* Posts by Paul

196 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

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Cobol hits fifty

Paul

COBOLlocks

I wonder what a 50 year old programming language would look like if strangled to death and turned into a handbag? :)

To be fair to it, my limited experience of the language is that it does a perfectly good job of solving the tedious-but-essential computing problems it was intended to solve and is ridiculously easy to learn, if overly verbose.

Why spend the time and effort to rewrite your legacy code in something "trendier" introducing all kinds of bugs in the process just for the sake of being buzzword-compliant, when in 5 or 10 years' time it, too, will be legacy code and may also be in a no-longer-fashionable language?

Governator revives anti-violent video game crusade

Paul

Arnie and violent stuff

Seriously, this *is* the same guy who played starring role in some of the most violent body-count-a-palooza movies in the '80s. You know, child-friendly stuff like Terminator and Predator and Commando. I sure as hell wasn't an adult when I saw those movies for the first time. So much for the "18" certificate. Lucky for you, Arnie, the notion that violent moves, games and TV make people more violent is a bunch of crap.

Yeah, some people do go postal, and maybe they played a violent game or watched a violent movie beforehand, but these are the people who weren't mentally stable in the first place and they could just as easily have been set off by seeing one too many cat pictures on Flickr, or because someone looked at them "funny", or because "God told them to do it".

Phorm boss blogs from a dark, dark place

Paul
Flame

"Get The Facts"?

Any campaign which uses the phrase "Get The Facts" prominently, everywhere, can generally be assumed to be 100% grade-A bullshit.

May Phorm and their apologists burn in Hell.

Microsoft's idea of Family Protection? Block Google

Paul
Black Helicopters

Final proof that...

...Microsoft hates the internet. :)

If Steve wants to "f*&king kill Google" this probably isn't the best way to do it.

Profs: Human race must become Hobbits to save planet

Paul

The usual claptrap

We've heard similar things to this before from the lunatic fringe of the green movement.

This is just a variation on their "humans are bad, kill them all (except for us, naturally, cos we're green and responsible)" theme.

‘Wikipedia killer’ pilfers blogosphere, taunts bloggers

Paul

Sys-Con: "Con" is appropriate

Sadly not an April fools, this was mentioned in a couple of places yesterday.

Sys-Con are a bunch of c*nts. This is about right for their level of ethics.

Grey squirrels invade Nutt house

Paul

Typical

Sounds about right for Lisburn Shitty Council. Maybe she should rehome the squirrels to Lagan Valley island, see if they still think it's not a pest then. :)

Microsoft and TomTom settle 'Linux' kerfuffle

Paul

@ AC 16:54

Windows easier to maintain? Only if you never boot into it...

There is no "perfect OS", they all have their problems and quirks and yes, strong points. I just happen to get more productive work done in the ones that aren't called "Windows".

Microsoft: Judge us by our deeds on open source

Paul

Spin

Which words? Those of Youngjohns, or the rabid assertions of Ballmer?

Which actions? The supposed ones this guy is talking about, or the ones they've actually been carrying out for their entire sordid history?

Youngjohns wants us to judge them by their actions, not their words? No problem. Ballmer's words and Microsoft's actions match up pretty well. I have judged both by actions and words, that's why I don't trust them and don't buy their stuff.

Budvar beats Anheuser-Busch in latest Budweiser battle

Paul
Coat

Where's the problem?

Isn't trademark law such that you can have the same trademark for two products that don't compete?

Considering that, who would seriously assert that A-B's "Budweiser" competes with anything that is actually beer?

BMW driver follows satnav to edge of cliff

Paul

Sheep

Jones explained: "It [the satnav] kept insisting the path was a road, even as it was getting narrower and steeper. I just trusted it."

Methinks he needs to rely on the satnav just a *little* bit less.

Seriously, satnav says "road", your eyes say "uh, no, it's not". Which should you believe?

This just shows how successfully we've been conditioned to accept what we're told, ask no questions and for God's sake under no circumstances should you think, or use your initiative, ever.

LibDems want gov action on killer lorries of death

Paul

Do sat-nav devices emit stupid-rays?

I mean FFS, the computer might as well be driving the bloody thing if the meatsack holding the wheel is slavishly following it's orders to the point where they ignore such visual cues as road signs ("low bridge", anyone?), obstacles in their path or even the road running out altogether.

There's no need for "safer satnav" laws, if you have a driving licence you clearly have the ability to use your eyes and if you crash because you *weren't* using your eyes there are laws already on the books to cover that (careless driving, driving without due care and attention, or whatever your locality calls it).

Or to tweak a well-worn cliché: Sat-navs don't crash vehicles. People crash vehicles.

Pot Noodle boils up instant doner kebab

Paul
Unhappy

Want! Want want want want WANT!

Call me twisted and sick, but I *REALLY* want one of these now.

Sadly (or mercifully, depending on your point of view) they don't sell Pot Noodle here in Leftpondia. I miss Pot Noodle. "Cup Noodle" and "Maruchan Instant Lunch" just aren't the same.

Maybe I can buy some online, though seeking the psychiatric help I obviously need may just be a cheaper option!

US reality TV 'star' attacked fiancé with laptop, cat, apples

Paul

In other news...

In a press release issued earlier today, the TSA confirmed that cats, laptops and apples would now be prohibited from aircraft cabins, effective immediately.

Microsoft promises IE web-standards love

Paul

Replacement for Ballmer?

"According to Hachamovitch, the reason SVG didn't make it in IE 8 along with other W3C standards is Microsoft wanted to do a "good job" on implementation."

Blimey. If he really, truly means this, they need to oust Ballmer and put this man in his place. Because Microsoft going out of their way to implement something properly would be a first.

Apple shares MacBook break-in tips

Paul

Laptops

Laptops have never been consistently easy to upgrade. My current (and ancient) Dell Inspiron 8200 might be about the easiest I've ever encountered.

Memory trapdoor: 1 screw.

Hard drive: 1 screw.

Optical drive: 1 screw.

Modem/wlan slot: 1 screw.

Not that these are things which need changing very often, and "difficult to upgrade" wouldn't stop me from buying a laptop.

Having to take it to the dealer for a battery replacement *is* a deal-breaker though.

Authors Guild to Amazon Kindle: Shut up

Paul

Bit slow off the mark Mister Aiken

Obviously not up to speed with his technology, is he?

Apple had MacInTalk in 1984 (though apparently it wasn't officially supported until much later) and AmigaOS could also talk up a storm when it debuted in 1985. Text-to-speech is, indeed, nothing new.

But never mind that, what next? Book clubs being raided by copyright police in ninja-like garb for "illegal public performance without a license"? Classroom doors being kicked down by armed thugs in riot gear when little Johnny is asked to read the first page of chapter 2 to the class?

SA copper thieves bid for Darwin glory

Paul

Reminds me...

...of a year or two ago, they were working on some cable installation on my route to work. The wooden screens around the hole had the phrase

"fiber optic, no copper"

crudely spray-painted on them.

Guess they were worried some ignorant redneck would try to steal the "copper" wires.

The local power company has also run ads trying to teach people that they'll more than likely die if they try to steal power lines.

First Windows 7 beta puts fresh face on Vista

Paul

New because...

"Since under the covers it is so similar to Windows Vista, how does Microsoft justify calling it a full new version?"

For the same reason that Ford killed the Edsel and Pinto nameplates, and Chevrolet *should* have called the Corvair something else after they fixed the errant handling.

"Vista", just like "Edsel", "Pinto" and "Corvair", has forever been associated with epic fail and/or total disregard for the purchasers.

Applers howl over Mac OS fix

Paul

Let's face it...

...there is no current OS which doesn't suffer occasional trouble on an update (or indeed, on a random Monday for no good reason) and require tinkering to get working right again.

This is why I stick with Linux, even when sometimes it makes me want to rip my hair out at the roots. It's not immune to this sort of trouble, not by a long way, but guess what? Neither are OSX or Windows!

The main difference is I'd be paying money in some way to use the other two OSes. When I pay for something I expect it to just bloody well work. I don't pay for Linux, so I'm willing to let the inevitable problems any OS will suffer slide a little more easily.

Deleted

Paul
Coat

Not fit to wrap chips?

"Oh god, you're turning into Heat Magazine! A gossip rag. Even lower than a scum-sucking, bottom feeding, red-top tabloid. Not fit to wrap chips!"

The Register has never been fit to wrap chips. Seriously, have you ever tried folding a computer monitor? Getting the grease off the screen is a bitch, too.

Though I did once do IT support in an office where I'm pretty sure one of the managers used his keyboard as a serving platter.

Report: Obama, McCain campaigns hit with 'sophisticated' cyberattack

Paul

Bavarian Illuminati...

...checking to see how each candidate would affect their plans for world domination.

Barack Obama will be president

Paul

@ Anonymous Coward Posted Wednesday 5th November 2008 05:06 GMT

Buh-bye, and good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.

Morning voting in America

Paul

@ Luther and Chris

"Better keep a tight hold on the '45"

Yep, you do that. You might also want to load as many canned goods as possible into the back of your truck and go hide in the mountains. Gather up everyone else who believes evil scary socialism is upon us (Chris, and that Webster freak probably) and take them with you.

We'll, uh...be in touch when we need all y'all to save us from ourselves. Yeah.

I'd suggest bringing some books with you so you can spend the time learning what the words "conservative", "liberal", "socialist" and "communist" REALLY mean (not what you think they do) but I hear that there book learnin' is the Devil's own work.

Brit chemist conjures smell of outer space

Paul
Coat

Ur outer space.

It has an odor.

...

Yeah, yeah, I know. Coat! Bye!

Black widows: Coming soon to a kitchen sink near you

Paul
Flame

It's quite possible I'm sure

Black Widows and those other nasty buggers, the Brown Recluse, are quite capable of surviving the winters here in SW Virginia, which get every bit as cold as they can in the UK.

So I don't doubt they could gain a foothold over there. If you see a big messy tangled web in the corner of your shed, it's time to fetch the flamethrower!

McCain laptop theft sparks conspiracy theories

Paul
Flame

Webster

OK Webby, you need to calm down and let Nursie administer your happy pills before you have an aneurism from too much thinking.

I mean, seriously, you're an imbalanced ranting sociopath who's totally out of touch with reality and will lie and misinform as needed to support your deluded case. Which fits nicely with your apparent support of McCain, whose recent behavior has been imbalanced, angry and generally erratic too, not to mention the lies, detectable by the fact that his mouth is flapping. Probably has a sprinkler system installed in his pants to keep them from catching on fire...

Harvey Keitel to experience Life on Mars

Paul

@James

"Oh for the love og God why can they not watch the orginal?"

That's what BBC America is for.

Woman sues EA over 'secret' Spore DRM

Paul

Piracy vs DRM

Pirated games have been around since there were games *to* pirate. Despite all the cries of how piracy was killing the games industry, the games industry seems to be in rude health just now. Which suggests to me that piracy is not, after all, killing the industry. If it was going to, it would have years ago.

What *will* kill an industry stone dead though, is pumping out rehashed, derivative garbage 9 times out of 10, then pissing your customers off even more by treating them as criminals with restrictive DRM schemes when you produce something that actually *is* worth the money.

Not that I'd miss the games industry in it's current state of mostly non-innovation. Indie games FTW.

EFF reveals vastly expanded search policy at US borders

Paul

@ Dan Gray

"Put your laptop in your checked-in luggage, which they don't check."

Don't TSA open luggage anyway these days? I'm also pretty sure they X-ray checked baggage, and a laptop would be pretty obvious on there.

That's before you consider the likelihood of it being broken or stolen by the baggage handlers. I've found big muddy footprints on top of my checked luggage on one occasion, I guess they needed to reach something high up and used it as a step stool.

500,000 oppose Red Arrows Olympic ban

Paul

Augh! The stupid, it's hurting my brain.

So we have proof positive that there are at least half a million utterly gullible twats in the UK.

What's more disturbing is that the half million were the ones intelligent enough to get online and sign an e-petition before they viewed the "ecard from a mate" or "McCain caught in bed with Palin" emails and hosed their computer. Again.

But how many more Sun readers saw the article, foamed at the mouth for a while and then slipped back into their reality-TV induced coma? How many just smiled blankly and drooled on the page a little before going straight to the footy pages (or page 3)?

Then again, it also suggests that there are at least a half million people who realize they can't trust the government and won't believe a word they hear from it. That's good, now we just need to find some way to get these muppets worked up over something that's actually important, like civil liberties or endless wars.

Texting worse for drivers than drink or drugs

Paul

@Simon Brown

"But what about texting?"

You shouldn't be doing it while driving, ever. How bloody hard is that to grasp, exactly? Pull over and stop, or better yet, get out of the mindset that you have to answer that call/read that text RIGHT NOW. It can wait, you know.

"To text, you need to be able to read the text and write texts. Can this be made driver-safe?"

No, it can't, unless you go to a fully voice-controlled system, with voice-to-txt-to-voice and handsfree. Which still isn't 100% safe, you're still being distracted to a degree but at least your hands are on the controls and your eyes on the road.

While you're reading or writing a text, even on your suggested heads-up display with specially adapted controls, you're focusing on the text and reading or writing the text, not on the road ahead or interpreting the visual cues your vehicle is hurtling toward.

HUDs are great for stuff like your speed which matter as part of driving, but writing a txt 2 ur m8 has fuck all to do with driving and doesn't belong behind the wheel.

Microsoft dumps hilarious comedy duo

Paul

I saw part of one of these ads. It was like a bad trip flashback.

Mercifully all I remember about it was something to do with clowns and an ID card or suchlike with what looked like BillG's DUI mugshot on it.

Confusing, expensive, messy, the people responsible think it's great but hardly anyone else "gets it", Apple are probably laughing their asses off after seeing it and it features a bad driver (a drunken 1970's Gates). So, it's the perfect ad for Vista! Top job boys!

As for the Mojave "experiment", I'm sure Microsoft can get Vista to run well, they wrote the damn thing after all. The problem is when you go home and try to run it in a straight out of the box configuration on your not-quite-as-optimum-as-you'd-think PC.

All that ad says, or rather screams, is "Hey guys! Please buy Vista, it's not as shit as you think it is! Look at the scientific experiment we did to prove it!"

Maybe Shuttleworth should bankroll a similar ad, only after everyone's gone "ooh, ahh, wow" they get told that they've been using Ubuntu for the last half hour, and not Windows Sahara like they were told.

Artemis Fowl scribe to pen sixth Hitchhiker's novel

Paul
Stop

No. No no no no no.

Besides, if they're going to *properly* do justice to the spirit of HHGG, it can't possibly be completed in a year or less. It's not a proper Douglas Adams book unless the publisher's having cold sweats about those deadlines whooshing past. :)

Pentax K200D digital SLR

Paul

Size and older lenses

"Compared with your typical compact, it's enormous."

Bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison here surely?

"How is it with older lens series?"

The K-mount lenses work very well. Pentax-A lenses work normally in all modes, set the lens to auto and the aperture on the camera body. Focus and shoot.

Earlier manual aperture K-mounts use the lens aperture ring to set aperture and can be used in aperture priority or manual, with spot or center-weighted metering. The green button stops the lens down momentarily for metering and sets the appropriate shutter speed. Camera can make the lens stop down to what's set on the aperture ring to meter or shoot, but doesn't know what aperture was set.

Screw mount lenses with an adapter can't be controlled at all by the camera, so whatever aperture you select on the lens is what you get through the viewfinder and you use stop-down metering.

I believe you can use some of the medium-format lenses too with a suitable adapter, probably the same limits as M42 mount lenses.

All makes Nikon's famed backward compatibility look a little half-baked really. ;-)

Academic wants to 'free up' English spelling

Paul

Wow, what a tard

So, let me get this straight: this blithering idiot is suggesting that we can solve the problem of people being semi-literate by reducing the standard for literacy?

Isn't that like saying "well, everyone drives at 90mph on the motorway anyway, let's just raise the speed limit to 100, bish bash bosh, problem solved! Pay raise for me, w00t!"

Anyway didn't they try this phonetic spelling nonsense a couple of decades ago in Leftpondia, and all it achieved was to create a generation of kids who either can't spell, or had to teach themselves how to spell later on? Bit of an impediment when writing your CV unless you aspire to packing shelves at Walmart for your entire life.

Yes, the language should be allowed to evolve, but this isn't evolution any more than chopping one's leg off and calling it "advancement of the species" would be.

Google restores Chrome's shine

Paul

Progress I guess

The change to the EULA is progress. It still sucks that it has a EULA of any sort, but it's an improvement.

I'll be giving this a try though when the Linux version shows up (Windows version wouldn't run in WINE for me). I love my Firefox and wouldn't use anything else for my primary site testing (web developer, firebug + coldfire, tamper data et al make life *much* easier) but for day-to-day browsing Chrome sounds like it could be a winner in the light-and-fast category.

I'll be running it through a Privoxy proxy though, can't imagine Google being very amenable to ad-blocking add-ons so I'll just have to intercept the annoyances before they ever reach the browser! ;-)

Ofcom considers termination charges

Paul

@Fred Goldstein

It only works well with the current options cellcos offer if you can justify the cost of one of the packages with vast numbers of minutes to spare. I can't; I just don't use the thing enough to spend $100/month on it and that wouldn't change even if I had more minutes than I could ever use.

I'd happily pay full retail price for a *non-subsidized* phone, add a *non-expiring* PAYG package to it and yes, pay to receive calls too, for those situations where a cellphone is invaluable. Being non-subsidized I'm sure they could make some money on such a setup, but they don't offer it and instead I had to opt for the most basic contract plan which works out cheaper than the limited PAYG options anyway, if you watch your minutes.

What this ends up meaning is, between 7am and 7pm, when calls in either direction use up minutes from the meager monthly allowance, I just don't make or answer calls without good reason.

This mostly defeats the purpose of having a cellphone though, making me question whether I should even keep the stupid thing when the contract expires.

IE8 beta 2 locks down some XP lovers

Paul

@AC@Ian Ferguson

It *is* possible, but only if you get your mitts on a special "stand alone" version. I had "normal" IE7 and standalone IE6 installed alongside each other at one point. Still do in fact, but it's been a long time since I booted this box into it's Windows install.

Excessive IP protection causes economic gridlock, says expert

Paul
Alert

And in other breaking news

* Boffins have determined that oxygen is essential for human survival.

* "Fire is hot!" says esteemed expert.

* A recent medical study has concluded that if you drink 20 pints of lager in one evening you might feel a little unwell the next day.

This segment of Faux News was brought to you by the Foundation for the Bleedin' Obvious.

Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL

Paul

@mechBgon

A valid point, and beyond a certain size of enterprise I'd consider central management an essential feature. Something which other browsers do need to address officially (not through third-party hack-jobs).

Sadly your potential FAIL is the poor bloody admins will still be rushing around like stressed out little ants dealing with individual cases of malware on separate machines if Microsoft do their usual stellar job of securing the browser.

Overall it sounds like progress for IE. I don't use it for my own browsing, but I do websites that have to work in it and any improvement to how it works will make my life a little more pleasant.

Also, competition is good, it keeps Mozilla/Apple/Opera from getting lazy and complacent like Microsoft were after IE6. Which means better browsers for everyone! Yay! :)

MS beefs up WinXP Pro's anti-piracy nagware

Paul
Stop

What a waste of time.

Instead of wasting man-hours on this, why don't they spend them trying to fix the problems apparent in Vista? Or at least trying to make the next version of Windows a bit more palatable?

Not that it really matters to me either way, but this does seem a lot like trying to prevent people using pirated WinXP when their only "genuine Windows" option becomes Vista.

@Pete: "I went back to Windows and got some work done."

Funny that. I ran far, far away from Windows, installed Linux and now I spend much more of my time getting work done instead of dealing with the threat of malware and having the OS constantly get in my way because "it knows better than I do". Now I can add "worrying that my OS may be arbitrarily shut down/crippled, probably when I most need to get work done" to the list of things I don't have to concern myself about any more.

If I found myself having enough trouble with Linux to consider switching again, it certainly wouldn't be back to Windows. Microsoft have a lot of improvement to make to their product before I'd consider it as a serious option again.

Besides, exactly what sort of cushy job did you land anyway if you need accelerated 3D and video to do your work? Only time I use those is when I'm goofing off... ;-)

Linux doesn't offer decent software to use? That's news to me. I guess those thousands of useful things listed in my package manager are just figments of my imagination then?

Old timers rattle zimmers at 'Elderly Persons' sign

Paul

Aaaaaaargh!!!!

We need a new warning sign, an icon which adequately depicts that there may be stupid, asinine, self-aggrandizing politically correct twats with nothing better to do than assume they speak for everyone, in the vicinity. So as we know to speed up and aim for the useless wastes of oxygen if we see one.

"The point isn't to accurately illustrate something, it's to quickly warn of it."

EXACTLY! I see a sign like this, I know what the potential hazard ahead is and can drive accordingly and look out for people who might not be able to cross the road quickly. Don't care what age they are, I'd rather not have them as a hood ornament.

The alternative is the utter crapness that is an average "informative" sign here in the US.

"Watch for turning vehicles". OK, but wouldn't a simple icon of, I dunno, a side-junction, have told me that already?

Or my personal unfave: "Stop for school buses loading or unloading children. State Law." By the time I've read and processed all of that in it's mixed condensed font sizes all squeezed onto a road sign (and I'm a fast reader) I've most likely mown down the kiddies crossing the street then slammed into the back of the bus at 55mph. I suppose I could always plead dyslexia...

Gmail outage causes outrage

Paul
Stop

So much fuss

Gmail suffers a couple of hours major downtime, something which really does not seem to happen often, and the blogosphere/twittersphere reacts as though Google had just admitted to serving fried babies in the staff restaurants.

3 words: Get. A. Grip.

Seriously. Close the browser. Go outside. Have a beer. Chill out. It's not the end of the world. You'll live.

AOL haunts Time Warner's Q2

Paul

Time-Warner's mistake

When TW paid so much for AOL they probably never thought of AOL's future potential, they just looked at how well it was doing at the time and assumed it would continue that way forever in the typically myopic way companies seem to operate these days.

AOL is dependent on clueless newbies. There were lots of these back when the merger happened, but it's a finite pool, and the newbies eventually realized they could get dial-up internets for about 1/3 the cost of AOL. Or broadband for a little less than AOL dialup. The younger generation is accustomed to normal, non-AOL internet access through school, libraries, etc. so no need for the awful AOL suite and overpriced dial-up.

The newbie supply is almost exhausted, and when it's gone, AOL are done.

Killer Satnavs amok in 'Utah Polyhedron' phenomenon

Paul

Satnav blindness?

These people must be just staring blindly out the window as they drive, slavishly following the satnav's siren voice but not *seeing* or *thinking* (yeah, I know...expecting people to think nowadays, pffft).

There was a story on the local radio breakfast show here a week or so ago. Some lady has supposedly had vehicles crash into her home over a dozen times in TWO YEARS! Apparently her home is in the middle of a road which used to be a through road but is now her private driveway. The GPS data still has it as a short-cut, so every once in a while a GPS-slave will come through. Sometimes they will inexplicably fail to notice the presence of an entire house in their path, with predictable results. This says a lot about people.

If I were her, I'd invest in a big tow truck, dig a moat around the house, and charge a fortune for hauling the dumbasses out of the hole they drove into.

I've been down one of the roads around here which GPS likes to send doomed drivers along. All the other short cuts between the major roads here wind up, over and down the mountains in a long, twisty but passable manner. This one is certainly the shortest route, because it just goes straight up one side of the mountains and down the other at a quite disturbing, one-lane, potholed and unpaved angle. Not to mention the sheer drops off either side, waiting to swallow up the unwary. I can just imagine some poor sap in an entirely unsuitable vehicle bouncing down a bumpy 1:3 gradient while thinking "but the satnav *says* this is the way to go".

Bebo users to summon superhuman alien pop-fancier invasion

Paul
Coat

"on behalf of the human race"

Oh, great. Just marvelous.

So any aliens unlucky enough to receive this transmission will think we're a world of drunken, illiterate, possibly depressed and suicidal potty-mouths with a severe "me me me lookatme lookhowimportantiamihaveablogandstuff!" complex, the male of the species likes to "smoke bud, sleep, eat, creep on hoes, get boozed up, pop caps in someonez azz" and the female of the species likes "bitchin on haters, bein gangsta, gettin high, cute kittens and flower arranging" when they aren't posing in their smalls for their webcam and spamming everyone else with links to the damn thing.

I'm starting to think we *should* be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass after all.

Mine's the plaid dressing gown, with matching slippers and a well-worn towel.

Ballmer upset by Apple cart

Paul
Jobs Horns

FAIL. Retry, ignore or cancel?

“Search is the key to unlocking the enormous market opportunities in advertising, and it is an area that is ripe for innovation,”

As proven so ably by Google, who went from zero to hero in no time flat by innovating.

If Microsoft were as capable of that as Steve-o says they are, they'd already have the search and advertising markets wrapped up with their superior technology.

The crazy thing is, a company with their financial and engineering resources should be able to produce great products and innovate in everything they do. It speaks volumes that they do not, in fact, do this very often.

Maybe they need to take a step back and decide to be really incredibly good at one or two things, instead of trying to dominate every aspect of the technology industry and largely failing.

Webster, that's some run of bad luck you had there. You must have had a massive overdose of Apple Kool-Aid way back when to stick with them through all that, surely no sane person would stick with the same company that's given them such grief.

Or maybe you're just rattling off a list of known issues with certain Apple products and you really haven't personally experienced all of that bad luck.

MS products just too cool to comprehend, say MS geeks

Paul

Innovation: you gotta walk the walk as well as talking the talk

"Those leading Microsoft labs and its software architecture are blaming poor communications for the fact the company is now widely disregarded as a force for innovation."

When are they going to figure it out: you can have your marketers claim that you're an innovator until they're blue in the face, but that doesn't make it true.

You have to innovate to be seen as an innovator. Microsoft have a pretty poor track record there, and they're being judged on their actions.

BASIC on microprocessors: nice idea, well executed, but they weren't the first to do it.

DOS: they bought that one (QDOS - not the Sinclair one, the CP/M cloned "Quick and Dirty Operating System") when they realized there was no hope in hell of delivering it in-house in time.

Windows: Beaten to the consumer GUI by Mac OS, AmigaOS, GEM, and probably some other more obscure ones too. Oh, and of course Xerox, the grandaddy of the GUI. Spun it out of their work on OS/2 after stabbing IBM in the back and pulling out of their partnership.

Windows CE: beaten to it by Psion and others. Pretty lame effort even then.

Office: A reliable workhorse for sure, but nothing new.

The Internet: "it'll never matter". *BZZZT*. Sorry, that was the *wrong* answer.

Web browsers: Late to the party, again, but got to #1 by throwing lots of developers at it and bundling it into their monopoly OS. Then they let it stagnate horribly for several years before Firefox came along and shook them out of their stupor.

Exchange server: a reinvented wheel, designed only to fit Outlook clients.

Product lock-in: The big iron boys were doing that when Bill was still in elementary school.

Internet search: Late again, resulting in being third place in a one horse race. Throwing furniture around isn't going to change that. Google really innovated to get their number one position from a standing start. Imagine what Microsoft could have achieved from their established position, if only they KNEW how to innovate!

Whining about people pirating their software: OK, this was a new concept back in the day. Way to go guys! :)

Xbox: Hey, these guys who sell consoles are making a killing! Why don't we do that?

Sync: Hmm. Maybe? At the very least they might have been first to market with something new for once. They could probably make a comfortable living just doing this for FoMoCo. There's hope for the old dog yet I suppose. :)

Poker-faced Ballmer explains Google beating plans

Paul
Jobs Horns

Bad idea to call it a 2-horse race when you're distant third, Stevie.

"what Ballmer called a "two-horse race" against Google"

Yes, but isn't *Yahoo!* still the second horse in that supposed two-horse race?

With Microsoft being the 3-legged worn-out old nag that's wandering along in the wrong direction and stopping every now and again to leave some more steaming piles of manure on the ground?

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