> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:owner-scots-l@;argyll.wisemagic.com]On Behalf Of David Kilpatrick > Sent: 18 October 2002 19:10 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [scots-l] I've got the virus too - perhaps I can help. > > Ted Hastings wrote: > > > > As far as I can see, the principal characteristic of the "Unix user > > community" is to criticise Microsoft and Windows at every opportunity. > > Windows users don't seem to be nearly as prone to bashing the > > competition, perhaps because they're getting on with productive work > > using the world's best-selling software, rather than writing their > > own fixes for OS bugs :<) > > > Try telling that to my son, who has been unable to work at all > for the last three days > because of the ridiculous registry system used by Microsoft, which if > you are obliged to install many programs and attempt to remove them (we > have to test digital cameras, scanners, software etc all the time) and > also run heavily protected software like Sage Payroll on the same > machine - well, the risks are huge.
No one is "obliged" to install many programs and attempt to remove them. However, if yoy *choose* to do so then surely any problems encountered are a result of the vendors' failure to follow Microsoft's guidance on writing uninstall routines. > > I was told that Mac OS X with its 64,000 system components was a > nightmare but not so - unlike Windows NT/2000/XP whatever, it really can > handle a re-installation without losing a single user preference or a > single essential file, or any of the links betweens programs, data and > system-level components installed by programs for their own use. Simply because there are only a minute number of Mac applications compared with the number of PC applications available. > We can't afford to have multiple PCs but we are now considering having > one just to run payroll and contact info software, one just to run > Internet access, and one for testing equipment and software which can be > erased and reinstalled without risk. This may have been an argument when PCs were expensive, but it's hardly true nowadays when you can buy a resonable PC for a few hundred quid. The idea using separate PCs for different purposes seems like simple common sense to me. > We've been using Sun, Mac, BeBox, > Acorn, various Linux installations (on both Mac and PC), many handhelds > and pioneer products over the last decade or so and: > of all the systems and platforms out there, not one is as utterly awful > as the Microsoft/PC platform. It is the only platform which consistently > costs us time, money and anger. And I suspect that it's the only one with which you've tried to use the complex mixture of applications described above. > I can be frustrated at time with Macs, but at least: > I can switch in two minutes to working under OS9 and do any work I need > to on OS X components, without 'ownership' issues and access privileges > hampering me You're not comparing like with like. "'ownership' issues and access privileges" only become an issue if you're running a server, which should only be done if you have the appropriate training. > I can boot up and run my system from a CD > I can run software we bought in 1984 alongside the latest packages, and > be utterly stable and print reliably - not ALL software from 1984, of > course, and I have a cupboard full of software which stopped running the > year after it was purchased, as was never rewritten... > because Windows was the world's leading platform, and it wasn't worth > keeping stuff live on Macs at the time. Yes, that's WHY Windows is the leading software platform, not BECAUSE it's the leading softare problem. A huge number of 1984 applications still run quite happily on a PC, without needing rewritten. > > However, now Macs are essentially Unix machines, that problem has gone, > and I can well understand why the peculiar folk of the Unix community > have been so gnarly for so many years. They were right all along. > What I don't understand is why all the people who raved about the Mac OS for years have quietly dropped it in favour of Unix, which has been around a lot longer than Macs. Regards, Ted Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
