Microsoft's New Commercial

[KittenKoder]

Adobe products from photoshop to aftereffects all use activation these days. And, it's for the same reason MS uses it. Regardless if you don't think pirating is able to be stopped these same companies use the same methods to minimize it. MS is hardly the only company that tries to protect its rights to their software. Activation keys are a lot easier than having to use hardware dongles to validate software. That was my original point to Diuretic.


MS products sucking is a matter of opinion. I would hardly expect a java programmer to have the same perspective as uncle bob.

Aaah, that was what I missed, your point you were making. Okay. Makes more sense to me now as to what you were saying.

Oh, if you like Photoshop you may want to look into Gimp, it just ... rocks. Open source so it's free if you want to just look at it. MS products sucking is not just my opinion though, it is shared by a quickly growing population. I just offer an alternate that 'uncle bob' could use just as well, but without worrying about all the crashes, freeze-ups, etc. that MS products are becoming more known for. Having to reboot your system whenever something loops into the memory of a critical thread just sucks. With those OS's that use the GUI's as secondary programs instead of integrated you have the luxury of just crashing that program without rebooting. The threading system of Windoze gets worse with more services installed because of several flaws that are becoming worse instead of better with each new release. If the trend doesn't stop it will be as bad as Apple claims they are. I use to be a big Windoze supporter, use to write code using their API's exclusively, but after one too many crashes of XP I just got sick of it.

 

[Shogun]

meh.. people always look to take down the giant. I'm not an MS fanboi or anything but it just seems like ubunto users are turning into what mac users have become: zombies shills for a cause rather than a better product. Now, i've never tried ubuntu but Iclearly remember the redhat days. sure, xp crashing gets frustrating.. but so do wrong numbers and drunk calls from ex's and i'm not trying to throw out my cell phone just yet.

Anyway, this was a fun thread! Have a great day!

 

[KittenKoder]

I always enjoy tech talk, and remember, no one has to agree with me to appreciate a discussion, they just have to be intelligent enough to carry it like you.

 

[Diuretic]

I can appreciate that zealots (Linux or otherwise) can be bloody annoying because they're sometimes like the folks that knock on your door and want to share their religion with you. That would get up my nose too.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I read a post somewhere and there's a complaint about MS and/or a beef about the cost of software. Linux distros (apart from a couple) are free - free as in free beer as the saying goes. The applications as well. I can't list the number of free and totally legal applications I have on my computer (and it would be boring) but aside from games (MS Flight Simulator is a remarkable simulation, the closest I get is Flight Gear which isn't as polished as FS but it's great fun) I can do more with my Ubuntu computer and its applications than I could do with an XP machine.

If someone doesn't want to shell out a thousand bucks for Vista and Office then they can get Ubuntu (or others) for nothing and OpenOffice for nothing and they're in business. That's all I want to say. If you can afford to shell out big money for software then that's fine, but if you're watching the money or want to use it for something else, there are alternatives.

And KK already mentiond Gimp - if I ever fully learn what that application is capable of I'll be very surprised

 

[KittenKoder]

I am still at 'new toy' phase with Ubuntu, gotta tell everyone about something great I just discovered. I actually learned about Gimp while still using Windows, it's a bit sluggish there compared to Ubuntu but it's also the only application free that handles PNG's full capabilities, I don't even think Photoshop does yet. I just wish they'd hurry up and get MNG supported in browsers, alpha transparency is just .... awesome.