Re: Working with standards (was Re: Oops, forgot...)
On Wed, 10 Oct 2001, Kent West wrote:
> Hall Stevenson wrote:
>
> >
> > Finally, what I'm really interested in is the adamant MS-bashers and
> > when they've last used Windows. If they're soooo against it, I
> > assume they either never have or it's been 5+ years.
> >
> > Regards
> > Hall
>
>
>
> I'm a support tech at a university, keeping the PCs and Macs running for
> the staff and faculty (students are handled by a different sub-group of
> Tech Support), and I deal with and use Windows on a daily basis; NT,
> Win95, W2K, and a smattering of Win98. I've been doing this for ten
> years, although Windows didn't really come into the job until about 7 or
> 8 years ago, and I was a large push of getting it established (because
> at the time Microsoft was in my eyes "good").
>
> However, now I reckon you could convict me of being an "adamant
> MS-basher." I could ramble on and on about the evils of MS, but that's
> not what you want. I just wanted to let you know that it hasn't been 5+
> years for me; I'm immersed in it daily, and I can say unequivocally,
> Microsoft and its OSes suck on many levels. That's not to say that
> Windows doesn't have its place, or that it has no redeeming value
> whatsoever, but on balance, I'd just as soon that MS shrivel into
> nothingness.
>
> Kent
>
A similar story: as a graduate student I was employed by the Demography
department at UC Berkeley, basically then a 50-50 Solaris/Windows shop, to
take care of the Windows machines. (The network administrator was an
ardent MS-basher.) I did that for a while, constantly rebooting,
reinstalling windows, and trying in vain to write scripts and so on to
keep things relatively automated, all while my boss, the unix guy, sat in
his office and kept the network running simply. Over my time there, we
gradually shifted away from Windows, and I understand at this point it's
essentially all linux and solaris, with vmware running for a couple of
specialized applications unavailable any other way.
My life, like yours, has woven in and out of Windows use, and I continue
to use the current ware. And I continue to be amazed at the poor
quality. It bugs me to no end to have to just reboot because, well, you
have to reboot, and the number of times my wife comes to me with a new
problem to which I have to shrug "It's a Bill Gates thing.".... sheesh.
I agree, the fanatical wars are boring; but you can chalk me up as another
person who uses Microsoft stuff on a regular basis and remains a certified
MS basher. (One negotiating point of my job offer here at UNC was that I
be allowed to run linux on my office computer.)
Cheers,
Andy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
269 Hamilton Hall, CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
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