I tried to open some of my notes which were written in an old version of Word for Windows. Word 2007 refused to open them for "security" reasons and pointed me on a wild-goose chase of knowledge base articles describing obscure registry settings I would have to set to open old files. It is extremely frustrating how much you have to run in place just to keep where you were before with Microsoft's products, where every recent release requires hacks, workarounds, and patches just to get to where you were before. I have started recommending to my friends that they stick with Windows XP, even on new computers, because the few new features on Vista just don't justify the compatibility problems.Time for a reboot, folks: your old documents are better supported in OpenOffice.org than they are in the newest version of Microsoft Office. Furthermore, when this many important thought leaders are abandoning the Windows platform it is in serious trouble.
A friend went to the MySQL conference last week. He said it was like waking up one day and finding that the world had changed fundamentally: everybody was doing web development; practically nobody was doing desktop, and those few were doing Linux. He said 25-30% of the attendees were using Macs. When I went to the MySQL inner circle meeting last year roughly 1/3 of the PC laptops were Linux-based. Granted, MySQL developers aren't the entire developer population. They're just the part of the developer population that is growing.
Adolfo clued me in that there's a Microsoft advertisement here on my blog. It made me uncomfortable for a moment, but then it made me laugh to see Microsoft paying Google to counter my statements with their tired, expired FUD. Since Microsoft can't even provide backwards compatibility anymore, what possible reason is there for giving them money for an upgrade?
6 comments:
No reason. You know, I am not a geek or anything, but I do not like the way Microsoft is handling their customers. Once you buy the operating system you have only 3 times to use it! What if you are in love with that particular operating system and want to use it forever at your own will! They are forcing you to buy their new and unimproved software. That is pretty sneaky & unacceptable- Not to mention the high price for a simple rewrite of software. My laptop came with Vista , and 3 months of Office usage. Word has better graphics but that's about it. ALL THE OPTIONS ARE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!! The layout was a bit different and annoying. I can keep going with all the problems I am having with Vista, but it is not worthy. Vista, HASTA LA VISTA BABY!- so Microsoft. I am right there with you hon.
I was so into Windows regarless of their flaws, but you got me convinced. It is true, there are other sources we all can use for good.
Agree. I'm trying to get ready to changeover on my laptop, but I cannot yet find a suitable Linux replacement for doing:
1) convert Quicktime to anything else. (My camera produces QT format movies)
2) something like Windows MovieMaker. I tried Kino, but it doesn't seem to work with QT.
I've combed the forums, but can't find anything suitable.
Any suggestions?
I found this post where a guy was trying to convert MOV to MPEG using mencoder (part of mplayer – he had problems but later wrote that they went away with a later version). It appears that you can do your conversions in command-line land, since packages like Kino and Avidemux aren't going to be helpful for proprietary formats.
Friends that do a lot of video say that Mac is the only operating system that does it well (at least at the low end). I haven't really done much video editing. The applications don't seem to be quite there for Linux yet. Kino seems like a good start, but when the documentation talks about how user-friendly it is because it shares commands with VI, you know you're dealing with some geeks.
At least I still remember VI. It's a bit like riding a bike.
That's good advice... maybe I'll splurge for a Mac for my video editing stuff. I do quite a bit of that, but I don't think I want to continue it on Windows.
Mac Mini: $600
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