XP is garbage

In <u7ct51p3s1saclighd8nsl3urf5vhrbn9c@4ax.com>, on 04/14/05
at 11:10 AM, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com>
said:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 17:20:57 +0200, "Frithiof Andreas Jensen"
frithiof.jensen@die_spammer_die.ericsson.com> wrote:


"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:f21t51dckld6q9jsko7huqtsgakiie3cg2@4ax.com...

So why does it perform a loud musical score every time I turn the
monitor on of off? Why does it sometimes make a loud click on the
speakers whenever I click the mouse? Why does it create a new icon to
my usb Zip drive, or move the existing one, or start the drive
spinning, whenever I plug in my flash memory stick?

Because Dell just *had* to install some extension to it to manage their
little buttons on the keyboard ;-)

It's a plain keyboard; no special buttons. For Pete's sake, Microsoft
hasn't fixed the c-drive.lnk bug, after 8 years! They managed to
transport a bug from '98 to XP!

- but did not have the brains to do it properly (or Gates changed the API
later). Same like Compaq BTW.

Wipe the machine it and install a clean XP+Office yourself.

That's the universal answer to Windows problems: reinstall the OS.

And its hardly much of an answer anymore, since we don't buy XP, we rent
it, so a lot of computers don't even come with a real copy of it anymore,
just an image to put it all back on C: like it was originally. My son
didn't even get those image disks, only a handful of blank CDs, and a
software utility that he had to run to make the images.

The fun part is wondering if the image creation worked, because he can't
test it, and the utility happily informed him that it would run only once,
and, true to its word, it deleted itself after running that one time.....

JB

 

[Ted Edwards]

Guy Macon wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
Power corrupts; PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

Source:
http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000Jr&topic_id=1

Typical of the Form-Fouls-Function syndrome that plagues Word as well.
A friend, now retired from university teaching, complained constantly of
these guys who had to use six different fonts in a 100K document to
remind people of a comittee meeting.

Years ago I wrote an "electronic blackboard" package that differed in a
few major respects from Power Point (which, BTW, was stollen from IBM's
Story Board for DOS). My package
ran through the presentation at a rate I controlled
at any point I could interupt the flow and insert an example in
response to a question or my thoughts
I could skip over any part that I felt was irrelevent in this
particular group and optionally mark it for deletion
All insertions were also marked

Later, away from the pressures of the meeting or classroom, I could
review the additions and "deletions" and choose to actually delete or
include.

As well as the replacement of information with glitz, both Story Board
and Power Point provide a canned presentation with minimal interaction.

Ted

 

[Ted Edwards]

Jim Thompson wrote:

I've found I can do better presentations with Acrobat and the Link and
Form tools.

Most of my presentation have been on the technical side. My ECHO
package was/is written in APL and gives me immediate access to serious
calculating power. I found this greatly helped make presentations more
interactive.

Ted

 

[Bob Monsen]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:33:22 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:07:45 -0700, Bob Monsen <rcsurname@comast.net
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 12:13:10 -0400, Mark Jones wrote:

What the hell are you guys doing to corrupt your WinXP installs? I've
heard bad
reports about the SP2, but other than that XP is more stable and robust
than 2K.


Agree completely. XP is the first microsoft OS I've actually trusted.
Versions with the old kernel, and the FAT32 file system, are simply too
likely to fail and take your file system with it. XP allows FAT32, but if
any of you are still running it, CONVERT NOW! You can easily convert to
NTFS, which is head and shoulders above FAT32, in terms of reliability.

[snip]

FAT32 still exists? Sheeeesh!

...Jim Thompson

Backwards compatibility. You can still run multiple versions of windows.
The non-NT ones won't read an NTFS. However, nobody should really
run anything except the NT kernel unless they need some wierd dos
application.

---
Bob Monsen

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 18:42:49 GMT, Ted Edwards
<Ted_Espamless@telus.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
I've found I can do better presentations with Acrobat and the Link and
Form tools.

Most of my presentation have been on the technical side. My ECHO
package was/is written in APL and gives me immediate access to serious
calculating power. I found this greatly helped make presentations more
interactive.

Ted

My presentations are schematics and simulation results (for ASIC's).

I can make an Adobe Acrobat file that allows descending/ascending
into/out-of a schematic hierarchy just beautiful. Makes jumping
around as the client asks questions a piece-a-cake ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Ted Edwards]

learning@learning.com wrote:

The fun part is wondering if the image creation worked, because he can't
test it, and the utility happily informed him that it would run only once,
and, true to its word, it deleted itself after running that one time.....

Doesn't it just make me glad I run eCS!! Although I do have W2K on this
machine and use it for a couple of things occasionally, I *never*
connect to the internet from it.

BTW, This machine came with a "repair partition" that re-installs W2K.
You can download a floppy image that will restore the link to it if that
gets clobbered. I used DFSee to make an image of the repair partition
so I could have that GB for my use. A bootable CD with DFSee could
restore that if it were needed.

I much prefer the way eCS is handled. I ordered it from Mensys.nl,
supplied a credit card number and downloaded the .ISO images to burn a
CD. While that was happening, I got an e-mail with my registration and
in short order I was up and running and still am. )

Ted

 

[Joerg]

Hello Spehro,

The old (almost) vertical mechanical toasters made better (more moist)
toast than the current units. Timing was manual, and it was even
easier than on current units to get into contact with the elements.

See the 1948 Toastess model on this page:
http://www.toastercentral.com/toaster40s.htm

We used to have a fully manual one. The two sides were gull wings and
you laid a piece of toast into each. Then, when you thought it's about
time you quickly flipped both down and back up which reverted the
slices. However, it had to be done just the right way and very
simultaneously. Almost like learning to drive a stick shift car.

Fresh thin-sliced light rye baked that morning from the Portuguese
bakery, toasted by a Krupp sandwich grill with roasted red peppers,
real cheese, mustard and honey-maple ham. Yum.

That sounds delicious and probably will avoid dangerously low
cholesterol levels ;-)

Must be Krups and not Krupp though. Krupp is a steel company that makes
tanks and stuff.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

[Joerg]

Hello Frithiof Andreas,

What I used to do, before throwing whatever amount of RAM and MIPS it takes
on embedded Linux'en was to *always* use an RTOS on the assumption that most
of the "wheels" one needs (timers, locks, threads, messaging) are already
invented by people more clever than I - people familiar with the how the
compiler works on the hardware - and have gone through the hands of many
more people;

So by using an RTOS I can reduce the amount of my code in there, thus
raising quality ;-)

Then you are not only assuming that the designers were clever but also
had a good quality mindset. In that respect I was often disappointed.
Not with stuff like QNX though, these guys would be able to instantly
answer questions such as what the ISR latency was in a particular
situation. I tried that at an Embedsyscon with another (much bigger)
enterprise and the answers where a lot of "uhm, ahem, need to talk to
our partners, blah, blah...".

I wouldn't have bought it. With those things I tend to be a minimalist,
in the firm belief that if the old non-electronic scheme has worked
mankind probably doesn't need an electronic variety.

Luddite ;-)

Maybe not quite. I do like progress but only if it makes sense. To me a
uC in a toaster just doesn't. It reminds me of the Walkman. When I was
young they came out with a new one that had a "talk-through" button.
Hey, people with headphones on could talk to their class mates again
albeit at the expense of battery juice. Wow! What a progress...

It's the same with lots of daily use equipment. Much of it will simply
fall dormant if the power fails or just glitches. I remember the outages
we had when the CA gvt deregulated and botched the electricity supply.
My wife and I never complained, just lived our lives, cooked, watched
TV, heard radio, cooked nice meals etc. Many neighbors couldn't. They
didn't know how to cook with charcoal, their new-fangled "all digital"
gas stoves wouldn't work without 120V and their fancy cable or Sat TV
wouldn't do squat. Some couldn't even call anyone because all they had
was cordless phones. And you'd be surprised how many don't know how to
unlatch their electric garage door openers. What, you can open a garage
door by hand...?

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 11:52:49 -0700, Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 18:42:49 GMT, Ted Edwards
Ted_Espamless@telus.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
I've found I can do better presentations with Acrobat and the Link and
Form tools.

Most of my presentation have been on the technical side. My ECHO
package was/is written in APL and gives me immediate access to serious
calculating power. I found this greatly helped make presentations more
interactive.

Ted

My presentations are schematics and simulation results (for ASIC's).

I can make an Adobe Acrobat file that allows descending/ascending
into/out-of a schematic hierarchy just beautiful. Makes jumping
around as the client asks questions a piece-a-cake ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I like to make my presentations by hand on a whiteboard, or project
sketches that were hand-drawn on grid paper. Both get a lot more
attention than PP cartoons.

John

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:55:47 GMT, the renowned Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote:

Must be Krups and not Krupp though. Krupp is a steel company that makes
tanks and stuff.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Yes, you're right. I had the two companies conflated. It's made of
(stainless) steel, you know. ;-)


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[Guy Macon]

John Woodgate wrote:

Yeah, and his law firm isn't even headed up by a vampire. Pathetic.

John, please edit the subject line when relying to this sort of thing.
Thanks!

 

[Guy Macon]

John Larkin wrote:

I like to make my presentations by hand on a whiteboard, or project
sketches that were hand-drawn on grid paper. Both get a lot more
attention than PP cartoons.

I found that my webpage at http://www.guymacon.com/ got a much
better response when I made it look like the output of an old
daisywheel printer or selectric typwriter.

 

In <115tv25gv5k9963@corp.supernews.com>, on 04/14/05
at 11:26 PM, Guy Macon <_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> said:

John Woodgate wrote:

Yeah, and his law firm isn't even headed up by a vampire. Pathetic.

John, please edit the subject line when relying to this sort of thing.
Thanks!

Yea, c'mon, Guy has gone to great lengths not to see my words anymore.
Don't abuse him beyond his ability to cope.

Give him a break. He works hard.

JB

 

In <Z9z7e.25940$VF5.15178@edtnps89>, on 04/14/05
at 07:05 PM, Ted Edwards <Ted_Espamless@telus.net> said:

learning@learning.com wrote:
The fun part is wondering if the image creation worked, because he can't
test it, and the utility happily informed him that it would run only once,
and, true to its word, it deleted itself after running that one time.....

Doesn't it just make me glad I run eCS!! Although I do have W2K on this
machine and use it for a couple of things occasionally, I *never*
connect to the internet from it.

I miss it very much. Very much indeed. I intend to go back there as soon
as it is possible.

FWIW, and that ain't much, with Mozilla, and MR/2 ICE for mail, I get no
viruses, and no spyware. Can't declare I never will, but I keep looking
for it, and after four months, ..... nothing.

I have gotten a few spyware progs when forced to use IE, but I only went
to M$'s site, and within minutes, there were several on my machine.
Hmm......

Thanks for helping me remember there is a real operating system out there.
Looking forward to using it again.

JB

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <9by7e.25931$VF5.1534@edtnps89>,
Ted Edwards <Ted_Espamless@telus.net> wrote:

Keith Williams wrote:
Power corrupts; PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

spit!> Damn, my laptop's screen has all sorts of sparkley dots on it
now. Consider that one stolen! The PHB's are going to hear this one.

Have you tried OO? I believe it's supposed to do PP.

They call it "impress". It will read and write PP files. There can be
font problems when it converts but other than that it does everything
needed.

--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Just wait a while. When Longhorn comes out, XP will look good by
comparison.

--
Paul Hovnanian mailtoaul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Porsche 928: 0 to c in 2.125 years, 2.435 light-years per mile^3 of gas

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:56:58 -0700, "Paul Hovnanian P.E."
<Paul@Hovnanian.com> wrote:

Just wait a while. When Longhorn comes out, XP will look good by
comparison.

I was just typing a manual in Word 2003. It handles inserted pictures
very strangely, putting them pretty much anywhere it feels like,
disregarding where you clicked or where you drag them in. Then somehow
a huge block of whitespace got inserted in the middle of a paragraph
(an invisible, non-deletable image? who knows?) and I wasted about a
half hour trying to splice the paragraph back together.

I finally got smart and slapped myself upside the head and said, "But
of course... this is Windows!" So I saved the doc, closed Word, then
re-opened it, and everything was fixed. Bill always did have a thing
for self-modifying code.

John

 

[Keith Williams]

In article <sJGdnQAYcOKX1cDfRVn-1g@comcast.com>,
JKolstad71HatesSpam@Yahoo.Com says...

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:6fcq51da862dkaa38usuqjlh43gs84gnt8@4ax.com...
The NT design was lead by one of the (of I think, two) co-authors of
Dec's VMS kernal.

David Cutler, who I've heard described as "one of the most disagreeable
persons you might ever meet." Of course, having never met the man, I
wouldn't know, but I take this to mean that Dave probably had strong
opinions about how an OS should work and didn't care to debate the topic
with those who disagreed. (Although he was occasionally overruled -- in NT,
mutuxes are called "mutants" internally because Cutler didn't like the way
they were implemented.)

I've never met the man either, but his reputation among the DECies is

pretty much unanimous. Use his name on alt.folklore.computers and stand
back! ;-)

WinNT has nothing to do with OS/2, other than it was once called OS/2
3.0.

--
Keith

 

[Keith Williams]

In article <9by7e.25931$VF5.1534@edtnps89>, Ted_Espamless@telus.net
says...

Keith Williams wrote:
Power corrupts; PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

spit!> Damn, my laptop's screen has all sorts of sparkley dots on it
now. Consider that one stolen! The PHB's are going to hear this one.

Have you tried OO? I believe it's supposed to do PP.

I've played a little with OO, but not with that end of it. FrameMaker
is my text processor of choice.

--
Keith

 

[Keith Williams]

In article <1ujt51tk9rh1g8m7ljtku44i7tdq8snugu@4ax.com>,
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com says...

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 11:52:49 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 18:42:49 GMT, Ted Edwards
Ted_Espamless@telus.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
I've found I can do better presentations with Acrobat and the Link and
Form tools.

Most of my presentation have been on the technical side. My ECHO
package was/is written in APL and gives me immediate access to serious
calculating power. I found this greatly helped make presentations more
interactive.

Ted

My presentations are schematics and simulation results (for ASIC's).

I can make an Adobe Acrobat file that allows descending/ascending
into/out-of a schematic hierarchy just beautiful. Makes jumping
around as the client asks questions a piece-a-cake ;-)

...Jim Thompson


I like to make my presentations by hand on a whiteboard, or project
sketches that were hand-drawn on grid paper. Both get a lot more
attention than PP cartoons.

When I was teaching, I'd use nothing other than white (or black - the
college didn't spend much on education boards. I tried teaching from
prepared materials, but it put the students to sleep. Using the board
made it easier to gauge the pace of the students and to veer off into a
ditch when necessary.

--
Keith