sixdrift a.k.a. neuronstatic: January 2011

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Why Executives Love Windows

Executives love the Windows operating system and can't understand why techs and engineers want to use Mac OS X or Linux. It just doesn't make sense to them. After all, Windows is consistent and standard and reliable. So to even suggest something else, some kind of alternative, is crazy. After all, with all the money they have invested, they don't want to lose compatibility by switching to some niche operating system or science experiment.

Consider the backwards compatibility with Windows. It has had the same base name... Windows... as the previous distros... I mean versions... for years. Oh sure, nearly all device drivers had to be rewritten, and a lot of applications, but they needed to evolve anyway. And so with enough versions of the drivers and applications, they are backwards compatible in name. However, don't mention the problem that Win 7 home groups are only designed to work with other Win 7 machines and cannot communicate with any other systems, not even Windows XP. After all, if Microsoft decided a change was needed, then of course its for the better. This is a point where it was decided you don't really need all that much backwards compability.

And let us not forget browser compatibility. Internet Explorer has kept the same name and most of the same bugs for years now. And all those security problems, they are just "issues" that are being addressed in the next version of Internet Explorer. After all, when web sites are coded for IE6, I mean IE 7, I mean IE 8 in compatibility mode (or are they doing IE 9 now?) you have amazing... compatibility of a sort. They can render HTML all the same, mostly. And after the next releases of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, then you will see what features will be in Internet Explorer in its next release.

Oh let's talk ease of use. Let us not forget ease of use. Microsoft products are well known for their ease of use and consistent user interfaces. In fact, on any Windows distro... I mean version... you have numerous examples of their consistent look and feel.

Consider Wordpad and Paint in Windows 7. They have a very useful UI ribbon. And the Task Manager and Notepad, two venerable applications well known to Windows users for killing stuck processes and reading security notes, use the same menu bar that has been around for years. And we can't forget the ribbon bar of Office 2010, a Microsoft self-proclaimed amazing invention, that has so many features, they don't even know them all. Of course, its a different UI ribbon than what is used in Wordpad and Paint of course. Can't have too many good things you know.

And then there is good old Internet Explorer in all its many incarnations of web support. It does not use a ribbon because it has its own special, well thought out, and different UI menu bar because it needed its own consistency. Its not the same as the old menu bar in Task Manager and Notepad as their menubars were getting old... I mean retro... I mean... they were... different, so a consistent one was needed.

And let us not forget file system interoperability. Windows can read and write ntfs, fat32, fat16, ISO 9660 and old MS-DOS format file systems. And with those file systems available, there is no need to be able to read and write any others. Who needs ext2, ext3, ext4, udf, ufs, hfs, hfs+, reiser, or any of the other 50+ file system formats? And really, who needs to mount a CD or disk image file as a device anyway? No one really would need to do that. Just burn the image to CD and then mount the CD like we have been doing for years. Why mount it virtually when you can make yet another coaster for your home from the temporary CD?

And security. You know Windows must be the most secure operating system. After all, there are at least a dozen major anti-virus software vendors out there. And you can find all the anti-spyware software you need, if you look for it, on the Internet. It must be the most secure operating system because all those vendors went out of their way to write security software for Windows. You can't argue with numbers. Windows anti-virus tools have databasesd over 287,000 Windows viruses. While Macs and Linux tools only have a few dozen in their databases. They are so far behind.

And standards? Where do I start? Windows is totally about standards. After all, they are compatible with MS OFfice. And they can connect to the Internet. Now that is standards compliance.

Of course, there are some web sites out there that use so called "international standards" that were specified and voted on by international committees, but really, can they know more than Microsoft? They are meant to be ignored. And since most... I mean a lot... I mean a third... I mean almost 25% of all web sites out there run Microsoft web server, those standards really don't mean much anyway do they?

And in the end, Windows is the least common denominator. Most people don't have the time to go and learn a new operating system when all they want to do is browse the web, read email, post on social networking sites, write some documents, print some things, and play Solitaire and Mine Sweeper. And you can do all that with the modern features of Windows 7 using only a 1 GHz CPU, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB hard disk space (minimum), and a DirectX 9 graphics card with 128 MB (if you want the pretty Aero interface).

I mean really, who has the time to switch to a different browser? They would have to learn a whole new menu bar when the IE menu bar is so ... available. And sure there are other word processors out there like Abiword and OpenOffice, but really, don't you just love the unique... yet consistent... somehow... UI ribbon of MS Office? And why would you ever want to do this on limited hardware? Everyone should upgrade their hardware with every Windows and Windows SP release so they have fewer reasons to complain. And if they can't afford upgrade, why do they have a computer in the first place?

So just forget about any alternative operating systems. The executives know best. Buy the $600 PCs with Windows 7 and MS Office and you will be compliant.

Just don't tell any of those "regular users" on tight budgets that they can run Ubuntu Linux with OpenOffice for free on a machine that costs less then $200, or even one of those older machines that you still have somewhere that used to run the Windows XP or Windows 98 distros... I mean versions.

Choice will just confuse people.

Use Windows. Be compliant.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Play?

I wrote this last summer and I buried it as a note on Facebook. After re-reading it, I decided to move it to a more public viewing area.

It was 3000 degrees outside. The air was so thick with humidity I had to use a machete to cut my way through. The few times I ventured outside I was quite ready to go inside where my AC struggled to keep up. After several very non-active hours indoors, I finally managed to cool off.

Then the little one came into the bedroom where I was just watching TV. She grabbed hold of the side of our bed and struggled to pull herself up. I gave her a boost up and she played "king of the daddy" on my belly. It was fun, even if painful for me.

After a few minutes she looked at me with those clear dark eyes and asked "play?" in that oh so cute way. She then scrambled down the bed and headed out of the room. I did not follow.

Back she came, another boost up, more beating on my abdomen and again she asked "play?" once more. I said "ok, go play."

She slid back down to the floor and headed around the bed, but stopped before leaving the bedroom. For the third time she climbed our bed, with my help and got back in my face. "Play?"

Ok, I am dense. It took 3 times but I finally got it. After a quick search for her shoes, and mine, we ventured outside, which was only slightly cooler than the surface of the sun by this point.

By the time she was finished climbing around on the tractor, her little "gym" set, and the trampoline, I was soaked with sweat. Granted I could sweat in Antarctica during a blizzard, but yeah, it was pretty bad.

As the biting and stinging bugs were now venturing out, I managed to talk my little girl into a ride in the car. We have a long circular driveway and I drove around for about 15 minutes with the AC on high. Never left my driveway, never got above 8 MPH, but she was having fun, she was with her daddy.

She insisted on using the seat belt, a combination lap/shoulder belt definitely not designed for toddlers. Still, she sat there looking so satisfied that she was doing things like her older siblings. And I sat there satisfied that for now at least, its the simple things that make her happy.

One day, all too soon, she will be like her older siblings, and simple things like she enjoyed today will just not cut it. It was just the day before this "adventure" that I sat in the airport with her 18 year old sister as she was headed off to Dallas for a month. And it doesn't matter how old they get, they are still "little" to me.

I watched intently as my high school graduate made her way through security, wanting to be by her side and instructing her the entire time, but I couldn't. I had to let her fly. But she is still my baby, no less so than the toddler that convinced me to come outside in the stifling heat with just a word and a smile.

Even my son, now 20, who has moved in with my mother for a while and is working, he is still my little boy. He may be taller than me, wear bigger jeans, but still, he is "little" in my head. And the days when he was satisfied with simple things are long past. And even now, he is not at arms reach any more. But I will always remember how we played when he was just a toddler himself.

Such is the way things are. We have these kids and they can absolutely drive us nuts. Then when we see them actually taking steps out of the nest, it is hard to just let them fly. But that has always been the goal. Raise and release.

Well, after having this epiphany in the car with my toddler, and missing my son and the eldest daughter, I finally convinced the little one to go back in the house. Back through the stifling heat and back into the house with our struggling AC. She headed off in search of more mischief. I sought only a dry shirt and a fan.

I could have been watching Mythbusters or snoozing. But I chose to "play", in the manner my little girl chose, despite the heat, the humidity, and my lethargy. It was a good choice. It may be years away, but it will be all too soon she prepares to leave the nest and start her own life apart form her parents. There will be few chances to play then.

I can still see her little face and those expressive eyes as she got in my face and said "play?" A heart melting thing for sure.

And I am so glad I went out into the miserable heat. After all, playing with her was not miserable at all. It was a treasured moment. And there are only so many such moments to go around.

Scratches and Marks

The other day while doing some home improvement I sat down to rest for a few minutes at my dining room table. As I sat there trying not to think about all I had to do, I was idly looking at the surface of our table. It is covered in scratches, marks, dings, and stuff that is probably the result of a child being sloppy while eating. It doesn't matter how often you clean it, those kids just keep coming back.

I thought back to years ago when I bought the table and I specifically looked for a table with a top made from solid wood so it could one day be refinished. Knowing that kids would render any furniture to devastation given enough time, I tried to get something with durability. Thoughts of refinishing that table keep coming back to me. It gets so much use, it is dire need of some TLC.

Our house is crowded with lots of kids and their friends seem to be coming and going a lot. And quite often, the dining room table is the center of our little home. Granted, a few children may seclude themselves away to watch TV or play video games in another room, but invariably, the dining room table becomes the communal water hole. All the herd seems to gather there at one time or another.

When kids and adults come through the back door, anything and everything in their hands seems to be deposited on the table, at least for a while until they get it moved, usually a forced issue by mealtimes. And the same happens when leaving. The table becomes a staging area where stuff is piled before it is removed from the house.

So I sat there thinking about how worn the table looked now after years of use. And in doing so I thought of countless homework papers, school projects, tax forms, computers, and a wide assortment of household items that have at one time or another had some quality time on the surface of that table. So many things have happened around that table, mostly good, but some not so good, and a few which are downright bad.

My old table is at times a work bench, a lab bench, an artists horizontal easel, a desk, a chair, an examination table, a really big shelf, a podium, and sometimes, when the time is right, it is bared, cleaned, and becomes a place to eat.

There are years of memories scratched and marked into the surface of that wooden table. But still it serves us in so many ways. Its not as pretty as it used to be, but just as valuable to me. Perhaps more so now that I think about it.

One day I will probably refinish that old table and give it a fresh look. I don't need to see the marks and scratches to be reminded of all the good times had at that table. I carry them in my memories always.

Each of us are in ways like that old table. We are many things to many people, trying to help where we can, getting scratched, marked, and scarred through life. We may look worn at times, but there are countless memories for each of us along the way.

Come to think of it, I could use some refinishing myself.