I started working in this industry before most of you were a gleam in your daddies eye (I'm 85 and still actively programming and evangelizing Microsoft). I was writing C and assembly language programs when they started. I helped an Oregon professor build a computer that used an ASR-33 teletype and 7400 series integrated circuits in circuit boards that I designed and built. I'm saying all this as a way of saying I think I have the background to make my choices reasonable. I don't like Apple, I don't like Google. I don't like a number of things but I don't bash them. I take a VERY dim view of Open Source - not because it's bad but I simply don't understand how I - for example - could put bread on the table if I gave my hours away. Open Source makes absolutely NO sense to me. Now for a long time I've used my.msn as my home page. The problem is that my layout has Slashdot occupying the middle of the screen. So I changed my home page to Bing. Now I can ignore this forum comfortably because I'm just sick to death or reading post after post after post bashing Microsoft and essentially saying how great other venues are. Now I went out and bought a MacMini, an iPhone and a Verizon account so that I can develop apps for iOS. The crazy thing is training material for Xcode says I should know Objective C. Training material for Objective C says I should know C and suddenly I'm writing C again realizing how ancient (and good) the language is. And believe me - I'm doing this to make money. Besides, I'm having fun programming the Apple because I could do well. SO if you want to contact me I'm budatdotnetchecksdotcom - otherwise all of you have fun with your f...ing MS bashing - I'll just quietly capitalize on it.

My browser of choice is IE and I have my.msn.com as my main home page. On that page I have Slashdot right in the middle. If it weren't for messing up my home page I would take out Slashdot in a heartbeat simply because of the constant Microsoft bashing. It seems like Microsoft can do nothing right according to the jerks that post anti-Microsoft messages here. Of course Microsoft makes mistakes - all corporations do but by and large they do great work. I don't like Apple. I don't like Google and there are others I don't like but I don't constantly bash them here. You like Apple - GREAT - it's your choice and I applaud you for making it. You like Google - same thing but for f... sake STOP with the constant barrage of Microsoft bashing. That's MY choice.

to make something interesting to the masses is to ban it LOL Much better than thousands of words of advertising.

If that's the case then maybe mi MICR font is copyrightable which means VersaCheck could owe me a fortune. Any lawyers want to offer their services? try budatdotnetchecksdotcom.

I will lead someone to the water - present tense. I led him to the water - past tense. Lead is also a metal but it is NOT pronounced the same as in the context mentioned earlier. So the headline should read "The Math Formula That Led To the Financial Crash" - as in past tense. And the sentence in the article should read "...and widespread adoption led to Myron Scholes..." - again past tense of lead.

So you loath the company that made computers both cheap and ubiquitous... It's really sad to hear comments like this. IF it weren't for Microsoft you'd be paying thousands to tens of thousands of dollars to run your open source Unix knockoff. It's because of Microsoft that you CAN run your cheap ass software on cheap ass computers. Get a clue my friend - someone needs to make money to make this all work. If everyone worked for free (as in open source) no one could pay the bills. I'm a developer and I spend hours writing check printing software so I really need to get paid to live and eat. You may have an unlimited source of income so you can write software and give it away - I don't.

When I was born in 1927 the world population was roughly 2 billion. The US population was roughly 119 million. The US has now surpassed 300 million and world population is at 7 billion folks and this planet does, believe it or not have finite resources. My gut feeling - sad as it sounds - is a massive outbreak of an untreatable infection that decimates the world population. Like I say - this isn't even remotely amusing!

I'm actually 84 and an ex Navy Electronics Technician who served on a few of these carriers when they were steam driven LOL. I really hate it when "experts" like yourself imply that a gentleman like me (with an IQ of 146 FWIW) is somehow stupid to at least question various findings by "high govenment officials" and others. Let me present this scenario - the steel in those building was being painted just before 9/11. Nano thermites can be applied as paint. No one would EVER suspect. My son and I actually visited the World Trade Center when it was still standing. I've thought back about this experience and find it incredibally hard to believe that a little (relatively) passenger plane could bring one of these buildings down without outside help.Do a little investigating on your own. You might find reason to questions the "expert findings" in this case.,

I used the Developer Preview as my main OS for a few weeks. On Windows 7 I pin all of my apps to the taskbar. I did the same thing with Windows 8. So I had all the goodness of Windows 8 but all the availability of Windows 7. I came to think of it as Windows 7 on steroids.I may well go back to Windows 8 as my OS of choice.

Quite a few years ago we used PayPal. It was an era where free software was a few clicks away. You only needed to order it, pay for it. download it and enter a dispute which card companies usually honored but some at least gave you the option to counter the dispute. PayPal did not and if you didn't have money in your account to cover the dispute they cancelled your PayPal account. That was sort of fair enough but PayPal cancelled my business account, my personal account and then went on to cancel my wifes account, the account of my four kids (adults all) and several others that were related apparently to the name Aaron. I've never tried to get a PayPal account since.

When I was born in 1927 (fairly recently in cosmological terms) the world population was a piddling 2 billion. In my life the population has grown by 5 billion and now stands at 7 billion. It's simplistic to me - we don't now have enough of anything to supply the world population's needs. That includes food, fuel and every other commodity you can name. Something has to happen even if it's mass starvation.

I don't see anything even slightly technican here???

At least Nero asks before it installs unwanted junk. As far as I'm concerned I would that it back for a refund. I have no idea what they might have included!!!

Years ago we used PayPal to accept payment for the check printing software we wrote. We didn't use any form of protection (sadly) and it was a great way to steal software. Buy through PayPal, enter a dispute and the user had my software for free because PayPal WOULD NOT honor the software vendor. Because of one rather large dispute PayPal closed our account. The wild part was they closed the accounts of every member of my family (over 6 would be users) even though they were not REMOTELY connected with our commercial use of PayPal and NO member of my family can get a PayPal account to this day!!!!!!!

My irritation grows every day with slashdotter's bashing everything Windows or Bill Gates. Hopefully they will all get flushed down Bill's new excrement eliminator. It would make for a cleaner slashdot LOL