainly other working operating systems out
there right now, but you choose to whine and grumble about what's past, not
what's current. My only guess is that you're too stupid or too lazy or too
cheap to do anything different than to follow along with the pack, the same
pack that you've been whining about.

On Sat, 14 May 2011 19:13:20 -0400, Jack Stein
wrote:

On 5/14/2011 12:39 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2011 20:45:15 -0400, Jack
wrote:

On 5/13/2011 7:57 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Jack Stein wrote:

How so? What's the problem between a willing buyer and a willing seller?

The problem was and is simple. The buyer was blocked from buying
competing products at the store. MS forbade retailers from selling
competing operating systems with threat of removing the retailer as one
of there markets. The result of these tactics left the consumer with
being willing to buy a home pc with the worlds worst operating system,
or whistling Dixie.

Not completely true. As a manufacturer we COULD sell competing OS, but
DOS had to go with the machine.

Who said DOS had to go with the machine? God? Big Brother?

It was part of our OEM agreement with Microsoft. We got the "right" to
supply OEM software with the computers we produced and sold, but on
the condition that the DOS licence went with EVERY computer we sold of
that line. We paid a" per machine produced" licence to Microsoft. The
price per machine was SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the normal "retail
package" licence, which was also available to us at
wholesale/distributor pricing.
OEM software is licenced to the MACHINE, while retail licenced
software is/was licenced to the OWNER.

We sold a LOT of computers into the
SCO Unix and Xenix world, as well as the old business basic and
another pre-dos OS that I can't remember the name of, worlds. They
had to have DOS in the box, but that was small potatos compared to the
cost of, say, windows 7 professional, today.

Small potatoes my ass, it's the very reason most of the world is stuck
with the worlds worst OS.

Small potatoes was in the neighbourhood of $7 to $10 at cost, if I
remember correctly, in the days of DOS 4.0 / Windows3, 3.1, 3.3, and
4.0
Retail was closer to $60 if I remeber correctly (it's been a few
years, obviously)

The result of this corrupt bull**** is the world is stuck with the
worlds worst operating system, whilst the dumb ass users think they
are getting one virus after another, the truth is its the operating
system.

The world is not "stuck" with Microsoft. There are many others: about 50
flavors of Linux, Unix itself, Macs, BSD, and one announced just this week
from Google. If people WANTED a different operating system, they can, most
often, get it for free! As it is, people are voting with their wallets and
the vote is 90% for Microsoft.

Because applications work with it - the overwhelming majority of all
available software on the world market today, from ANY supplier, will
run on Windows.

Well, when OS/2 was the only working version of Windows, everything
worked with OS/2, including DOS and Windows.

OS/2 was NEVER the only working version of Windows - and in fact was
NOT WINDOWS. OS/2 was championed by IBM - and suffered some of the
same issues as the IBM produced version of Windows (was it 3.1????)

You couldn't buy it easily
however, because MS would raise holly hell with any large retailer that
carried it, or installed it.

Microsoft PRODUCED OS/2 in the first place, then passed it on to IBM.

The biggest reason OS/2 failed was because IBM refused to
supply/include drivers for such "esoteric" devices as non-ibm
printers.OS/2 was used bu IBM to drive sales of it's harware. It died
a very slow and painful death like may proprietary OS before it (like
CPM and GEM, for instance), but took a much longer time to die.
That OS/2 survived to 2006 in IBM Guise and continues on as Serenity
Systems' eComStation V 4.5 says something for it's design.

IBM was not particularly interested in
selling it either, imnsho because rather than get busted again for
running a monopoly, they wanted MS to run to OS end of the business.
This became clear when after several years of non OS/2 marketing by IBM,
they pulled the plug exactly when OS/2 was reaching critical mass of 1
million copies a month, despite all efforts to stifle the market.

I am NOT willing to use any Microsoft product, yet I have never bought a
PC w/o a microsoft operating system. Whilst I despise Microsoft I
"willingly choose" to buy and run the worlds worst OS because there is
little choice unless you want to swim upstream all day long. I have
been a Unix administrator and am more familiar with UNIX than 99.999% of
computer users, and I am smart enough not to swim up stream, there is no
chance that the other 99.999% of PC users could figure out how to use
something like Unix. My wife gets ****ed when Firefox upgrades itself
because something changed. Microsoft took advantage of this by
illegally and immorally forcing its system on unknowing consumers.

Forcing? You can always "swim upstream"

When IBM decided to stop selling OS/2 (They never really actively
marketed the product) and Microsoft deliberately made WIN98 incompatible
with OS/2 for no reason other than to kill OS/2 (Certainly with IBM's
blessing) I was given no choice but to use the worlds worst OS.

Win 98 deviated from the old windows and OS/2 design for very good
reasons - that IBM did not fix OS/2 says more about IBM than it does
about Microsoft.
Microsoft separated their NT development from the old OS/2 (IBM and
Microsoft started out working together on the NT package under the
OS/2 banner back as early as 1988) and NT leaprogged ahead of OS/2 in
virtually all of the areas that mattered.


Most
users never had any choice because it was next to impossible to by a PC
with any other OS installed on it. My wife had trouble turning the
computer on, let alone removing the operating system, and installing
another one. Most people are in my wife's category of PC users, and far
to computer illiterate to realize they have been HAD. Instead they
think they are too ****ing dumb to make a computer work consistently, or
think they got another non-existent virus.

Any computer customer in the "free world" can buy all the components
required to build a computer, and assemble it, following relatively
complete and simple instructions, in half an hour or less.

And I can buy all the components to put a spaceship on the moon. Most
people I know have trouble immediately after locating the on switch, and
generally buy a new computer after their lame ass MS registry gets so
****ed up nothing works right, and other than rebooting every five
minutes, they give up and buy another computer.

He can run whatever flavour of whatever OS he wants on that machine, with no
interference from Microsoft or anyone else - and it can be totally
"intel free" if he is stupid enough (inmy opinion) to go that route.

Stupid enough why? Because 99% of all the software he can buy at Best
Buy only runs on the latest garbage release of the worlds worst OS?

NO, dummy. That has nothing to do with "intel free" computers. You
OBVIOUSLY have a burr up your butt about Microsoft, which blinds you
to all other issues.

"intel free" generally means AMD today, although in the not so distant
past it also included Power PC and other Motorola processors - which
even Apple has abandoned in favour of Intel.

There are small computer shops in every reasonably small town that
will assemble the computer for you for a relatively small cost - and a
dozen or more "geeks" in every populated area of any consequence that
will do the same.

Meaningless gibberish. The only real competing product with MS was OS/2
because it ran all the software DOS ran, including Windows, and ran it
better, far, far better.

But the protected mode was broken, and IBM never fixed it, to my
knowlege. You could crash an entire OS/2 machine with a "protected
mode" dos app.
NT fixed that, with VM technology that has left OS/2 in the dust in
many, although not all, ways.
It was windows that worked. MS and IBM made
sure you couldn't easily buy it, and when millions of people began
finding ways of obtaining it, and using it in spite of IBM and MS
efforts to sit on it, they (IBM and MS) deliberately killed it. Had MS
not practiced anti-competitive and illegal marketing practices, who
knows what wonders the PC world could have moved into. For certain,
OS/2 was at least 20 years ahead of windows, and so far, windows still
had not caught up to what OS/2 was in 1994.

All it takes is someone with the balls of Steve Jobs to do what IBM
was unable/unwilling to do and produce a machine and OS (it COULD be
an updated version od OS/2) that would runall DOS, Windows/ OS/2, and
Apple programs on the same machine.

(By the way, Windows Server 2008 R2 already pretty well allows you to
do that with Hyper-V)

On Sat, 14 May 2011 20:25:48 -0400, Jack Stein
wrote:
Clipped

Your understanding of 'forced' is, um, bogus. No one forces you to use
Windows, or for that matter a computer *at all*. It's absurd to complain that you cannot
buy what you want at the store.

Not absurd at all. If I go to any large retail store, and can buy only
the worlds worst os because of illegal, anti-trust marketing practices,
and most all home software products are professionally developed ONLY
for the worlds worst OS because of past illegal, immoral, anti-trust
marketing practices, then I, and particularly the average user, is
'forced' to run the worlds worst OS on their home PC.


Go to any large retail store and all you can buy is the "consumer"
models of whatever brand the stores carry. Best Buy etc. only carry
what they can sell by the truck-load - which is, by definition, the
cheapest crap they can get because the general buying public won't pay
the price for the "best". Try buying a laptop computer, for instance,
from any of the major big-box stores with Windows 7 Professional. The
manufacturers produce systems designed for and sold with the
professional version of the OS, but you cannot buy it at Best Buy or
Future Shop, in most cases.


Also, many of the low end products sold by Future Shop/Best Buy and
other retailers is not available to me as a reseller/VAR. It is a
mass-market only product, contented to meet a price-point.
Hardware vendors voluntarily entered into a deal
with Microsoft to get preferential pricing.

Bear in mind, that NO hardware
vendor had to agree to Microsoft's terms. They could simply have sold bare metal
and let the consumer decide what to put on it. They didn't because they (rightly)
understood that consumers wanted a turnkey system.

Wrong. Any vendor that decided to increase their market by installing
say, OS/2, and allowing the consumer a choice of OS's was met with
threats of losing the ability to sell DOS/WIN.
They were threatened with losing the ability to sell DOS/WIN as an
OEM, with preferential pricing. Nothing stopped them from selling
their machines with no pre-installed OS, and selling a "retail"
package of MS DOS/WIN with the computer at full retail price.

And to get right down to the basics - if a COMPANY wanted to sell
computers with DOS/WIN OEM and without, all they needed to do was form
a wholly owned subsidiary company to sell the non MS OS machines under
a different brand.. One company had an OEM agreement, the other did
not. Product from the one "division" could ONLY be sold with MS OEM
OS, the product of the other "division" could NOT be sold with MS OEM
OS.

The OS cost them a few
dollars, but if they sold say, OS/2 installed, they either would not get
to sell DOS/WIN at all or would no longer get the "discount" price and
would pay hundreds for the OS. This would spell the death knell to any
retailer dependent on the home PC market. The result of these anti
competitive tactic's was the retailer and the consumer (and the software
developers) had NO CHOICE, they would be using the worlds worst OS. Why
do YOU think most of the home market is using the worlds worst OS?
Everyone is just too ****ing dumb to buy something better, right?

Or too CHEAP.

For about a decade now, there have been a dozen or so Linux
distributions, 3 or 4
major BSD variants, FreeDOS, WINE, and host of other lesser choices
available
for *free*... And the consumers still have consistently chosen Microsoft
over all the above.

Last time I was at best buy, I could not buy a PC with LINUX installed
on it. Last time I watched my wife and children on the PC, looked like
they would have no clue how to remove windows and install a shareware
version of UNIX that would not run any of their software.

They also could not buy a machine with Windows XP Professional or
Windows 7 Professional, or as of late, not even Windows 7 32 bit,
pre-installed.

This is not the behavior of a predatory monopoloy.

Yes, it is. Without illegal marketing practices, people would have
chosen to buy an OS that worked installed on their home PC, and
developers would have developed software for that market. MS would have
had to come out with a solid, smooth working, multitasking OS or go out
of business. The consumer would have been the winner.


And by jove, they HAVE. They get an OS that works reasonably well for
PEANUTS with their computer, and they have the option of having
WHATEVER OS THEY WANT installed on their machine for a price. They can
then have WHATEVER SOFTWARE THEY WANT produced to run on that OS, for
a price.

Or they can buy off-the-shelf software for that so-so OS, that also
works reasonably well, for a couple hours wages. ANd that software can
come from "anti-christ inc" or any number of other established
software houses who sell their products in sufficient quantity to be
able to sell at a competetive price.

The option would be that everybody bought a computer with NO OS
installed, and bought whatever OS they either wanted or were directed
to by their reseller, at full retail price, and then bought or had
programmed whatever application they wanted/needed, at significant
cost, with no expectation that data generated on their computer might
be compatible with or readable on someone else's computer.

Back to the seventies, the days of Basic 4, Business Basic, OS/9, the
various incompatible versions of CPM, Exec, Gecos, George, MFT, PCP,
BKY, Chios, and all the non-compatible Unix and Xenix flavours, EMAS,
VMS, Ultrix, etc. and "custom software" written at great expense for
every different OS and application - very few of which ran
successfully even on ONE platform for less than the cost of a driveway
full of Cadilacs.

So yes, I'll say it again: By Jove, the consumer HAS come out the
winner. At least to a point.
It is the evidence of a satisfied customer base, nothing else.

Nope, it is evidence of the results of stifled competition. People do
not choose to use the worst product available when given a choice. When
choice is stifled, the consumer ALWAYS loses.

OK smarty-pants. Develop a new OS - or buy the rights to OS/2 and
upgrade it to the point where it is not only a viable alternative to,
but also a superior product to anything offered by "anti-christ inc"
and market it at a price that will generate enough sales to put some
bread on your table. Set up a support team capable of providing all
required support to all users (Oh, I forgot - your product will be so
perfect no support will EVER be required) - and the whole world will
be your oyster.
If your product is truly superior, it will outsell "anti-christ inc"
regardless of their anti-competitive behaviour, and you will make
enough profit to fight off all the predatory court cases against you
for having your product "look and feel" like some-one elses - or
infringing an invalid patent issued to some backstreet lawyer for some
common generic "technology".

In about 10 years you'll have the rest of the world complaining about
YOUR anti-competetive behaviour, and YOU will find yourself in front
of a trade tribunal or whatever, defending YOUR rights - and you will
be known as "anti-christ inc #2"

Good luck.

Microsoft makes "good
enough" technology. It's good enough for most people, most of the time.

Nothing is good enough if there is other stuff available that is better.
Windows sucks the big one, most everyone hates it but don't know why.
Mostly they blame it on their own "computer illiteracy" or on
non-existent viral attacks. It's the OS stupid!

"Non existant" viral attacks????? "non existant" Mal ware?????
OK, so MS products are not perfect. Their registry is fragile, and
occaisionally requires attention - but the vast majority of
performance issues in the PC world ARE related, in one way or another,
to MalWare and other outside influences, including virus issues.

Cleaning or restoring the registry can often get back much oif the
lost performance - but getting rid of all the MalWare generally gets
back the rest.

If as many people had a hard-on against, say , RedHat Linux as have
against Microsoft, they would come up with ways to compromise RedHat
just as badly as they have Microsoft products - and the damage could
end up every bit as serious to Linux as it has proven to be against
Microsoft.


If you set up a Microsoft Windows XP system as a standalone system,
and install half a dozen applications and use them for a few years -
with NO outside connection, and no updates or system changes, that
machine will work well, with virtually no issues.

My system, (xp 2002 Professional) connected to the internet 24/7/52
has not needed a software re-install in almost 10 years and is ,
today, running just about as well as a 3.13gz Celeron computer with
1GB of RAM could be expected to run.
I run and test all kinds of programs and hardware - so the registry
gets cleaned up occaisionally, and the hard-drive gets defragmented
regularly - and when the system seams to be slowing down a bit, a
amal-ware cleaner is used to drive out the "bugs" that have gotten
into the system.

It's
not "great" because consumers wouldn't pay for great ... or at least
they haven't been willing to thus far.

Consumers could have had great had they been able to purchase OS/2
installed on their PC's.

Customers WERE able to buy OS/2 on their computers. Microsoft made it
available to their OEM partners back in the '80s, and it was a real
hard sell.

They could have had great in spite of MS
illegal anti-trust marketing had IBM not pulled the product the moment
it became clear OS/2 was about to explode on the market as it reached
critical mass of 1 million copies sold a month, despite the difficulty
of finding it for sale, and having to remove the worlds worst OS and
installing something that actually worked yourself. Had IBM provided it
to the retailers, and MS not threatened retailers, Win would either have
gone out of business, or developed something better than OS/2. Neither
happened.

IF OS/2 was so superior, IBM would have remained the predominent brand
and supplier of personal computers in the world, because to get OS/2,
all you would have had to do is by a PS/2 computer from IBM. The
market would have responded by a landslide demand for OS/2 on
competitor's machines - which would have resulted either in IBM
providing the software to other manufacturers to package with their
systems, and a tsunami-like wave of sotware development for the OS/2
platform, OR - - - - - Anti-trust investigation and findings against
IBM.
You're grumbling because the Chevy dealer won't put Ford sales
literature in the showroom...

Wrong, I'm grumbling because most all retail outlets sold ONLY MS
operating systems. They did this because of illegal marketing practices
of MS.

And TODAY they CAN supply Linux, BSD, and even eComStation (OS/2) or
whatever OS they want to supply - and still they are not..........
BECAUSE??????
Because people want applications to run on their systems. And the
majority of common apps do not run on most of these OS platforms.
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. I'm grumbling because most of
the software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds
worst OS. I'm grumbling because most of the hardware developed works
only with the worlds worst operating system. All because of the things
that horrified a great federal anti trust judge, Stanley Sporkin.

And you talk about "the world's worst OS". You need to make that,
perhaps, the world's worst SURVIVING OS - becuse thankfully many like
CPM have long since left the marketplace.

On Sun, 15 May 2011 11:00:09 -0400, "Upscale"
wrote:


"Jack Stein" wrote in message
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. I'm grumbling because most of the
software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds worst
OS.

It's really noticeable how you've tip toed around Apple and its operating
system. Most windows programs of any importance in today's computer worlde
have been ported over to Apple. I regularly hear about professionals such as
graphic artists choosing Apple as their preferred operating system. So,
what's your excuse? There's certainly other working operating systems out
there right now, but you choose to whine and grumble about what's past, not
what's current. My only guess is that you're too stupid or too lazy or too
cheap to do anything different than to follow along with the pack, the same
pack that you've been whining about.

He's got too much of a hard-on against Microsoft to be able to see
past it. There is none so blind as he who WILL NOT see.

On May 15, 4:05*pm, wrote:
On Sun, 15 May 2011 11:00:09 -0400, "Upscale"
wrote:







"Jack Stein" wrote in message
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. *I'm grumbling because most of the
software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds worst
OS.

It's really noticeable how you've tip toed around Apple and its operating
system. Most windows programs of any importance in today's computer worlde
have been ported over to Apple. I regularly hear about professionals such as
graphic artists choosing Apple as their preferred operating system. So,
what's your excuse? There's certainly other working operating systems out
there right now, but you choose to whine and grumble about what's past, not
what's current. My only guess is that you're too stupid or too lazy or too
cheap to do anything different than to follow along with the pack, the same
pack that you've been whining about.

He's got too much of a hard-on against Microsoft to be able to see
past it.

Highly unlikely.

On 5/15/2011 1:24 PM, Robatoy wrote:
On May 15, 11:00 am, wrote:
"Jack wrote in message
I'm grumbling because I'm using the worlds worst OS on my PC because of
these past illegal marketing practices. I'm grumbling because most of the
software professionally developed is developed only for the worlds worst
OS.

It's really noticeable how you've tip toed around Apple and its operating
system. Most windows programs of any importance in today's computer worlde
have been ported over to Apple.

And, of course the reverse where Apple had certain professional
publishing programs first. (Adobe..yes many Adobe products were ported
to Windoze from Mac.) Microsoft Word was available for the Mac 4 years
before the Windoze version. Excel was available for Mac 3 years before
the Windoze version.
One reason for the publishing industry's use was the Laserwriter
printers and scanner software available for small desktop publishers.
Photoshop was available on the Mac 4 years prior to the very bad
Windoze version.

I just love the advertisements on TV which has some paid shill say:
"Widows 7 was MY idea."
To which Steve Jobs replied once by saying: "actually it was MY idea,
except we called it Mac OS 9. TEN years before Win7. (Of course we
went to a UNIX based OS with OSX in 2000.... and I have yet to crash
any of my family's Macs since OS X) (I do use some PC software for my
CNC's G-coding and that seems to be reasonably stable as long as I
don't try anything 'out-side the envelope'.

So Macs have a unique place as it caters to the dumber computer
operators on one end of the spectrum, due to its ease of operation,
and it caters to the ultra creative/bright operators on the very
demanding end of the spectrum, due to its immense scope and power....
and everybody in between.


I regularly hear about professionals such as
graphic artists choosing Apple as their preferred operating system. So,
what's your excuse? There's certainly other working operating systems out
there right now, but you choose to whine and grumble about what's past, not
what's current. My only guess is that you're too stupid or too lazy or too
cheap to do anything different than to follow along with the pack, the same
pack that you've been whining about.


The problem with this theory is MacOS is more closed off than Windows ever
was. You cannot run it on anything but Apple hardware. And this, from a
system that was born in *open source* - FreeBSD.