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quote:

Originally posted by Eugene trancaholic, your post really upsets me, because MS-Word is quite possibly the best application ever written.

Good. Yours pissed me off as well.
Nah, just kidding. I'm sorry if I've been a tad too agitated in my comments - it's just that I hate the M$ way of doing business, and the fact that they're on the top of the world thanks to a truely lousy product - Windoze.

quote:

Originally posted by Eugene But what I'd like to discuss is LaTeX. All the professors and many students at my university blindly hate Microsoft and Windows (later I'll give you examples) and, for example, use LaTeX to type formulas. LaTeX is very hard, command-based, and why would you want to use it, when there is Microsoft Equation Editor built into Word that has the SAME power and functionality? It's very visual, convenient, yet truly powerful. Believe me, I've used it often, and exploited many of its features. It is equally powerful as LaTeX - and a pleasure to use. In their blind hate of all things Microsoft (*just because* it's Microsoft and Windows), people become stupid and narrow-minded. At my university, there are lots of Linux snobs like that (or people who want to be "cool" by dissing MS), and I don't like them. Want an example? http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~brianb/ This is the page of my university's system-administrator. P.S. You mention that you use Pine... I've used it before, as well, but switched to Outlook. I needed to be able to easily view graphics, work with attachments, type in a foreign language, etc. For me, the choice was obvious: I switched to something more powerful.

We will surely not agree on what quality software is, but I would just like to asure you that my affection for Linux has nothing to do with being snobby. If I had my way the entire world would use Be or AmigaDE as operating system, but as the amount of software for these is seriously limited, I'll choose Linux instead, as it has both security, stability and no annoying genies that will help me type a letter whenever I write "Dear".

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic ...and no annoying genies that will help me type a letter whenever I write "Dear".

you can easily turn that off...
What word processor will let you embed in-line graphics with its own smart built-in editor? open extremely large documents? draw tables visually with a pencil, instead of specifying each col/row span? automatically replace any combination you specify, insert auto-clips? write sophisticated macros and dialogs? etc, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, the people at Micro$oft are NOT idiots... you may not like their financial policy or unfair practices, but they produce software with which nothing will compete. And that is my point: We have to give credit where credit is due, we can't blindly hate Microsoft.

my 2 cents...

geez, its been fun reading this thread.. it hits home close. i see we have a few tech-oriented workers, i am one as well.. Im a Network Admin at a place called AVI systems.. we make huge A-V systems that i drool over. Job description also entitle messing around with cutting edge streaming technology, videoconferencing units, all sorts of monitors ranging form 10 inches to 100 inches and up, pretty much every new thing that comes out and can be applies to audiovisual work goes through this company.. i love it, oh and also i work the networks and computer ans such, hah. ANYWAYS...

I ran linux for about a year (1999, redhat) and after a while it just lost its appeal. I still am in love with many of the posotives and features, but sometimes the imcompatibility gets to me. At the time i only had a 3gig HDD so dual booting would be pointless. I decided (a hard decision) to let go and just reinstall my shitty old Win98. Unfortunately, I havent gotten back into it due to the nature of my work. We are on all Unix and Windows machines and i mostly work on Windows since the Unix servers never need work (no surprise).

As far as blind hate goes, i was in that stage once too, hating windows for all the wrong reasons.... Windows is truly amazing software, just think about this: if the world was still running DOS, computer use wouldn't be half of what it is today. Its just that simple. Windows is easy to use and makes the computer accessible to almost ANYONE! SO to all who defent Windows: I salute you.

Linux DOES have its advantages though. Its stable as hell, fun to use IMO, customizable, simple - kinda, efficient, and different. The only downside is the fact that, no matt5er how hard they try, they may never have the compatibility that windows does. Windows is the market standard and software is either made for windows or made for mac. Yes, you may argue that there is Linux Software, and yesm there is, but just not as much. Games, Accessories, Stupid little progs that you use day-to-day, they just arent all there, and thats why I had to get out of the linux world. It is, however, getting MUCH better and theyre doing thir best to make linux as "program friendsly" as windows.

My take on Windows: I currently run WIN2kPro on 3 computers in my house with a shared cable connection and all the rest of the networking goods... I LOVE this OS, it is stable, reliable, and, as far as i know, is the best there is for my use. I did have XP, but just didnt get into it, and dont ask me why, there a lot of questions that go unanswered. XP is also a good OS, obviously better than any otehr than 2000 IMO, but i am partial to 2000. I just like the classic windows "feel" with the power and all around goodness of NT technology.

wow thats a long post.

Cheers
Marc

2000 rocks.

2000 rocks. That's all I can say.
Amazing stability and power.

eugene: *high five* my computer-programming, trance-lovin brotha!

Re: my 2 cents...

quote:

Originally posted by SmellsExcellent geez, its been fun reading this thread.. it hits home close. i see we have a few tech-oriented workers, i am one as well.. Im a Network Admin at a place called AVI systems.. we make huge A-V systems that i drool over. Job description also entitle messing around with cutting edge streaming technology, videoconferencing units, all sorts of monitors ranging form 10 inches to 100 inches and up, pretty much every new thing that comes out and can be applies to audiovisual work goes through this company.. i love it, oh and also i work the networks and computer ans such, hah. ANYWAYS... I ran linux for about a year (1999, redhat) and after a while it just lost its appeal. I still am in love with many of the posotives and features, but sometimes the imcompatibility gets to me. At the time i only had a 3gig HDD so dual booting would be pointless. I decided (a hard decision) to let go and just reinstall my shitty old Win98. Unfortunately, I havent gotten back into it due to the nature of my work. We are on all Unix and Windows machines and i mostly work on Windows since the Unix servers never need work (no surprise). As far as blind hate goes, i was in that stage once too, hating windows for all the wrong reasons.... Windows is truly amazing software, just think about this: if the world was still running DOS, computer use wouldn't be half of what it is today. Its just that simple. Windows is easy to use and makes the computer accessible to almost ANYONE! SO to all who defent Windows: I salute you. Linux DOES have its advantages though. Its stable as hell, fun to use IMO, customizable, simple - kinda, efficient, and different. The only downside is the fact that, no matt5er how hard they try, they may never have the compatibility that windows does. Windows is the market standard and software is either made for windows or made for mac. Yes, you may argue that there is Linux Software, and yesm there is, but just not as much. Games, Accessories, Stupid little progs that you use day-to-day, they just arent all there, and thats why I had to get out of the linux world. It is, however, getting MUCH better and theyre doing thir best to make linux as "program friendsly" as windows. My take on Windows: I currently run WIN2kPro on 3 computers in my house with a shared cable connection and all the rest of the networking goods... I LOVE this OS, it is stable, reliable, and, as far as i know, is the best there is for my use. I did have XP, but just didnt get into it, and dont ask me why, there a lot of questions that go unanswered. XP is also a good OS, obviously better than any otehr than 2000 IMO, but i am partial to 2000. I just like the classic windows "feel" with the power and all around goodness of NT technology. wow thats a long post. Cheers Marc

In WinXP, there's a way to get the Classic "feel" back. Just go into Control Panel and find it from there... XP has more Bells and Whistles than 2000 but, they're both great compared to 9x/ME (I used to have ME and I HATED it!)...

Re: Re: my 2 cents...

quote:

Originally posted by ali92 In WinXP, there's a way to get the Classic "feel" back. Just go into Control Panel and find it from there... XP has more Bells and Whistles than 2000 but, they're both great compared to 9x/ME (I used to have ME and I HATED it!)...

oh i know how to get rid of the "new look," i jst dont like XP as much.

-M

Stick with Mandrake Linux if you dont know what the hell your doing. Red Hat is total garabge. If your not running a server dont use it. It tends to crash alot. If you know what your doing stick with Debian. I honestly think Linux is a joke. Its a cheap rip-off of unix. Hence the word Linux. The majority of the people are going to flame me because They have been using linux for a year just to impress their friends. Their is alot of that going on and it bothers me when everyone starts claiming to be linux guru's. Im not saying anyone is or isnt. I am a disgruntled UNIX (not linux) Sys admin\Guru\Purist and have been working on Unix platforms for 5 years and have been into it for 10 years before Linux was even around. Good luck and make a wise choice, Because the wrong choice and leave you with a non-working system. Make a boot disk install enjoy, I hope it works out for you. Dont just sit their with it on your computer for a week and then give up. Just keep going at it.

Mac OSX owns all, I have or am running all 3 systems I realy like gnome interface on linux, linux has came along way, yet still has a way to go. XP is the best window by far but i still have a shit load of problems with shit crashing or temp freezing,(least no more blue screen of death), Well i dont have anything bad to say bout the max software/hardware wises. But price wise it sucks everything on a mac seems to cost more, but then again imo your paying for quality mac os is designed to work with mac hardware. where XP is a general platform for a plethora of devices/combanations along with linux. So it has a lot more chances to go wrong. I'm not trying to say anyone is better than the other im just saying the onlything on my mac that has ever crashed has been MS explorer.

for eugene and other windows newbies (hehe just joking, chill), one word: bash..

What windows really lacks is a REAL command prompt.. not that crap DOS / command.exe (depending on win version)... I mean, geez... And no mmatter what people will say, cygwin will never be like having a real system-level shell...

That being said, the best OS that there currently is that combines functionlity of windows with power of unix is MacOS X... Basically, you have all your Word / Excel / Photoshop proggies, plus a BSD core, which means get any big endian-compilant unix-program source, compile it, et voila... Hell, even QT libraries were ported to OSX, if im not mistaken...

Downside of MacOSX: it has its shortcommings, Macs are running on a 4 year old processor architecture (until late this year it won't risk to change), and first and foremost apple computers are fucking expensive... Oh, and OSX requires a lot of res to run (but so does XP). Did I mention all non-Blizzard the games come out like a year late?

OSX (unlike OS9 and prev) is a great platform to program, and I'm even toying with idea of buying that lamp-imac with 17" TFT just for programming purposes.. You definitelly get more end-user functionality than on Linux...

However, modern Linux distributions shaped up to be very nice as well.. KDE 3.x and Gnome 1.x (is 2 out yet?) are very competitive GUIs, but need some unix know-how to get pass by... Linux architecture in many ways is supperior to Windows architecture-wise, but it also has few shortcommings... Like, how about recompiling the kernel just to update the graphic card driver?

Of course, combination of Linux + QT + GLib + GTK make it the ultimate in programming.. By far more powerful and friendly than any of windows APIs (ever tried to read their sources??).. However if you wanna do more than programming, stick with XP... Sure, OpenOffice / StarOffice replace very well Microsoft bloatware, but are you sure you can live without some of the current applications you use?

So yeah... To make the long story short, if you're a serious computer hobbyist, you have no excuse not to know your way around a *nix OS... If you're just a curious end user, forget it.. It's overhyped, and you're better to stick with standard Bill Gates stuff..

PS: Windows NT5-based OSes are the first Windows incarnations that are worth using.. Before it was either unbelievably slow and unusable, or unbelievably crappy, limited, buggy, and.. Microsoftish.. ;(

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