The Tlog - a technology blog » Microsoft

I don’t like Microsoft…

Pedro Timóteo — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:53:11 +0000

… so when do I take their side? Why, when they’re attacked by homophobic fundamentalist Christians, of course!

You can’t make stuff like this up (any emphasis is mine):

A black conservative Christian pastor of an evangelical megachurch has vowed to take over Microsoft by packing it with new shareholders who will vote against the company’s policy of championing gay rights.

He told Microsoft executives at a shareholders’ meeting last week that he would be their “worst nightmare” if they continued to defy him.

Antioch Bible Church attracts around 3,500 worshippers for its services and Mr Hutcherson is a powerful figure in the Christian conservative movement.

And…

An advocate of a “biblical stance” against divorce and homosexuality, Mr Hutcherson, 55, is asking millions of evangelical activists, as well as Orthodox Jewish and other allies, to buy up Microsoft shares and demand a return to traditional values.

Microsoft, he declares, will be just the first company targeted in an escalation of the culture wars between evangelicals and corporate America.

“There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“I consider myself a warrior for Christ. Microsoft don’t scare me. I got God with me.

Not to mention, of course…

“I told them that you need to work with me or we will put a firestorm on you like you have never seen in you life because I am your worst nightmare. I am a black man with a righteous cause with a whole host of powerful white people behind me.”

Mr Hutcherson’s office is decorated with the heads of deer, elk and a buffalo – “when I run into animals, I kill them and bring them home and eat them” – as well as invitations to the White House and signed pictures of himself with President George W. Bush.

It boggles the mind. Any sane mind, that is. I’m sure there are those out there to whom this is perfectly normal…

Vistas

Pedro Timóteo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:33:40 +0000

Loved the Pokémon reference. Hey, MS could actually make it so that, to ~~catch~~ get all the features, you would need to trade for them with someone who bought the “alternate” version, which in turn would lack some features found only in your version…

Naaah… that would be too simple.

Source: Penny Arcade

Unix and Windows admins

Pedro Timóteo — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:45:00 +0000

“A Unix admin needs to be root. A Windows admin needs to reboot.”

(seen as a Slashdot sig)

Working at Microsoft

Pedro Timóteo — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:57:50 +0000

This essay, Working at Microsoft, from a guy who’s been working there since 1999, is, IMO, quite intriguing.

The guy (who at the beginning says he’s mostly a Mac guy, though he never “hated” MS) says mostly positive things about them, except about middle managers, who, according to him, are mostly techs who were promoted and have no management skills at all.

Another interesting bit:

It’s hard for people who don’t work at Microsoft’s main campus to understand just how unreal the experience of working there can become. Some employees forget that most of the world doesn’t have broadband wireless networking, high-end consumer electronics, luxury vehicles, and enough money that they don’t need to live on a budget. Some employees spend so much time using Microsoft products, that they forget about the competition and/or lose touch with typical customers’ needs.

Old and improved: Spyware Prevention and Removal Guide

Pedro Timóteo — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:50:43 +0000

To coincide with my 3rd press release , I updated, and expanded a little, this very blog’s second (and first “real”) post ever, Avoiding and Removing Spyware.

It’s not rocket science, of course, but, just by doing what I’ve written there, and without spending a cent, my Windows XP installation from 2003 (on my home desktop / gaming PC) still “lives”, without the usual “my PC has been getting slower and slower… time for another reformat” crap.

Windows Live Local preview

Pedro Timóteo — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 20:49:38 +0000

Just saw it on Ricardo Saramago’s blog: Microsoft’s Virtual Earth-powered Windows Live Local preview. Prepare to drool.

Impressive technology, certainly, and it’s nice to see that MS can do something “cool” without restricting it to Internet Explorer, requiring ActiveX, being Windows-only, and so on.

Of course, I doubt that 1) this will ever have more than a few places, and 2) this will actually be of use to someone, in place of a GPS navigation system, or even as a Google Earth competitor. It’s great, however, to impress other people, as they’ve surely never seen anything like this.

MS: new WMF bugs just “performance issues”

Pedro Timóteo — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 09:20:35 +0000

Microsoft acknowledged the problem, but contended that it wasn’t serious. “Microsoft’s initial investigation has found that these are not security vulnerabilities but rather performance issues that could cause an application to stop responding,” a spokesperson said late Monday afternoon in an e-mail to TechWeb.

Source: InformationWeek

Right. And the parrot isn’t dead, he’s just resting. He’s pining for the fjords. Lovely plumage.

People still do business with this company!?

Familiarity with inefficiency is no excuse for perpetuation of inefficiency

Pedro Timóteo — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:20:51 +0000

While reading some reader responses to a Microsoft guy’s rant disguised as an “editorial” about OpenDocument, I found a phrase that was almost… shocking, in the way it simplifies and clears a truth that many people ignore or simply don’t understand.

“Familiarity with inefficiency is no excuse for perpetuation of inefficiency.”

Unfortunately, many people (most of them wearing suits and ties) fail completely to understand that fact, and believe otherwise: that everyone in the company is completely stupid and incapable of learning anything new (I wonder why they keep those people employed, then…), and so, the only factor to be considered in what software to use is “what we’ve been using before”. No matter how bad, unstable, insecure, slow, inefficient it is. “It’s what we know”.

Imbeciles.

Blu-ray or HD DVD?

Pedro Timóteo — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 08:53:39 +0000

Which one will win? HD DVD has the support of Microsoft and Intel. On other fields, that’s probably enough to win… but not here. Blu-ray has Sony, and, apparently, virtually all the major movie studios.

Apparently, Bill Gates himself feels that he’s losing, and is throwing a tantrum. Will he throw a chair, too?

Memory trip: errors in Windows 3.0 & 3.1

Pedro Timóteo — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 14:14:47 +0000

Anyone remember Windows versions before Windows 95? When Windows ran on top of MS-DOS (you would type “win” to start it, which inspired the “type “win” and you lose” joke ).

For some reason, even though it’s been more than a decade, I remembered something today, which I want to share.

Windows 3.0, sometimes, had errors which would mysteriously, unexplainably and in a non-repeatable way crash an application, or even the entire Windows system. They were called “Unrecoverable Application Errors” (UAEs).
Windows 3.1, sometimes, had errors which would mysteriously, unexplainably and in a non-repeatable way crash an application, or even the entire Windows system. They were called “General Protection Faults” (GPFs).

Notice anything yet?

Of course, MS boasted (and computer magazines repeated their boast as “news”, as always) that they had “fixed UAEs” between Windows 3.0 and 3.1.

But they didn’t mention that they did it… by renaming them.