[OFB Cafe] Cafe List

[Chris Olson]

From: Derek Broughton 
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 8:44 PM
To: An Open Discussion Forum on Just About Everything,Especially for Techies. 
Subject: Re: [OFB Cafe] Cafe List

> Then you have grown up...  I left TechTalk because you spent so much time 
> bashing Linux it had stopped being any fun.

Well, let me take the opportunity to apologize for that.  Somewhere along the line I reached the realization that different people use different things because it's either, or a combination of, fun (a hobby), a challenge (trying to make things work), or convenient (it "just works" and lets me move on to more important things).

And there are a few individuals with other reasons.  For instance, a person may hate Microsoft because they believe they are "evil", so they use linux or Mac OS X because it's an alternative.  Or maybe they want to be different, just to be different.

Whatever the reason, each one holds some validity in one way or another.  All I ask is that people don't pre-judge me simply because I have found it necessary to switch back to Windows after years of using the "alternatives".  I use Windows because of the software available for it - I do stuff with it that I simply couldn't do with Mac OS X because the software I use now doesn't exist for the Mac.

When Apple made the move from PowerPC to x86-based processors, I had to buy all new software (eventually) anyway.  So I switched back to Windows.  And Windows treats me just fine - I have no problems with it, I rather like Vista (we have the Vista Business version in our Dell XPS laptops), it's rock stable (in almost two years I have yet to ever see a crash or lockup), and IMHO they've made a lot of improvements over Windows XP.

Vista also has a few things I don't like, such as the hardware requirements (it's slower than Windows XP on some tasks using software that's not Vista-optimized).  Overall, I can't say Windows Vista is the best OS on earth, but it's not bad either.  And I still don't interact with and admire my operating system every day.  I use software applications that just happen to run on it, and those are what I interact with every day.

--
Chris