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17 September 2007

Today we lean that Microsoft has lost it's appeal regarding their monopolistic practices in Europe. I foretell that Microsoft will continue with business as usual and otherwise completely disregard the ruling and the penalties. So, they may pay the fiscal part of the penalties but the rest of it will have to wait for Satan to get a new job as a snow-plough driver in hell.
What can be done about it? Quite simple. It is within the EU's power to void Microsoft's copyrights, patents, trademarks and all other intellectual property in Europe.
Radical, yes. But it would also serve as a warning for all other companies that they are not above the law. Europe is a big market for Microsoft ... bigger than their American market.
I doubt that would ever happen but it doesn't hurt to dream.

14 September 2007

Time to morn the passing of an old friend. My old Pentium 200MMX (SMP 2 Processor) machine would not start up today. The PSU is fine - the DPT SCSI controller can be heard to spin up the hard drives but to no avail - the CPUs failed to start up. No POST beep codes, nothing. No activity.

*sighs*

It was a trusty workhorse, from 1997 to 2007.

Only one question plagues me.... What machine should I butcher in order to have a working OS/2 machine or do I wait until eComStation goes GA and buy a modern machine?

06 September 2007

I am not happy. As to why I am not happy, lets consider a hypothetical situation: Imagine you have purchased a new computer and while it was in warranty, it kept crashing and working slow. The manufacturer of the computer thinks that the CPU may be a little faulty so they want you, the end user, to take out the CPU and ship it to Intel for diagnostics. And while you are at it, maybe you should send the video card to Nvidia, just in case.
Would you accept that kind of situation? I doubt it. You purchased the computer whole and complete from one vendor, you do not expect to go to the suppliers of the computer's vendor in order to have it fixed. You'd think it to be unacceptable... What if there was a faulty diode on the motherboard... Would your PC vendor expect you to go to IR for a replacement diode?
Ugh!

Anyways.... Our car has been having problems. It isn't even two years old yet but it has already spent about two months sitting at a Saturn dealership. It has had 3 steering columns replaced. 2 drive wheel bearings. a transmission control modules and an engine management module ... and thats only the expensive parts. Now, we have had the driver's side front drive tyre blow out two times in as many months: Both times, the tyre failed in an identical fashion. Now we (the end user) must send the tyre to the manufacturer to be examined for defects... The first tyre came with the vehicle, the second was purchased from a Saturn dealer.. ie. Both failed tyres came to us via Saturn. WHY DO WE HAVE TO TAKE THE TYRE TO THE MANUFACTURER? Absolutely non-existent customer service: They should be bending over backwards for us, especially when you consider the entire catalogue of faults that this vehicle has had to date.

I am not a happy Saturn customer.
I cannot in good consciousness recommend anyone else to buy a Saturn vehicle.

I wish I had purchased a Volkswagen.

05 September 2007

Something seems a bit fishy in Redmond Land.... As many people who know me know, I don't use Windows that often but I do mostly for my work and I'm typically using Visual Studio C++. Only yesterday, I fired up Windows XP and after a couple of hours of use, up popped up the dialog for installing updates. I simply closed what I was doing and let the updates occur.
Windows XP rebooted and I began to use it but when I copied files over the network, I had a nagging feeling that the performance wasn't quite up to par.
Today, I have tried transferring larger files and I notice that it appears to stall frequently while performing the file transfer. So I started "ping -t" ... and wouldn't you know, this machine which used to have no problems is now dropping about 1 in 10 packets over my fully switched network. Just in case it was a faulty port on the switch, I changed the port and ethernet cable. No change.
Is this some sinister plot to make Vista "better" by crippling older XP installations?
In any case, it is stupid - and dropping that many packets causes a lot of problems. I cannot believe that everyone are experiencing this or else there would be a worldwide outcry - a revolt. Perhaps its just a coincidence that the network card is now faulty but it's a bit awkward to resolve as the NIC is the on-board integrated port on a laptop. I guess I will have to try with a PC Card device and see if that rectifies it.