OMG!!!!!

"R D S" wrote in message news:bv1atl$mupoe$1@ID-
So will we send an end to famine before much longer do you think?
Thanks to Bill Gates?
Makes me wonder why i still see the Oxfam 'please give £(x)/month
adverts
on
TV since Microsoft are harvesting such a massive amount of money for
good
causes.



Oh ... and another thing ... he doesn't give to Oxfam AFAIK. He has his own
charity. Children and AIDS research are the main things I think. He always
tries to hide his contributions unlike politicians and the like because he
doesn't want to seek the publicity that some people will go to any ends to
achieve.



a

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:46:16 +0000, al wrote:

"duck" wrote in message

OK, perhaps I over exaggerated. Maybe not the worst, but Windows is a
bad thing. Regardless, if you're going to insult someone by calling them
a child, it doesn't look good if you call them idiotic in the same
paragraph.

Apologies if I went a little OTT ... just annoys me the way so many kids
take this anti-MS stance because they believe it will give them some sort
of street cred with the underground scene. It really doesn't, it just
shows business naivity.

Thanks

In the example of the Swen worm, why is it even possible to for email
attachments to be run? Mutt, Balsa, Evolution, KMail, Elm, Pine,
Sylpheed et al do not allow email attachments to run just by clicking on
them.

Because MS caters for the mass market unfortunately. You can bet if linux
was the OS of choice for he masses that any money making software house
would make the same choice for security settings so their product looked
great, even at the expense of the above mentioned attacks.

That's true to an extent. You can already see this with Lindows where the
user is logged on as root by default. However, in this particular
example, I don't think that much of the mass market will pay for an email
client when Linux has so many good, perfectly capable, Free (as in GPL)
ones. The only thing that Outlook can do that Evolution can't is
company-wide scheduling. Hopefully a solution will present itself in the
near future :-)

That said, I don't think that even Lindows would bundle an email
client which ran attachments by default.

On CVE, Apache has 86 CVE entries. IIS has 121. Apache has a higher, or
equal, or similar markets share that IIS.

OK, Apache wansn't the best example, it's matured a lot now. It still has
it's limitations (which perhaps leads to it being more secure do to less
code) - how many web sites can run Apache only to acheive what they want
without having to add a bunch of other products to expand it's power.

Yeah, a base Apache install can only serve static pages. Fortunately,
Perl, being the mature (although sickeningly terse) language it is doesn't
have many exploits.

The two most widely used, as one might expect, are the two most
targetted. Qmail I think has always been good.

AFAIK think qmail has never had a security vulnerability.

Yes, I think sendmail is finally on its way down. On the corporate scene,
who knows where Exchange 2003 will lead with it's "trustworthy computing"
initiative. One thing I can say in it's favour is at least it's trying a
bit harder. Interested to see how much difference that makes!

Looking through my mailbox, not one of the messages has gone through
sendmail -- all Exchange, Novell, Exim, Postfix or some custom MTA.

Could you please elaborate on what idea you are talking about. The WIMP
metaphor perhaps? Word? Excel? Messenger? Internet Explorer? Operating
systems?

Not sure what you mean ...

None of concepts behind Microsoft's success stories have been created by
themselves. They did not invent WIMP, the word processor, the spreadsheet,
IM, the web browser, etc.

But just because a given entity isn't as bad as Esso doesn't mean it's
misdeeds can be ignored.

No, it doesn't. But MS is demonised far more than it seems it deserves.
Or perhaps other companies are demonised far less than they deserve!!
Either way, far too many people jump on the bandwagon because it seems
"cool" to slag of MS. They've done a lot of bad things but their
contribution can't be ignored today.

I personally would dislike Microsoft much less if they were more honest.
For example, their claims that the GPL is an "IP destorying virus" and
that Microsoft is "all about choice". If they were about choice (as they
claim to be) they would open up the .doc format so that I can open all
..doc files with OpenOffice.org! :-)

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:18:03 -0000, "tHatDudeUK"
wrote:


"Craven Birds" wrote in message
...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...portaltop.html

I think I'm about to cry. Not mincing my words this is the worst ****ing
joke i heard in a long time.


What's the problem? If it wasn't for Sir Bill and his fantastically
buggy software, techincal support people wouldn't be held in the
mythical esteem some of us enjoy!

And people always have to believe us when we say "Windows problem" to
explain a bug in our software. Don't think I've ever said "Unix
problem" to explain something away......

-Rob

"duck" wrote in message
None of concepts behind Microsoft's success stories have been created by
themselves. They did not invent WIMP, the word processor, the spreadsheet,
IM, the web browser, etc.

True, but what difference does it make? The above is the classic Mac fan
argument. Always sounds like sour grapes to me. Car companies don't
re-invent the wheel. They compete to make a better design based on existing
technology and whatever they can add.

I personally would dislike Microsoft much less if they were more honest.
For example, their claims that the GPL is an "IP destorying virus" and
that Microsoft is "all about choice". If they were about choice (as they
claim to be) they would open up the .doc format so that I can open all
.doc files with OpenOffice.org! :-)

Like I said, they do talk a lot of sh*t in the name of protecting their IP!
They're still the ones making the money though at the end of the day -
especially there with the Office suites ...



a

Steve wrote:

"R D S" wrote in
:

Parish wrote:
|| Now we know for certain that this country has gone stark staring
|| mad......
||
|| http://tinyurl.com/2teet
||
|| Time to buy that delapidated farmhouse in France methinks.

Unbeleivable.
This country seems to love to celebrate sportspersons and greedy
capitalist monopolising money hoarders.

Actually Gates plans to give most of his money away.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/charit...049184,00.html

The main problem with this country is small minded knee jerk reactions to
headlines without bothering with small details like facts; the article
posted reported his donations had you got managed to get past the headline.


Go back and read the article again; the fact that he plans to give most
of his money away, or the donations he has made, is irrelevant in this
context - unlike, for example, Sir[1] John Paul Getty II an American who
was given an honary knighthood for giving away vast amounts of his money
- he is getting the award for "services to global enterprise".

[1] He became a British citizen which meant he could use the title.

Steve wrote:

"R D S" wrote in
:

Why isnt Windows half price, why cant i sell my old OEM's, why did he
use underhanded tactics from day one to become the richest person in
the cosmos? When win 98 was ****e why did we still have to pay for SE?
Why can I not use my copy of Office on more than one machine?
If he is making so much money and intends to give it away then what is
he doing? Showboating his monopoly?

BTW, noone forced you to buy his products.

Now I know you're trolling. Try buying a PC, especially a
laptop/notebook, *without* Windows. Yes, smaller system builders will
(Novatech springs to mind) but you can forget about it with mainstream
brand names (Dell etc. will do Linux on high-end servers IIRC, but not
on your average PC).

al wrote:

"R D S" wrote in message news:bv1atl$mupoe$1@ID-
So will we send an end to famine before much longer do you think?
Thanks to Bill Gates?
Makes me wonder why i still see the Oxfam 'please give £(x)/month adverts
on
TV since Microsoft are harvesting such a massive amount of money for good
causes.


Look .. you can grumble all you like, but he gives far more than almost
anyone else. He's not responsible for ending world famine - we all are!
What exactly would it take for him to be "just" in your eyes? Give every
penny he owns? What exactly do *you* do?

The problem is that he's amassed all that wealth in part through illegal
activities - Microsoft were found guilty of maintaining an illegal
monopoly.

There's a long list of companies that have been legally swindled by
Gates & Co. Just one example: Spyglass licenced their browser to
Microsoft for IE, the deal being a payment for every browser sold. Gates
gives IE away (to kill off Netscape) so no payment to Spyglass.

And how many billions have been lost by organisations and individuals
through Microsoft's insecure software?

--

Peter

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:27:10 +0000, al wrote:

"duck" wrote in message
None of concepts behind Microsoft's success stories have been created by
themselves. They did not invent WIMP, the word processor, the
spreadsheet, IM, the web browser, etc.

True, but what difference does it make? The above is the classic Mac fan
argument. Always sounds like sour grapes to me. Car companies don't
re-invent the wheel. They compete to make a better design based on
existing technology and whatever they can add.

None. It was simply a reply to your assertion that "Bill Gates is merely a
successful kid who turned an idea into one of the biggest businesses in
the world"

"Peter Hayes" wrote in message
news:1g86602.j83gcfri2s09N%
And how many billions have been lost by organisations and individuals
through Microsoft's insecure software?


Just as many as if Linux/Netscape were the market leaders and the hoards of
morons got a hold of them instead of Windows (I mention Netscape because if
MS had not succeeded it would be the leading browser, not because it means
anything today, even it Mozilla form) ... or if God forbid crappy Macs were
in the same place!



a

Steve wrote:
"This week, Bill Gates gave £100m to fight malaria in Africa, the latest
charitable donation from the billionaire geek who has pledged to give away
his £28bn fortune before he dies"

He also gave some of it to a rather enterprising Canadian teenager. From
Ceefax:

CEEFAX 1 121 Mon 26 Jan 18:56/26



YOUTH SWAPS MIKEROWESOFT FOR XBOX
A Canadian teenager whose website
annoyed Bill Gates' lawyers is giving
it up in exchange for Microsoft
goodies, including an Xbox console.

Mike Rowe, 17, thought it would be fun
to add "soft" to the end of his name to
set up the site, mikerowesoft.com.

The computer giant thought it was too
close to its name, and offered him $10
to take it down which Mr Rowe refused.

The new deal includes Microsoft paying
for a new site, expenses and a
subscription to its developer forum.

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