Yo, Tom Hudson, I'm real happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Breitbart is the greatest troll of all TIME!

I'll never empty my list of freaks. First of all because Pudge is on there, and for him to un-freak me would require him to change his mind.

But of far more interest than that is my former brother-in-law. I hadn't forgotten that he showed up here when his crazy assed sister left me. Hadn't thought about him in a while. Was looking around some pages and saw his name on my freaks list. Then I remembered he was 'an hero'. And I laughed. I hope it hurt. It probably did, because for it to have been painless it would require him to do something right for once in his miserable life.

Cowardly chickenshit.

J.A. Watson of ZDNet belatedly joins the Vista Sucks Chorus. He makes up for his tardiness with zeal and by moving to GNU/Linux.

I simply can't believe how awful Windows is, and (unfortunately) how gullible I am. [my laptop] came loaded with Vista Business, and a "fallback" DVD for XP Professional. I tried running Vista on it. I really tried, I really wanted it to work, and I said exactly that in my blog here. But it didn't. Every time I tried it, things started out looking promising, and after a month or two it would go belly-up. Three or four times I reloaded Vista from scratch and tried again, hoping that the latest Microsoft Updates would fix it. Eventually I gave up, reloaded one last time with XP Professional, and ran that with no problem for two years.

A month or so ago, through my own carelessness, I wiped the disk on this laptop. I had to reload everything from scratch, so (like a fool) I thought well, Vista SP2 is out, everyone says that it is "all fixed up now and works great, and reliably", so I'll try that again. I loaded Vista from scratch, added all the updates to SP2 and beyond, and I've been running it that way since. Until today. ... Windows is unreliable garbage, it always has been, it always will be, and if you use it you should be willing to accept that risk. I am no longer willing to accept that risk, even part-time as a secondary operating system on this laptop. Windows is gone, it has puked all over its disk for the last time here, and I will not reload it. I am in the process of transferring the data to one of the Linux partitions - yes, Linux is quite happy to read the partition that Windows says is hopelessly corrupted.

Please, PLEASE, unless you want to hear a very long string of words that I learned during my military service, do NOT tell me that the "solution" to this problem is to give Microsoft even more money and "upgrade" to Windows 7. ... if Vista is not stable, or reliable, then Microsoft should withdraw it and either offer a free "upgrade" to Windows 7 or offer a refund of the purchase cost. ... I absolutely don't believe the Windows 7 is any better, any more stable or any more reliable than Vista. They come from Microsoft, they are utter garbage...

This is a sign of things to come for Windows. Windows 7 was predictably just as bad as Vista was. People no longer are falling for Microsoft's promises of "this version fixes everything."

Everybody still having fun with APK? I notice that damned near every post I made last week has been responded to, questioning my educational bona fides. The hysterical thing is that some AC responded to his inquiries. Now, to about half of those, he responded, accusing me of being the AC. The really hysterical thing: I haven't visited /. since very early on Wednesday morning.

So APK spent a day or two running around and accusing people of sockpuppetry who had forgotten his existence hours before APK posted. Classic. How long until he goes all Hans Reiser?

Anyone have any preferences for a b/g/n router? I'd like one so that I can put my nice, modern Apple stuff on the N side of things, and the shitty, legacy crap over on the b/g side. Already have an older Time Capsule that isn't full, so I'm not going that route. (Oh, and I'll probably not give my brother access to the N, cause he pisses me off too much).

Thinking to bridge the connection from that to the Time Capsule, and let the Time Capsule handle the rest of it.

I don't care about off the wall firmware. That doesn't interest me in any way, shape or form. Unless I have to deal with that kind of malarkey to get either my Time Capsule or my tons of BT stuff to work nicely.

Digitimes has another reason for Windows 7 sales to be low.

PC replacement demand is not driven significantly by the consumer market, but rather enterprise and government purchases ... most enterprises in Europe and North America are expected to start planning annual purchasing budgets for the year in March and April of 2010, actual replacement demand is not expected to spur until the second half of the year.

Companies and government might buy computers next year, but they should already be buying orders placed in March and April of this year. There are already accounts of corporate rejection of Windows 7, so that OS is not likely to have anything to do with corporate buying and government won't be a big market because UAC still does not meet government security standards . Back in January, retailers at CES remembered being "burnt by Vista" and saw nothing to change their minds about the contracting PC market. Perhaps OEMs and retailers could deliver the gnu/linux netbooks and desktops that people actually want to buy.

Who decided that all story submissions would be tagged with user email addresses? You might as well demand and publish people's real names.

This is a breach of trust that will drive away long standing users such as myself. Email addresses were collected under the promise of never being published. Now I have the choice of submitting things as AC, publishing my email address or just giving up. I'm leaning towards giving up. Boycott Novell has been more fun anyway.

Despite all the hype, it is easy to predict that Windows 7 will go the same way Vista did. Vista was a failure in every way, so a pretty new face was made to sell the same buggy and customer hostile core and the Microsoft hype machine was turned on full blast. Now that Vista 7 is RTM, we no longer have to make predictions, we can simply watch the results. Here is a collection of Vista 7 failures found on YouTube. Enjoy what I found in a few minutes:

• Counter Strike Fail
• Power Management Fail Hibernate seems to be broken. Any power management working would be an improvement over XP or Vista but we should not expect such miracles from non free software.
• Cracking Video shows how to p0wn "activation." Soothing music welcomes you to the botnet.
• Good rundown of Windows 7 problems by seasoned IT professional who has yet to give up on Windows. He's not correct about being able to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7.

Update 1/2/2011 Real users have been forced to buy Vista 7 with their new computers for more than a year and it's Vista all over again. They tell the story better than I can.

Here are videos that have collected at YouTube over the last year. Windows 7 is no less a pig and no more secure than Vista was, everything the Microsoft boosters say is a lie. All of these videos were made after the RTM date and most after the October 22nd, 2009 shelf date. The best have bold dates.

2009

• 07/28 - an amazing Windows 7 failure video. Ten minutes long but fun the whole time.
• 09/11 - buggy dual monitor action. It's funny how my PIII can correctly do this kind of thing with composting using E16 and Debian. Multitouch on Windows 7 has had a lot of high profile failure too.
• 10/22 - Fails the day it was released to the public. Man forced to wipe Vista to install Windows 7 and ends up with two dead computers.
• 12/29 - Windows 7 speech recognition, impressive and completely worthless.
• 12/31 - What Windows 7 OEM "support" is really like, explained by a former Gateway support tech. The techical issue was product activation but the video is a profoundly sad portrait of betrayed US tech workers.

2010

• 01/03 - A gamer hates Windows 7 performance and broken Steam
• 01/05 - Another user abandons the Windows world over Vista/Windows 7.
• 01/15 - Another tech and XP fans tell his users to go from XP to Mac OSX because Windows 7 is so poor
• 01/18 - This poor user thinks Vista was better, how pathetic.
• 04/19 - Hardware does not work with Windows 7, user hates it.
• 07/10/2010 - Excellent critique by long term Windows user fed up with Vista/Window7. After fighting "updates" for two years, user runs to Mac and vows to never purchase Windows again.
• 07/29 - Windows 7 ruins a netbook and lots of other hardware, user can't use CDs and is very frustrated.
• 8/21 - Infuriating general flakeyness, poor user wants his XP back.
• 09/04 - Poor battery life of Windows 7 graphically illustrated.
• 09/30 - Windows 7 broken so that user can't log in.
• 10/04 - User complains about poor performance and incomplete Vista facelift for Window 7. Thinks it works a little faster with "classic" 1995 like menu bar.
• 10/10 - Fake AV demonstrated, shows that Windows 7 is still insecure and preyed on by all sorts. The demonstrator should have actually used virtual machine if he really needed Windows.
• 10/31 - Slow shutdown ruins someone's day.
• 12/10 - Great demonstration of CPU usage in Windows 7 vrs GNU/Linux.

2011

• 02/01 - Bugs and clown music
• 02/11 - Microsoft Anna voice tells you how annoying Windows 7 is
• 02/13 - Windows 7 ruins $1,000 computer so user is unable to play games, make videos and whatnot.
• 03/16 - Five crashes a month belies hype for this man. He wanted an improvement over Vista and 64 bit OS, but thinks Windows 7 is worse than Vista, which he also thought suckes. Wants to go Linux but has a few programs holding him back.

Modpoints for sale. If you have a good one tomorrow (TT) that isn't getting the love, let me know.

Red stop sucking cock for money yet?

From the dept of brain dead or bribed journalists.

This ZDNet opinion piece has got to be the worst defense of unethical business practices I've see to date. Basically, the author admits M$ bribes and punishes OEMs and that's AOK with him. Let's preserve this gem:

a company gets twice as much from a PC with their brand on it as one they make for someone else. MSI needs this money to survive in a world where its Chinese partners can undercut them. The margin justifies MSIs existence.

It is also true that Linux cannot afford a presence in the channel. Its not how we roll. You cant invest in retailing if your product costs nothing. There is nothing to invest. Thats why Linux and open source depend on the Internet.

A monopolistic practice occurs when two sides are offering the same deal and one side gets all the business. But in this case both sides were not offering the same deal. Microsoft offered channel support, Linux a hearty handshake and rhetoric about freedom.

... What Linux needs to succeed is a way to offer more than was offered MSI. The question is, how would you structure a deal?

Well, that's a good question. What besides an OS that works and costs zero dollars does free software offer? OK, it can cost up to half what Windows costs if you get it customized and maintained by a company like Xandros. "Channel Support" is just a code word for exclusion of competition by bribes and threats, the very definition of anti-trust conspiracy. Lately, "Channel Support" has come at a terrible cost to companies like Asus. Retail partners like CompUSA, Circuit City and others who got themselves channel stuffed with Vista. This is what Li Chang, vice president of the Taipei Computer Association, was complaining about and it's worth a DOJ investigation. People don't want Windows, they want computers that work. Retailers and OEMs that don't deliver are going the way of other M$ partners and M$ themselves.

Ordinarily, I don't pick on language and style but the phrase, "how we roll," references to his parents' national origin bring special disgrace on ZDNet and the Wintel press. It's hard to tell if he's being cynical or if M$'s culture has really degenerated so far. This single article earns Dana a place in my Poison Pen Collection.

COD:
Auto Eroto

Roger Grimes makes this startling admission of public perception:

Youll often read similar recommendations to dump Microsofts Internet Explorer (I work full-time for Microsoft) and use any other browser instead. To completely protect yourself, theyll advise moving off of Microsoft Windows all together.

He goes on to make some long winded excuses and insult users in a way that's completely torn apart in the comments. His readers sanely point out that Window's endless problems have been well demonstrated. What's interesting about this article is not the same old blame the user and "popularity" excuses, it's that M$ is no longer able to pretend to the general public that "computer experts" still trust Windows. They don't and neither does anyone else any more.

I enjoy gloating, so a pair of articles, 1 and 2, from the M$ employee known as Mini Microsoft were quite enjoyable. It sucks to work for a big dumb company that's being raped by greedy and stupid people at the top of the org chart. It must suck even more at a company like M$, which long ago became a parasitic cult, loathed when people have the inclination to care. Mini's observations come through rose colored glasses, but there's no mistaking the lack of motivation and useful leadership.

He's got mood swings the size of Steve Ballmer's ego. He swings from wishing everyone well to wanting people fired, now - damn it! Desperately, he seeks a simple solution for his broken company but realizes none is can be found. This is typical of the emotional rollercoaster employees of a failing company ride.

Do you think that the concept of shared sacrifice would work at Microsoft? If it still felt like a company driven by the employees, probably so. ... if we still felt like the drive and ambition of the front-line employees shaped the company and defined it, then helping one another would make sense. But the huge growth shattered that sense of employee ownership, abetted by the abysmal Microsoft stock performance we've had since, yes, Mr. Ballmer became CEO.

Microsoft gorged itself at the buffet bar of mediocre hires. And now we're bursting at the seams and deadlocked. We are stagnant right when we have two major product releases coming in for landing ... Zero attrition. Stagnation. Organizational constipation. Nothing good comes out of that but corporate sepsis.

He proposes a crazy plan where people can move freely in the company but crashes hard the very same day. He celebrates the fifth birthday of his blog by basically saying, "I was right, M$ is stupid and hopeless. All of my efforts have been wasted."

Soon to be five years ago, I started this blog up because I felt Microsoft was a train not only off-track but also heading straight for a cliff. We were massively expanding and incapable of dealing with the exponential complexity that a fast growing Microsoft required of us. It appeared as though we were growing for growth's sake and without a particular elegant plan in mind. [twitter note: most people think they were just buying revenue to keep their stock price from collapsing.] ...

... Early 2009, we publically reached that cliff and went flying off. ... all the publicity this blog has garnered and the awkward questions it forced to be asked, none of it helped to avoid that cliff we've been steaming towards the last five years. My reality check has been cashed.

Yes Mini, you were right. Non free software quit making sense about a decade ago. Everything M$ has done since then has been to perpetuate a lie to enrich top leadership at M$, broadcast media and other fraudulent companies. Vista is non free software's crowning achievement in treacherous and disfunctional computing. Re arranging the org chart won't make Windows 7 any better. The non free software development model will never be able to provide enough resources to code production to make it competitive. This is true even if M$ were to quit wasting billions on Zune, Xbox, advertising and executive toys like the world's larges private yacht and failed private resort towns. But they won't do that any more than they will divest NBC, CNBC or any of the rest of the news organizations bought by M$, the Gates Foundation or funded by M$'s massive budget. The lies will go on till the company falls over like Enron did. M$ has entered the same death spiral it created for so many more worthy companies over the years. M$'s demise alone won't bring the owners of those other companies justice. That will take many protracted lawsuits to strip the ill gotten wealth from those who think they have gotten away with it. A country of ruined worker bees will be more than happy to see it happen.

First of all, I don't want this published to the frontpage...
Having said that, I have a quick question. I'm a Java guy that manages a few younger java guys. I have been asked to tech a .net guy that (according to his resume) has managed over 30 developers. How do I tech a guy like that? Do I just stick with OO/patterns questions? I know how to tech a java guy, but one that has more experience than me is a daunting task...