Y'know, this is just what I needed. Everything has been going just too well for me. Retirement is great! My financials are looking good. Fortunately, I don't have to rely on IBM stock. Ever since I outed TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) as IBM, the stock has gone into the shitter. See assholes, you shouldn't have paid me to leave early.
Paul wrote in the comments that he couldn't understand how I allowed my PC to get trashed. I mean, here I am, someone who was once a highly paid, highly trained, and highly motivated I/T professional and I allowed my PC to get trashed. How did that happen? Here's how. I was spoiled.
I used to work on real computers with real operating systems. Yep! I was a mainframe systems programmer. We had an acronym for our hardware and software: RAS. RAS stood for Reliability, Availability, and Servicability. MVS runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Both my sister and I were programmers. She was an applications programmer who actually had to write code. I was a systems programmer who just had to make code work. I didn't write code other than JCL (Job Control Language). I knew enough Assembler to do debug when assembles failed. I did reverse engineer enough Assembler code to build logon screens, but once I had the template, I was able to go from there. I kept telling my friends Richard and Mike (who actually could write code) that I wasn't as smart as they thought I was but they never believed me. Same with my sister.
Speaking of my sister, she was a programmer, but it is her husband who does all the PC work in their household. Just because we used to be programmers doesn't mean that we are good with PC's. Like I said, we worked with real computers that ran solid dependable software, not shit like Windoze and Internet Explorer.
I really got pissed off at IBM in the early 90's. OS/2 blew the doors off Windoze. It was a multitasking operating system that came out five years before Windoze 95. But, since no one used it, no one wrote applications for it. Since no one wrote applications for it (other than Lotus), no one used it. They had a superior product with a five year head start and they blew it. IBM still uses OS/2 internally for service processors on their mainframes but runs Windoze on all their employees' PC's.
I consider my PC as an appliance like a stove or refrigerator. I expect to turn it on and have it work just like my television. It is inexcusable to have an operating system and applications with abysmal security like Microsoft products. Bill Gates should be ashamed of himself for selling shitty products, but he's laughing all the way to the bank.
So now I've been forced into learning more about PC's than I want to. I'm almost back to normal. I've installed multiple security products and have removed most of the adware and spyware off of my computer. All that's left is the stuff that I will have to remove manually. That means I'm gonna have to go and edit my Registry. Like I really want to do that.
I'm too old to learn this shit. Rachel Lucas installed Movable Type for me. I paid someone to install MT Blacklist for me. Jesse installed MT Approval and finally fixed my comment spam problems. I don't want to have to be a programmer anymore. I'm retired, dammit!
It's amazing that the American public tolerates crap like Microsoft writes, but when Microsoft is a virtual monopoly what options are there? An operating system should not allow anyone to write anything on a user's PC without permission of the user. That means permission should be granted before cookies or any other crap can be written on a computer. That should be minimum standards. That should also be a law. Any violations should be punished by hefty fines. If Microsoft didn't write crap, we wouldn't have these problems.
If posting continues to be light it is because I'm going through the books and learning more than I want to know. My Earthlink Mail is trashed (But I do have Webmail so anything sent to me in the past three days I can access.) and I will probably have to reinstall that to recover all my old mail.
Maybe this is what I needed to piss me off so I can start writing good stuff again.
Posted by denny at April 21, 2005 10:21 PM
I hear ya. I'm hanging out for a month with my navy son. He's pissed off about the lack of standards. He's a hard ass like me.
Posted by: lisakay on April 22, 2005 07:13 AMSo imagine how overwhelmed a true cyber cretin like moi, and a dinosaur to boot, feels!! After a year of fighting the demons to no avail, I'm about ready to give up.
Posted by: Indigo on April 22, 2005 08:35 AMSome of us *don't* tolerate "crap like Microsoft writes". I'm running Mac OSX and visiting your page with Apple's Safari browser. Eudora for email. No problems. Ever. You should give it a try.
Posted by: marcel on April 22, 2005 08:53 AMI've got to say, I've pretty much sworn off Internet Exploder. Opera's the stuff for me.
Posted by: Duncan on April 22, 2005 10:26 AMOS/2 was the catdaddy. I used every version, and it was / is so superior to anything Microsoft wrote it's not even funny. It's sad. That's one I wish IBM has won.
Posted by: Sam on April 22, 2005 11:48 AMFor a better browser in Windows, you can use Mozilla's Firefox. It's most excellent. Recently they patched the program for a security hole that had not been exploited yet. They found the hole and fixed it without anyone else knowing the hole existed. M$ won't do that...
For a more secure OS, you could try Linux or one of the BSD's. Mac OS is a good choice also.
You can try out Linux before installing it by using what's called a "live" cd. Knoppix is the daddy of the live cd's and is found at http://knoppix.net/ Download it, burn it to a cd (instructions can be found at http://linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html), boot your computer from the cd, play around with Linux. When you're done, remove the cd, reboot back into your "normal" OS.
They even have a couple of them based on FreeBSD.
For a list of the live cd's and where to download them, go to http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
For a very nice version (known as distributions) of Linux to use I'd recommend Ubuntu. It's very slick and you don't have to get dirty with the guts of Linux to make it work. http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ It's what I've been using for about 6 months...
Posted by: freddyboomboom on April 22, 2005 11:49 AMWhat's this "Windows" or "Microsoft" you speak of?
Last week, I was at Sun N Fun in Florida. EAA shows up with some Access databases, and there are some minor problems. So my assistance is requested. Sez me: "Hey, I'll give it a go, but part of my job contract specifies that I Don't Touch Microsoft" Lots of light laughter. "No, I'm pretty serious. Don't touch it. Ever. For Work." Now people are looking incredulous.
If I have to, I'll fool with it, but the Last Straw for me was back, oh, 98 or so?
Problem with the Mac, which at least NOW is running a Real OS (tm) (Mac supporters Do Not Want To Talk About Pre-OS 10), is the hardware is so damn expensive.
Posted by: Addison (the other one) on April 22, 2005 11:51 AMSam & Denny:
Don't forget - NT and OS/2 evolved off a common code base. Compare say, NT 4 versus Warp 4. OS/2 got faster and less buggy, NT got bigger, slower, and buggier. :)
Posted by: Addison (the other one) on April 22, 2005 11:54 AMAddison (the other one) - Yep. IBM hired Gates to write OS/2. After he got all the hardware interface info he needed, he told IBM to go fuck itself.
The problem with Mac is I'm forced to buy Apple's hardware.
Posted by: Denny on April 22, 2005 12:00 PMYou can always drop the PC stuff and get a Mac. Yeah, you're stuck with the cost of the hardware, but it works well, is easy to install/use, and doesn't have the spyware/virus baggage of PCs.
Posted by: Jeff on April 22, 2005 12:41 PM"The problem with Mac is I'm forced to buy Apple's hardware."
So what? This is why Apple stuff works so well because it's integrated. With the Mac Mini at somewhere south of $600, price is no longer the issue it used to be. If you need any periphials, just hang them off the USB 2 or Firewire ports. Half the size of a shoebox.
I'm telling you Denny once you do Mac you'll never go back - especially when you start doing about 6 different things all at the same time and it. just. works.
Posted by: Jesse on April 22, 2005 01:24 PMMac hardware may cost a little more on the front end, but how much is your time worth? With a Mac, you buy it, turn it on, and forget about it. Windows users are forever fixing, patching, removing malicious code, babysitting, cursing, re-formatting, etc. *That's* what's expensive.
Posted by: marcel on April 22, 2005 01:27 PMYep OS/2 warp was the cats ass... I only used Macs until 95 when I went to work for a beltway bandit. a year later I went to work for a big company and I went through 5 laptops in 3 years. IS always reformatted my laptop when there was an issue that they could not figure out. So after that I went out and bought a new Apple laptop and put my PC laptop in a desk drawer and did the same thing with all the other PCs the company issued me. My dell is the only one in my group that still is 100% functional as I have only turned it on once.
To this day I use Apple hardware (17" PowerBook) and am the only one in my group that has no issues.
A mac mini is 499 plus a keyboard... It works all day long and you only have to reboot it for OS updates.
Price is no longer an excuse...
Posted by: Kirk on April 22, 2005 01:44 PMA plumber's sink is always backed up and a mechanic's car doesn't run right. I'm sorry you're going through this, it is one of the biggest PITA's on earth!
And YES!!!! Thanks for taking me "back in the day" -- I ran OS/2 Warp on one of my first computers and LOVED it and loved its interface. Back when the only Windoze option was 3.11!
Posted by: Joni on April 23, 2005 01:23 PMGlad to see the computer is still working. You shouldn't be dealing with computer work... damn... your old now... aren't you even retired? Time to go diving again!
Posted by: FishOrMan on April 25, 2005 05:38 AMI hear what you are saying about Windoze - rest assured that the biggest water company in the UK (where i was a techie before i moved to Texas to be with the wonderful woman who is now my wife) uses OS/2 and loves it. Over 3 million accounts accessed daily all over the coverage area and excellent reliability!
Posted by: ben on April 25, 2005 03:31 PMI've been looking at Macs. I want a G-5 with the 30" Cinema display. It's only $7k, total. Anybody want to get me one? My birthday's Saturday.
Posted by: EatShiz on April 26, 2005 01:21 AM