Basically the corporate whigs do not care about I.T. they care about risk management and keeping their jobs is the number one priority.

In a startup environment that is different. It is risk by its nature.

Unethical about using only MS because they own stock? Ethical as you can get as they own the company and are the customer. My guess is it is probably one of those media companies MS invests in to make .WMV standard. Flash came right in and ruined that.

Money does talk and shit walk in business, but game theory in economics and finance dictate the shareholder does not always come first as everyone's priority is to keep his job. Buying software with known liabilities because some geeks on a website called Slashdot is a sure way to get shitcanned with no references FAST from clueless phb managers. There was a lady too in all the CIOmag press releases who was a SCO shill too. The PHB and directors read these.

While we know it is crap sometimes it is better not to take risks if you have a family to feed and just waste company money instead.

Oh, this client got rid of secureshell because it was BSD too. I tried to explain it but they heard BSD, oh that is gnu, we aint having it.

We replaced them with an inferior solution which cost $$$$, and was repackaged ssh 2.x code. Basically all free software got lumped together as the fear was if SCO can claim ownership with something who is to say Apple or someone can't do the same with secure shell?

Speak for yourself. Years ago when this same case was going on I had a client implement a no GNU policy and we replaced all our Linux systems with Windows and paid the $699 per core SCO licensing fee for Linux.

The lawyers were all over this. As a result the developers were forbidden to use GNU as it could infringe on someone elses property and it the arguments were like reading the troll posts from Slashdot.

The more this shit hits the headlines in places like CIOmag or InfoWorld.com the stronger the argument agaisnt' GNU and Linux.

No it is not ... unless you run unpatched pirated XP sp 2 from 2004 with updates turned off due to a failed Windows genuine advantage tool.

Windows Vista fixed this and MS patched this for XP in 2009. IT is fud. The problem is according to the article third world countries all run the pirated version of Windows and even though MS relented with update it is so so out of date that even WIndows Update wont work in a sp2 system. I tried it in a VM. You need to manually run fixits from microsoft.com before it can even execute. Non techie users do not know what that is.

Hell in China 35% of all users still run IE 6 for that reason.

Old Linux from 2001 had a big vulnerability if you want to bash where you had to be root to use Netscape and dial out with a modem?? Seriously

The grandparent is exactly the kind of user I was referring too. :-)

They exist in the Linux world too after running Windows 98 assume NT kernels are just as crashy because that is what they remember back in the 20th century. I make a habit to always open myself to new things so I do not become like that.

that is one complaint about Linux.

In Windows you point and click and you are done. Same with MacOSX. MSI's integrate with Active directory for remote deployments via group policies. Even better Windows 7 has side by side SXS .dlls so one dll version links to the correct app while another has its seperate version.

In Linux those apps would sig-11 and core dump as a conflict would arise.

I only had one BSOD in 2.5 years with my Windows 7 system exclusing athe latest ATI drivers which had an issue with my bois after 12.10.

That is pretty stable in my book and I find this hard to believe they crash every 30 minutes. Even Windows 3.11 without protected memory on a dos kernel where one app can take down the whole damn system was not that bad.

I am not selling it all. People keep thinking I am a MS apologist or a paid shill.

Adobe is buggy but nothign compares to it as they bought all the competitors off such as Aldus.

It is better than it was and is ok now to be used on a daily basis. Not sexy or cutting edge. I do have a mild interest in Windows 8.1 as it has addressed my issues with Metro such as app stacking and having more than 1 app on the screen at a time and an improved search.

I hated that too. I could not use Chrome for over a year!

Now when I open Firefox (just started using again after version 17) I find it a waste of space for a seperate searchbar. It is funny when your brain is used to doing something one way repetitively for so long and you have a change.

IE 11 has tabs on the bottom rumor has it for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 perhaps? But I do not use IE that much outside of work. I am saying if I had to only use IE I could use it and even enjoy it. All 3 browsers have improved tremendously. Even Firefox is not bloated anymore as I switched to IE when 4.0 came out. Even 3.6 was a slug before it.

I guess people are set in their ways.

This is why MS is frantic with yearly releases of IE and Windows to prevent another IE 6 and XP. Many out there who are familiar think it is wrong to switch simply because that is not what they do. After awhile your brain assumes its a threat of change and will look for reasons to avoid upgrading. After all you do not do it so it is wrong.

I see that now at work with I.T. departments doing a 180 resisting change because they have never done it before. Grayhairs did that stuff in the 20th century. Exchange 2003 works fine ... dont touch it! etc.

Linux is here for that ... in Android.

I would prefer an Android based distro if anything with keyboard and mouse support. Yes it is more limited but man non server apps really reak in 2013. In 2002 KDE 2.0 rocked! Amarok rocked! Things were looking up if it were not for hardware support.

Today it has regressed to the point where I gave up and consider Linux a server technology.

Thats an awful amount of ram for just browsing the web and answering gmail if you ask me.

That was because I was doing strange things that normal users would not do and tinkering with stuff.

Windows 7 does not get Windows rot like XP does if you have newer apps. It even includes a registry defragger. It still can get it but it is more rare and harder.

I am not saying it is a great OS. It is rather plain and corporate more like saying grits and pourage are great food. It works but if you are used to eating spam and crap than pourage is a HUGE improvement. But it has the least hassles and software works with it. It is improved where 12 years ago before XP I would say it sucks hard. Even XP which does get windows rot is an ok system.

I have been using activestate perl for over 10 years. It used to be bundled on cd if you ever bought the how to program in perl books. It comes with some nice precompiled help files too. It is a full native win32 port with +com and I think .net support. I have not touched perl in a long time so I don't know how much of .NET has been ported. They have a Unix version too so your code can go back and forth and their own distro of CPAN>

Trying to get compuviz to work and my ati drivers kept breaking after an upgrade. Also was playing with fonts trying to get them to look as good as Windows and fix java not using font hinting etc.