[Manchunian]

Nice one!

[elija]

Brilliant!

In the late 1970's and early 1980's IBM was huge, far far bigger than the biggest
of it's rivals. When any of its' competitors were in danger of catching up, IBM
had a rather fantastic technique of dealing with it.

They would announce a "new direction". "We are looking at computing powered
by giving dwarfs electric shocks" they would say*. IBM were so big, that all their
competitors would have to invest in researching this new techology. Often IBM
wasn't necessarily doing the research. It was enough that they slowed down
their competition and got them to blow their R&D budget at the same time.

A year or so later, they would drop the "direction" and announce that it hadn't
worked out.

I wonder if Microsoft is kind of doing the same thing. The only difference is
that their competition probably doesn't care!

* Not really but some of the stuff they came up with was just as wacky!

[questio verum]

Originally Posted by Dapper Dan

They've already addressed that. It will come with its own automatic screen cleaner for around $400.00 more. Here's a preview:

Link

Good one Dan.

[jayd512]

Originally Posted by Dapper Dan

They've already addressed that. It will come with its own automatic screen cleaner for around $400.00 more. Here's a preview:

Link

Dan, that was just perfect! I was talkin' about fingerprints on the screen maybe 20 minutes before I saw this! Awesome, man

[cousinlucky]

Thanks for the links, Manchunian!!

My banks use touch screens on their ATMs and the things malfunction a lot.
I'm awful glad that I never have to contemplate dealing with anything " microsoft " in the future. My scaled down xp is all I'll ever need for writing letters. It will never see the Internet again.

[Manchunian]

Cousinlucky, you don't need XP to write your letters - why don't you use Linux? You can use Openoffice to replace Microsoft Office; or you can even run Word and Excel via Wine. I write all my courses on my Linux machine and I never have any reason to regret it. The only thing that Windows does that Linux doesn't is the latest greatest video games, or specialised applications that are only written for Windows users. But all this will change once more people use Linux.

[cousinlucky]

I have twelve years of letters, files, floppies, discs, and flash drives done in windows using " Easy Office " software from Canada instead of the stuff from microsoft.

For the sake of continuity and to keep from confusing my withering memory I use the xp side of my computer just for snail mail certified letter writing.

Hazel got me to use the suse 10 text editor and I have used open office to send letters over the Internet; but you can not imagine how confusing linux is to me. I am way overextended, unfortunately and I can not drop everything else to learn Linux.

I figure I can save a lot of time, and energy, with one or two websites which will surely force me to " get deep into " Linux.

[sniperhunter]

newb question-
why so many viruses for windows- most people use windows. billions maybe?
so if more people started using linux/macs wouldnt that mean a increase in viruses for linux?

[jayd512]

Not necessarily. You actually have to install the virus code (which would usually need root access) and then you would actually have to execute the code. Not as easy to do in the Linux world.

*EDIT*
Not by accident anyway.

[Manchunian]

It would be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for viruses to spread in Linux in the same way as in Windows. Jayd512 has given one reason, and that by itself would make virus spreading difficult (you'd need the root password of every machine you'd want to break into). This factor protects Macs too. Another important one, unique to Linux, is that most software comes from trusted servers. When you download software in Linux, you usually do so with your software manager, which gets the apps from official servers that test and check everything fully before they release them.