Darwin's Theories - microsoft tag

Microsoft Bites Me Again

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:37:00 GMT

I just created a Java application that is needed on several platforms, one of which, alas, is the ubituitous and ill-designed Microsoft Windows XP. In the project there are some classes that are auxilliary to the main program. Naturally enough I created a package for these called "aux". In Java a package name is also used as a directory name when the files are stored outside of archives, as they are during development. Hmmm. "aux". I know that Apple Computer long ago had a UNIX version called A/UX, but I didn't know anybody else had dibs on the name. But it seems Bill Gates was after Apple even back when MS-DOS was being cloned from CP/M-86. For it turns out that "aux" is a reserved filename, not just in MS-DOS, but even today in Windows XP (for all I know and don't care so please don't tell me, Vista too). It's because "aux:" is a device name, and the system is too scatterbrained to tell whether you mean that, or a file, if you just type "aux". The result is that WinZip was unable to restore all the files in this package; so I had to waste about half an hour adapting to this (including copying these files again, changing their package name, changing all the files that refer to them, making sure the changes made it back to my real OS (no extra points if you can guess which one it is) and get committed into my source repo so that I don't have to put up with this "hideous botch" ever again. Until next time we meet some screw loose in the M$ universe, that is.

Microsoft anti-piracy backfires

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:46:00 GMT

This Ars Tecnica article talks about the story, which is fairly well-known by now; Microsoft security people loaded incompetent code into their anti-piracy server (gratuitously named "(MS)Windows Genuine Advantage", when it clearly gives the user no advantage, only Microsoft). The fiasco left an estimate twelve thousand Vista users with "invalid" installations, honest users basically accused of software piracy and unable fully to use the software they (over-)paid for. Maybe next time some of them will use BSD, Linux or Mac OS X, which don't depend on a central server administered by people who think every user is out to rip them off.

ROFL department: What's even funnier is that when I viewed the Ars Tecnica post, the paid ad from Microsoft was "Linux vs Windows: Which do you choose when reliability is key? Get the facts." Thank you, Microsoft, but I believe the WGA fiasco contains all the facts one needs to decide, and, err, it won't be in your favour...

Microsoft: Giant to Relic in under a decade?

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:12:48 GMT

My pal Lak recently resumed blogging and pointed to this piece on the 1999 verdict in U.S.A. v Microsoft. Back then Microsoft was the behemoth that crushed Netscape and nearly crushed Java, in the process diverting Java from the Applet to the Enterprise (where it largely beat out Microsoft for many years, and retains a dominant role).

More recently Paul Graham wrote in his blog that Microsoft Is Dead, not literally but in the sense that the young hotbloods he grooms as entrepreneurs no longer fear Microsoft as a competitor.

I don't want to rewrite or copy these posts, so please go read them, and compare. How much has changed in so little time - Internet time, that is...

M$ Vista: Mortgage Your Company To Run It

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:00:00 GMT

Microsoft Vista will be so expensive to buy and to run that you'll have to mortgage your company to use it. That's the implication of Microsoft's decision to enter the loan business in at least one Western country

Cities turning away from Microsoft Monopoly

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 12:00:00 GMT

More and more city governments are realizing that they do not need to depend on the Microsoft monopoly; that free software does provide a viable and valuable alternative.