What? What? I'm sorry, but what did you say? Huh? What? Oh, sarcasm!!! :) Sorry, I'm so slow! Please disregard my questions.

Wow! Gates and Balmer as Dominatrices getting billions of dollars from the masses for inflicting pain. Didn't everyone realize that if they weren't getting pleasure from the pain that they were wasting their money? Ohhh, the horror that has been wrought in my brain of the mental picture of that pair in latex and thigh-high stiletto boots!!! Too bad I can't un-imagine it!! Quick! Someone kill me!

Now I understand what was in the thick goo everyone was sleeping in in "The Matrix!"

Microsoft wants to call black white, while also calling it black and gray. What kind of arrogance makes them think that they can define all terms and create all definitions, and not have people question them?

My neighbor is a super Apple fanboy. Anything Apple is perfect. He says that it is because of the "experience" he has with Apple products. He feels like they are so much better than everyone that they should protect their IP at all costs. I told him how they basically borrowed all the windowed interface experience from Xerox PARC, to which he said, "If Xerox didn't copyright, patent or otherwise protect their IP, then Apple would be perfectly within their right to do it so that they can protect their IP." I told him he was stupid (not in those words, but in that spirit).

Amen. I'm paying for my family to go on a trip to Disneyland with extra money I've made from neighbors who can't figure their "Dang Windows computers," and I go over and help them out. I do have to thank Microsoft for providing me with a good steady stream of extra income.

I've given several people a couple of minutes prep on Linux, and then let them go on their own. Only the dumbest of the bunch had trouble. Everyone else was fine, and even liked it more than Windows. So I guess my experience makes it more like 75/25 in favor of Linux (and in my case, the dumb one being the only one with a problem and that was because it wasn't like the Windows he'd been using for years - I bet he'd have been fine if he hadn't started with windows). Granted also, I did pick bright people for my subjects (with the one exception), because I knew they could handle the change better. But not because Windows is easier than Windows. Brighter people tend to be able to change environments more easily.

Now that doesn't mean that all those people stayed on Linux. They had to have Windows for some applications that they ran (like Quickbooks), but they would have liked to have used Linux if there had been the application support.

I've used Unix/Linux since 1980 for work, and since 1992 at home. I'd hate to have to give it up for Windows. Yes, I use Windows plenty (unfortunately) and I support several businesses and many homes that use it. It's kind of like being a Doctor - I'm treating a crippling disease without having to have the disease myself. :) :)

I agree completely. I get FAR more done in the same time using Linux. I could use either for my desktop at work or home. In fact they have a standardized install of Windows at work that they'd prefer people use. I've used it, but it was slower. I've been in the computer industry for 30 years, and I've used LOTS of different systems. The only thing that MS products have over the competition is that they have locked things in so tightly that when some dumb ass creates something that can't be used without a MS product, you will probably be better off using the damn MS product. Actually, just shoot the dumb ass that made it with an Smith & Wesson product. Problem solved. :)

Support for your employees?? Might as well buy bras for your female employees and cups for your male employees as spend money on Microsoft support. They'll get much better support that way. You even get better information about FOS when you google than you do about MSOffice.

My Dell Latitude D820 is loaded up with Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. My co-workers use Windows. Yesterday I got our department Sprint data card. They told me it would probably take me a bit to get it working on the laptop (because it took them a while to get the driver installed and setup to run). So I took the card and inserted it into the PCMCIA slot. In about 20 seconds (without my doing ANYTHING else) it was connected to Sprint's network and I was using it like the laptop was born to use it.

I use it for doing every task that I have to do for work. There are over ten thousand windows users here at work. We went through a big change from Groupwise to Exchange and Outlook. I use Evolution, and I get complete access to everything I need - scheduling, email, the works.

When people say that Linux is not ready for business use, they smoking somethin' that making them see the world in a false and distorted way. I'll never go back to Windows.

It's not difficult, it's just screwed up. Why should they have so many differing levels of the OS other than marketing and a way to make more money? You get people in with the crappy starter versions, then when they realize what a piece of crap it is, they go to the next level, always paying more to do it, and getting just slightly less crappy software all along the upgrade path until you buy the top of the line crap that's less crappy, but still crap, but you *feel* better about it because you paid more.

Bait and Switch is illegal, but this is a similar marketing method. Bait and switch is getting them in with a low-cost item, then getting them to buy the higher priced one. With the Windoze marketing, they don't switch, they just get you to buy an upgrade. Same basic strategy. Different, but unfortunately legal, method of execution.

It's also an appeal to customer vanity, jut like fashion. What makes a pair of faded, beat-up, torn jeans from a trendy shop more valuable than a pair of jeans from a thrift shop? The price is higher because of the designer label. "My jeans are better than yours because I paid more!"

Same thing for versions of Windoze. "I've got the Uber-Premium, Ultimate, Kick-Ass, Expensive version of Windows on *MY* machine! What's on yours?"

Consumer stupidity and corporate greed are what have put our society in the crapper. If you don't think I'm talking about you, you're probably wrong.

For those who are die-hard Apple fans (and they are the largest group of iPhone purchasers), the only way to make an iPhone Killer is to have Apple be the one to make it.

Let's face it people, if Apple came out with Apple iFeces, there would be a line around the block of Apple fans eager to buy it on the first day.

Most people leaving a religion do so at a time and for a reason that helps them make their "statement" against the religion. They usually have plenty of other reasons (founded or unfounded), and pick one that they feel will best play out for themselves.

Interestingly enough, most of the people that leave the Mormon Church don't have their names taken from the records of the church so that at some later time if they need some help (welfare assistance), it is easier to get. That's pure hypocrisy. Who needs hypocrites?

I'm fine with people leaving a religion. The Mormon Church doesn't make them remain members. Not only will it not make them remain members, but if they ask to be removed from the records, they comply with the request. And even those who are most vocal against it can be welcomed back "into the fold." (Of course, you can't still be against the church and be welcomed back in at the same time. Every group has it limits on participation criteria, including your local Credit Union. You can't rob a bank and then deposit that money in an account there if they know you are the thief.)

If someone leaves the Mormon Church over Prop 8, they obviously don't have much in common with the tenants of the religion. Kind of like a Jew leaving their synagogue because they weren't going to serve a Christmas ham at a Hanukkah celebration.

Birds of a feather flock together. I don't usually see to many ostriches mingling with seagulls. Do you?