>> [David Kilpatrick's son] 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.e. the user is not in control of their own computer, which I think is where we came in. (From what David said he *is* obliged to install and remove all that software, since he's testing and reviewing it). >> 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. I just counted 557 applications on the main software partition of the Mac I use most of the time, and there will be about as many on other partitions or offline - do many Windows users have more than that? In my experience they generally run far fewer applications than Mac users do - just what they bought with the machine and what they needed to add to make it actually work - probably because they know they're in for a hassle if they subsequently decide they don't need it. (BTW, what I used to do that count was Phil Taylor's Software Audit utility - you can get it from the same place as his BarFly ABC program. It's a one-trick pony but it's freeware and goes awesomely fast). >> 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. Me too. We have enough Macs around the house that we could be back in action within an hour if any two of them blew up. Given that nothing we do needs much CPU power (and surely Sage accounting doesn't either?) this is cheap. >> 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. They haven't dropped it. Running one OS on top of another is an idea that goes back to the Sixties, and the Unix underneath MacOS X (like many modern Unixes) is built that way itself, with a microkernel. Layered architectures have been the obvious way to go for years. A tune (with two layers, even). This does bass clef and multi-voice in ways that so far are only found in BarFly for the Mac, but abcm2ps should make sense of it with a bit of tweaking. X:3 T:Jenny Dang the Weaver S:Gow Repository volume 1 Z:Jack Campin <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> 2002 M:C| L:1/8 V:1 V:2 clef=bass middle=d transpose -24 K:D V:1 f||d>A A/A/A TAFAB |d>A A/A/A Tf2 ef|{c}d>B B/B/B TB>ABd | ABde faef | V:2 z||A2 A2 A2A2 |A2 A2 A2^A2| B2 B2 B2 B2 | B2B2 B2 c2 | % V:1 d>A A/A/A TAFAB |d>A A/A/A Tf2 ef|{c}d>B B/B/B (TB>AB)d| ABde f2 e || V:2 d2 A2 A2A2 |A2 A2 A2^A2| B2 B2 B2 B2 | B2B2 B2 B || % V:1 f|Td>efd e>fge|d>efd ~e2 dB| defd e>Bg>B| a>A A/A/A Tf2 ef | V:2 z| f2 d2 g2 e2|f2 d2 a2 g2| f2 d2 g2 e2 | a2 A2 d2 d2 | % V:1 ~d>efd ~e>fge|d>efd Te2 dB| ~d>efd e>fge |(f/g/a)(.A>.g) faef |] V:2 f2 d2 g2 d2|f2 d2 a2 g2| f2 d2 g2 e2 | d2 A2 d2 [A2c2]|] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland tel 0131 660 4760 * fax 0870 055 4975 * http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ food intolerance data & recipes, freeware Mac logic fonts, and Scottish music Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
