Re: vista update stopping emails

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

On 3 Nov., 20:42, "Harry Johnston [MVP]" <ha...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I wrote:
The worst example of Microsoft getting it wrong is, of course, the CRASH
(mentioned above).

Absent more details, it isn't possible to determine the cause, but I'd
be willing to bet that it's third-party software.  Best guess: something
the cafe is using to reset the state of the machines between users.

On second thoughts, I believe Microsoft also provide some software to do this,
and I wouldn't trust that software either, particularly in this context.  So
there is a chance it's Microsoft's fault - although a competent tech wouldn't be
using those techniques in the first place.

   Harry.

Because of the danger of viruses, it is essential to reboot the
machines with fresh, clean software after every customer.

When Stelios Haji Ioannou of EasyJet set up EasyEverything (as the
Internet chain was then called), he obviously took good advice. For
economy, he used large servers and small terminal computers. Customers
would open an "account", and would log off to save money. The terminal
rebooted, and the pennies and fractions of a penny stayed on account
until the account expired, or was topped up.

Each customer therefore had a clean computer. It also had a standard
home page. Some services were banned - such as downloading data - but
a few computers were available at each café for special purposes.
These were not part of the main system.

One thing that did happen was that the entire World Wide Web locked
up, due to the Melissa virus. Melissa was a list of prostitutes, with
"Melissa" as the first name. It looked up the contacts of any computer
it infected, and sent copies to those contacts. This flooded the Web
exponentially. There was nothing the excellent "reboot" technology of
Haji Ioannou could do about this.

Since then, other people have copied "reboot". I suggested to a café
proprietor that small businesses could use a read-only CD, and boot
from CD-ROM. Cheap machines can be bought with read-only CD drives. So
if the virus cannot write, it cannot permanently corrupt the system.
Virus avoidance is better than virus repair.

What I resent with Microsoft is that they make it possible for
inexperienced café owners to "configure" a crash. With billions in the
bank, and a monopoly market, and millions of users, one would imagine
that they would show enough responsibility to do things properly.

Part of this can be seen from the history of the company. Bill Gates
copied the Kemeny and Kurtz "Basic" language that he had been using at
school. This became "Micro Soft Basic", which he sold exclusively to
Ed Roberts of MITS for the Altair 8800. Then he sold the Basic to
others. Then, IBM came to visit him. They also bought his Basic. They
asked him if he had an operating system for it to run under. He said
"Yes", went round the corner and bought a copy of CP/M, which he sold
exclusively to IBM as PC-DOS.

Compaq disassembled the IBM ROM, and made a workalike with different
machine-code. This went into a laptop. Bill Gates sold PC-DOS without
the ROM to Compaq, under the name MS-DOS. IBM now had competition, and
the world of IBM clones was to expand at amazing speed, with the
arrival of other workalike ROMS, such as the Phoenix BIOS.

So there is a love-hate relationship between IBM and Microsoft.
Consider OS2. This was an attempt by IBM to break the stranglehold of
Microsoft on the software market. It failed.

IBM do not want to tell Microsoft too much about their plans. When a
new product was ready, they have announced it at the last minute of
Microsoft, who had to slap together an operating system in a hurry if
they were to reach the market. This last-minute panic shows in the
shoddiness of their systems.

Contrast Apple. Stephan Wozniak is a master of electronic design. For
example, when he designed the floppy-disk drivers for the early Apple
computers, he used four chips where others used twenty. In this way,
the chips were five times cheaper, whilst the reliability was greatly
improved. Less parts, less to go wrong.

The Apple machines were able to cash in on their reliability, and sell
at a high price. They needed the high price, because Apple is a
hardware and software house at the same time. They need to pay for the
best programmers.

Along the way, they innovated and invented. Nobody can doubt their
contribution to computer science. They bought WIMPS (Windows, Icons,
Menus and Pop-ups), also called the GUI (Graphic User Interface), as
well as the concept of the MOUSE from Xerox. They built the Apple
Lisa. It was a failure because it was too expensive.

They employed a "Pepsi-Cola Man" as a manager, and in a hurry cut down
the Lisa, to make the Macintosh. The advantage of being a systems
house as well as hardware manufacturer can be seen from the story of
the SP0256 speech-generator chip. On the night before the launch of
the Mac, the chip became available. It was decided to work through the
night to put speech on board. The programmers could write programs in
ANTICIPATION of the hardware becoming available. Next morning,
hardware and software were checked and found to work. That's a fast
turnaround. Steve Jobs then launched the Mac that same day - with
speech.

Unfortunately, the "Pepsi Cola Man" had got hold of a majority of
shares. When the Mac failed to sell immediately, he sacked Jobs and
Wozniak. Sales plummetted, but unexpectedly picked up when publishers
- particularly of newspapers - switched to the Mac. Bill Gates noticed
the trend, and copied Windows. The "Pepsi Cola Man" prosecuted him.

In court, the "Pepsi Cola Man" made the mistake of not claiming a
monopoly of "drag-and-drop", which is the labour-saving feature that
publishers and others love. The discussion was about "look-and-feel",
which is not relevant in this context. Bill Gates was permitted to
keep "drag-and-drop", icons, menus and pop-ups, on condition that he
turns the trash-can into a wastepaper basket, and the "Busy Bee" into
an egg-timer. This gave him WIMPS for nothing. Publishers switched to
the IBM, which is a lot cheaper.

By now, the "Pepsi-Cola Man" was on the telephone asking "Would you
like an apple with your fizzy drink"? Nobody would buy his fruit. He
offered the Apple Classic - in the world of colour computers, he took
a backward step to black-and-white, but CHEAP. Then he offered dual-
standard - the old Apple operating system, and an IBM CPU also on
board with Microsoft Windows. The price was higher than an IBM and an
Apple separately. He had run out of ideas.

"Mr. Pepsi-Cola" was out. Jobs and Wozniak returned to their old
company. What did they introduce? The IPOD.

That is creativity. A quantum leap - a jump into the unexpected. Above
all, the test is whether the product caught on. It did, worldwide.

However, unfortunately, time lost during the Pepsi-Cola era prevented
Apple from developing as huge as it would have become. There is less
software choice, and prices are higher. Most of us are stuck with
Microsoft. At least until big hardware companies develop lookalike
operating systems without the bugs.

Charles Douglas Wehner
.

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