Posted on 11/30/2001 2:39:30 PM PST by ThinkDifferent
Bingo!!
Part of the problem with the Microsoft approach has been, quite appart from their buggy, er, "feature filled" software, their having to depend on hardware manufacturers who are in a commodity business.
Take the example of a pure "box maker". About the only ways to cut costs in a cutthroat environment is to eliminate daughter cards by "integrating" the Motherboard. Fine in theory, but a manufacturer can screw up the timing, resulting in random errors that get blamed on Microsoft. That happened to Compaq, where the entire line of Presario 4000 series had this flaw. Class action lawsuits followed. If I didn't have a counterexample in my daughter's Acer 166MHz Pentium I, which thanks to an Acer designed and implemented "Shell" to trap and virtually eliminate the Blue Screen of Death, I would have never used a Wintel machine again.
The second way to save was Gateway's...use standard Intel Motherboards with separate Video cards, etc, but achieve cost savings by cutting corners. Specifically, installing a minimal power supply and passive cooling. After about a year, the 450 P II's became flakey and unreliable. Again, my first reaction would have been to blame Microsoft, but for the previous relatively hassle free year. The solution was to rebuild the computer with a 50% larger power supply and to go to an active cooling of the CPU. Mercifully, most of the components were ATX so the rebuild job was a cinch! It is back to solid, reliable operation.
Now, Apple, on the other hand, has total Quality Control. Yes, it costs more to use a full sized Power Supply, and to intelligently integrate the Motherboard to the extent they can do this. If there is a problem, there can be NO finger pointing...if it is a manufacturer's problem, it is Apple's to solve.
Btw, my daughter's Acer 166 P I is still going strong...we have NEVER had to reinstall Windows 95 on it and in fact don't know where the Restoration Disks are. However, she did see our frustration with first the Compaq, and then the Gateway.
When she went off to College, she bought an...you guessed it, an iMac! And swears by it!
When it is time to upgrade, I may look at Apple's offerings, for several reasons, mostly involving the "E.T. call home" features that Microsoft insists on building into their newer products, and the fact that most of the intrusive "snoop ware" Gobmint intrusion tools seem to be aimed at 95% of the market...Windows!!! I mean, when hackers found a "NSAKEY" feature in Windows NT, it was unsettling. And Windows XP is already being hacked to find the built in "Back Doors". Those are "features" I could live without!
Hasn't Customs ever inquired about any of the merchandise you bring back?
I'm casually curious to know what is or isn't happening in this regard; since, it was my understanding big *crackdowns* were promised in an attempt to combat this kind of thing.
While your experience sounds like they're blowing hot air.
Unfortunately no company of any reasonable size has totally escaped this sort of thing.
Even Apple had to delay the release of some of their ssh and secure ftp because they were being
hassled due to the level of encryption in them.
It will soon be that a company that releases software with a high level of encryption will be seen like an
automotive manufacturer that makes a car without seat belts.
Don't you see that a lack of security is for your own good? Most consumers won't even know it happened.
Nor should you.
*Something* about the 5th Amendment? {g}
Sounds like a win-win to me.
-Win for Customs who're lazy & don't have to do anything more than the minimal amount of work.
-Win for you because you get all the toys there are to be had at bargain-basement prices.
Thanks...
I've never regretted anything that I've done and I'm too old to start now !!
I don't understand how your allusion and graphic in #178 are any different than those nights in 1995 or 1998 when all the 'savy' acolytes lined up at midnight across the nation when the new releases of Windows were released. Each OS seems to have its loyalists.
--No particular OS acolyte, just use whatever one that has the application to do the task at hand and is the least intrusive.
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