Have you forgotten the $150 million worth of stock Microsoft
bought to help keep Apple alive? Microsoft doesn't want Apple to
die - it would make their monopoly status too obvious. Microsoft
doesn't care if you buy Apple. What they fear at this time is
Linux.

I'm also surprised you didn't mention part 2 of the Microsoft
saga - their recently exposed tie to former Christian Coalition
chief Ralph Reed's lobbying firm.

Thanks -- read about that, and forgot to include it.

Maybe I'm being paranoid, but after reading that statement from AFL-CIO-affiliated Pride At Work, I get the feeling Microsoft is just being spun for its support of the Global Redisribution of Wealth otherwise known as CAFTA.

Amy, you really are the blondest blogger in LA. The story you cite is so riddled with factual errors it made me laugh. Clue: "HB" means "House Bill". And that's the easy one. Preston Gates testified in support of the bill, and Microsoft sells most of the software for the Mac.

You really are a piece of work.

Richard, I'm well aware of that, because I used "HB" in stories as early as 20 years ago, when I was an intern, not just with Helen Thomas, but with Chris Chrystal (can't recall the spelling) at the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., writing for UPI There is, however, another House of Representatives, in each state. This bill refers to the bill in Washington state. Yes, they used H.B. and commented about it being in the Senate. A small error, but apparently, the article is just crawling with others? The story is about Washington State, not the United States.

http://news.crossmap.com/story/microsoft-withdraws-support-for-gay-bill/2270.htm

Microsoft has withdrawn its support.

Which errors do you see in my post? The world awaits! I think I just emasculate you terribly by my mere existence so you feel a need to accuse me of idiocy at every turn, never bothering to offer any factual support that I actually am an idiot. Wooo, beeeeg man!

Be good, or I'll squash you under my boot like a flea!

The bottom line is that Microsoft never supported HB 1515, so there was nothing to withdraw. Now on to your confusion.

Bills in the US house have "HR" prefixes, not "HB"; this is an Olympia convention, where Senate Bills are "SB" (in the US Senate they're just "S").

The bill information is on-line at this link. You can read in the Bill Report who testified in support of the bill; read carefully and you'll see Preston Gates, the Gates family lobbying firm, in support. There is no such thing as 'secret opposition' in a state that makes such information public. Moreover, similar measures have been failing in Olympia for years.

The AFL-CIO is on the rag because of Microsoft's support of CAFTA, they're using this issue as a club, and you're so gullible you buy it. You consistently turn to bogus sources for your news, so you're frequently full of it. I'd work on that if I were you.

Microsoft doesn't "hate fags", they just aren't obsessed with them. And that's as it should be because they're a business, not a charity.

Ron writes: "Have you forgotten the $150 million worth of stock Microsoft bought to help keep Apple alive?"

Microsoft sold that stock a few years ago.

Richard Bennett writes: "Preston Gates, the Gates family lobbying firm"

Eh? Don't assume that they were lobbying on behalf of Microsoft. They have plenty of other clients as well.

Further, the AFL-CIO's press release doesn't change the actual history of what Microsoft did. They're following up on an existing controversy, not driving it.

I mean, hell, Microsoft's local fundamentalist preacher claims to have been the cause of their change of policy.

I though all you liberals wanted to get the corporate money out of politics, so what business does Microsoft or any other corporation have meddling with gay rights?

I suppose the end justifies the means.

Number one, who here has identified themself as a liberal?

Number two, it's in the best interests of a democracy that people speak out for their views -- collectively or individually.

It's really moronic to say "all you liberals" as if this represents some person or concrete group of people here.

If you say it's moronic, I have to agree with you. Even if you are a Hollywood liberal.

It may be worth pointing out that at no time in their history has Apple been close to closing. It may be fun for some to think about, but there you are. It would be interesting to see who the ownership of 36 Windows features, licensed from Apple, devolved to if Apple did close.

While you're surfing the MS Web site, don't forget to look at the antispyware beta and update all your MS products against today's security hole.

Ron writes: "Have you forgotten the $150 million worth of
stock Microsoft bought to help keep Apple alive?"

Jon H writes: Microsoft sold that stock a few years ago.

Yes, that's why I wrote "bought" instead of "owns".

The purchase came in the pre-Ipod days when Apple NEEDED that statement of faith from the most powerful man in the history of computing. If memory serves, he announced a suite of apps for (yet another) Apple OS at that same convention.

Apple people forget that this is Bill's planet. The rest of us are just visitors.

Incidentally, it might be instructive to explore what special rights France gives to homosexuals. I'd be willing to bet it't not many.

I mention this because France is to the USA as Apple is to Microsoft - a parasite.

Gee, Richard, you sure don't know anything about the history of computers. Maybe you're just trolling?

Apple and Microsoft both stole their GUIs from Xerox PARC. Don't get jiggy with me, Radwaste, or I'll smite your Apple.

So you are trolling, Richard. OK. The real chain of events leading to the present platform situation is available to anyone who wishes to look for it. Rather than get into "platform wars" here pointlessly, I'll close with the simple comment that fiddling with your computer to make it work is simply wasted effort, and not indicative of any real progress. "Support" costs billions of dollars in the US alone, yet people's involvement, and their sense of accomplishment at making their computer do what they wanted to do - at last (for now, until something else is hacked) blinds them to such waste.

Barefoot on the 'net since 1993,

Best Regards,

John

If Apples are so damn good why doesn't anybody buy them, genius?

Richard, because they're already invested in some dumb, counter-intuitive system they're used to, or because Apple doesn't work for their real estate programs or something.

Apparently, you have not seen Tiger.

I've had Apples since 1983, and I have never had to read directions, look at a book, or get lessons on how to use my computer. My mother has phone book-like directions for her PC, and still has trouble figuring it out. And no, she's no idiot -- Valedictorian of her high school, Phi Beta Kappa, etc., and a biblical scholar in her spare time (bible as literature, not religious idiocy).

They didn't sell Macs until Feb, 1984 (I had one of the first ones) so you must have had an Apple II if you were an Apple customer in 1983.

There is no real difference in operation between an Apple and a computer, except that Apple loyalists don't have as many choices for third-party options in hardware and software. You point your mouse and click on the pretty pictures; there's nothing counter-intuitive about it.

Computers aren't hard to use and nobody has to consult a phone book to use them, but if passing on Urban Legends is your stock in trade, then obviously you're going to carry on like that.

Apples sometimes have bugs and sometimes their hardware and software parts break. When that happens they're damn near impossible to diagnose or repair. That's why most people use computers instead of Apples. But it's your money and if you'd rather spend it on pretty colors and backlit cases, more power to you, it's a free country (USA, not France.)

It may have been an Apple. It was a Classic, I believe, and it's still in use in Rome, by my friends Thomas and Roberta. Now, THAT is a great machine. I got it in my first or second year of college, might be off a year. I loved it. And my mom does have phone book-like guides for her PC. And it's still complicated and horrible.

Luckily, my boyfriend's 85-year-old mother has a Mac.

There's no difference between Mac and Computer to the typical user except the price. Web browsing is web browsing, Word is Word and Excel is Excel.

For the price of a Mac I can buy two computers. If one breaks, I throw it away and use the other. I come out way ahead in the long run.

People don't buy Macs because of any superior technical features, they're simply a fashion statement. Now you may believe otherwise, but by your own admission you're ignorant about technical stuff, so why make a fool of yourself?

Richard: You can get two computers for $499? Well, really, really crappy ones, I suppose. I mean, worse-than-eMachines crappy. I'd much rather have the single Mac Mini.

In fact, I might rather have a Mini than a single $499 Basic Generic PC (though not preferably to a nice stacked PC). And I say this as someone with no religious attachment to any computing platform, having used MacOS since 6.0.x, Windows since before 3.0, Unix clones for over a decade (hey, I started as soon as I could), and others before then.

Radwaste: People who are using OS9 in 2005 really shouldn't talk about OS quality. When you're using a protected memory, preemptive multitasking system like NT/2k/XP or OSX, you can talk about that. OS9 was dead the moment OSX came out. You should know that. (And, er, Apple puts out security updates via System Update fairly regularly, just like Microsoft does via Windows Update. Just sayin'.)

Sigi, you don't get it. A Mac is not a computer, it's a sleekly designed appliance, a membership card for the Creative Class, and a fashion statement. A Mac is botox for the brain.

Well, I see this has blown up a bit.

Sigivald, I have OS X, but since I have a software suite with applications that don't tread on each other's toes, I use 9 more often. I use W2K at work, and no, it doesn't allow other applications to operate correctly when Lotus Notes is searching our multigigabyte document database.

I use both platforms daily. Shall I tell you what spyware and virus programs I'm running now on the Mac? NONE.

Have you used MS Word for the Mac and compared it to Word in Office XP? I have. I wish I could bring my Mac to work, because Word works much better on it, and I would be faster editing the procedures I handle every day (radioactive waste processing).

Do you even know what peripherals Macs use today? I do. ATA, SATA, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, USB, IEEE1394...sound familiar?

Did you have a Y2K expense? Not me.

Have you ever called for technical "support"? Not me, again.

Richard, if you wanted all the features of those Microsoft operating systems, but in 64-bit "clean" code, you'd only have one choice. It would be the choice of the music and video industries. Stay for the credits at your next major-FX motion picture.

I think I'm most impressed by the amount of tweaking possible in X - and not with a "registry". Hey - can you change the broadcast identity of your browser on the fly, rename your system, and retain color-gamut settings across every application - even newly-installed ones - with a PC? I can.

But I don't want to. That's why I'm still using OS9. Most of the time, I don't have anything "new! Upgraded!" that I want to do.

Don't mistake marketing for innovation. I have a desktop publishing program, with which I could put out a copy of Time magazine - in 32-bit color, etc., that was written in 1993. It uses ONE MB of RAM. Savvy programmers merely noticed that if they wanted to continue employment, they had to a)engage their customer in their hardware and software, and b)then make the customer believe that upgrades are a necessary part of computing. If you can resist this coercion, you know that "logging on" is not really validation of your experience.

It is a good point that Apple is now putting out security updates; perhaps someone could show me an OS X virus? Oh. There isn't one. It's not because "no one uses Mac", because the targets - the organizations that use them - are hugely valuable. It's because attacks don't work. Maybe Microsoft could issue updates against their vulnerabilities BEFORE their customers lost data - but that would mean giving up huge $$ in "support" costs.

If you had to describe your platform using only affirmative statements, not being able to claim freedom from spyware and viruses, not using Display Postscript, and not having a coordinated user interface might not be enough to counter superior gaming performance. Why, now, did Virginia Tech go G5 for their supercomputing cluster?

Savvy programmers merely noticed that if they wanted to continue employment, they had to a)engage their customer in their hardware and software, and b)then make the customer believe that upgrades are a necessary part of computing. If you can resist this coercion, you know that "logging on" is not really validation of your experience.

That's some good stuff you're toking, Rad. Heavy.

{implied} Point denied, Richard. (That's an "ad hominum", folks, where the attack is leveled at the speaker rather than the idea in discussion. See here.)

You know full well that people pick what capabilities they need and tend to stick with the programs that provide that. That's one of the simplest principles of marketing: market inertia. Now, Bill Gates is one of, if not the, finest marketers there ever has been. He has a great many people thinking that Microsoft invented, not only the personal computer, but dozens of "features" people must cope with, as opposed to enjoy (You apparently think Bill visited Xerox and "stole the mouse". Nope.). Intel does this also; the "Centrino" hype is just that. Have you ever asked yourself why Intel should *advertise* that they have an "integrated" mobile platform? As opposed to...?

Make a list of "advances" in the last ten years, and notice how many of them are hollower achievements than their press-kit claims.

Speed, by the way, is not innovation; it is merely improvement.

Engineers are driven by the desire to improve things, Radwaste, not a conspiracy to trick people out of their hard-earned money.

Apple isn't an engineering-driven company, they're a boutique that specializes in pretty boxes.

The success of the personal computer owes a lot to the fact that hardware and software come from different companies participating in a standard architecture, not a single vertically-integrated monopoly.

At the end of the day it's impossible to avoid the fact that the Wintel PC dominates the business because it's a better product for the money than any of the alternatives.

Well, Richard, you have made a number of specific allegations that I have, correctly, dismissed. You had to repeat the line about "pretty boxes" because your argument is impotent. That you cannot see that speaks more to your personal brand of chauvinism than your ability to analyze market forces, ergonomics or any other factor in computer communications history. Apparently, you haven't even noticed that Amy was entirely correct about investment: once a buyer commits several hundred dollars, it takes an epiphany to cause them to abandon that. They take it on faith that there's nothing better, and no way out; that's why Apple put out the Mini, AND why Microsoft is now advertising on banner ads about "all of the things you can connect to Windows".

Anyway: the argument continues, as I sit here with no anti-virus or anti-spyware protection and anticipate never having to have it. By the way, there's an excellent PC-users resource at annoyances.org. While you're looking around, ask yourself this:

"Why is this website, and this problem with the OS, even here?"

As you go back to work, remember this: ONE spyware infestation on a professional's computer, which requires a clean installation of the operating system, costs more than enough in downtime to buy a new Apple and immunize yourself.

I especially enjoy the assertion that "Apple isn't an engineering-driven company" in the face of Microsoft's endless copying of their ideas. Read any PC Magazine, and you'll see things Apple did ten years ago. The implication that being "engineering-driven" is superior to an alternative is another fallacy, in that ergonomics must precede engineering to make any appliance suitable for human use. That's why Apple controls the user interface to this day: so someone won't produce a mishmash of user nightmares as they "participate in a standard architecture" - which, by the way, Apple has. They even hold programmer's workshops to show people how to code to take advantage of machine features. They can do that because a dozen different companies don't make motherboards - or even processor chips.

My boyfriend has the old PC of somebody he suggested switch to Mac. It barely runs because it's so laden with Virus software. He uses it to translate the rare file that works only in Windows, like that of the security camera at Whole Foods that showed the guy doing a hit-and-run on my car. Mac is a dream. I have Applecare, 3 years of tech support by phone, but I never call them -- no need -- Apple computers are simply intuitive to operate. I really just have Applecare in case something goes wrong with the hardware. Happened once. They fixed it, free. Having Apples -- iPod, iBook, Shuffle, and this machine -- my gorgeous 20-inch iMac -- is a dream. My experience with PCs comes mainly through my mother's horror stories and the time I was writing something with a partner. We could never find files on her compute (this was in about 1998, I think), because they always got named some weird numerical thing. I've always just named mine whatever I wanted: "syndicatedMay05" for example.

Things are better now. At this point Mac v. Wintel is mostly a religious war, in my humble o. Just pick the one you think looks cooler. Anyway, I use both and I like both. Also, things are better now.

If I may make a totally neutral comment: please be sure you have a subscription to an enthusiast magazine dealing with your platform. Whether you run a Unix variant, Windows, or Macintosh, the editorial staff will have seen everything you could imagine before it pops up and stumps you.

As far as being a "religious war", I agree. Now - who are the *deluded faithful*? I think I've shown that in the above commentary. Where can you find a feature like this? Who issued a "service pack" that *disabled* 15% of its users - including professional accounting firms depending on functionality?

Why do we consider it an indication of actual expertise on your part that you know all the workarounds and special measures to make things work the way you want? It's an indication that you are engaged in wasted effort. Like the mantra, "New is better", the idea is simply wrong.

It's interesting to note that Apple never took a position one way or another on the putative topic of this post, and for that they get a free ride. Meanwhile, Microsoft's lobbyists are now out there slaving away for the homosexualists, but we'll only hear that the Religious Right preachers who actually tell Bill Gates what to do are plotting to round up all the homos and put them in camps.

Radwaste, it's pointless to try and engage you point-by-point because you're such an idiot. I've been designing, engineering, and using personal comoputers as long as they've existed and you clearly don't have the first clue what you're talking about. Viruses, for example, first appeared on the Mac platform and only recently have become more prevalent on the PC platform for the obvious reason that they're so much more numerous. I don't run anti-virus or anti-spyware software, but the Spam killer I use with Outlook is marvelous. Spam, one should note, is platform-independent.

None of the features you crow about are important to people who depend in their computer for important purposes. After using Apple IIs, II+'s, GS's and various Macs, I dropped Apple because I can't stand the way they treat their customers, abandoning platforms that still have life in them because it was too hard for their lame engineers to make the latest software release compatible with the installed base. PC companies value their customers much more than Apple, and for that (and making a superior product that has more options in both hardware and software) they've earned my dollars.

And BTW, it's spelled "ad hominem" and it doesn't mean calling someone an idiot while proving it.

Oh, please. Microsoft is an enormously powerful company, which has a legislative agenda. Apple is a smaller company which doesn't. Radwaste is anything but an idiot, and I, for one, am glad that somebody with his intelligence is in the nuclear waste disposal business.

PS I can't wait to get Tiger on my iMac G5, which is not only an incredible piece of engineering, it looks like a piece of art.

Apple has a Public Affairs department that's devoted completely to lobbying. It was formerly headed by a guy named Dave Barram who left to take a political job in the Clinton Administration. His wife Joan was on the Cupertino Union school board. Apple does have a legislative agenda, and spends lots of money to advance it. Gays rights aren't part of it, and they shouldn't be for any corporation.

The law they're trying to pass in Washington State (where I live) gives gays a cause of action to sue any employer who fires them for discrimination. No employer should support that.

Do you ever post on subjects you know something about?

"Do you ever post on subjects you know something about?"

Richard, please!

You asserted that Apples don't use common peripherals, and I showed everyone else you were mistaken. You also said that Apple sells a pretty box, nothing more - and I showed that assessment to be wrong, too, citing not only functions you do not have in Windows, but also the Virginia Tech supercomputing cluster - which cannot be built faster or cheaper with any other consumer-grade hardware. Didn't you notice?

No.

You just resorted to calling names - although I appreciated the spelling lesson. My fault, certainly.

But. You were wrong on points of fact, Richard, not just as a matter of opinion.

I especially like the part about Apple engineers not caring about their installed base; I already pointed out that Microsoft disabled ~15% of their customers with Service Pack 2. You're just too mad to notice things like that.

No computer system is perfect. Some are more capable than others.

If you'd like to see what processor speeds are when code is optimized for them in a decryption project, take a look at the distributed.net speeds page. Happy computing!

Having just reviewed the processor speeds pages, I have discovered that my wife's "fashion statement" iMac G5 is faster than EVERY PC reporting, whatever their processor speed.

"Viruses, for example, first appeared on the Mac platform and only recently have become more prevalent on the PC platform for the obvious reason that they're so much more numerous."

Sorry, no. The first computer virus was for the Apple II. See this. Of course, the lack of protection and the open architecture of the PC is really what fueled viruses. What, again, was that about posting something and knowledge?

You don't read very well, do you radwaste? Maybe those alpha particles have scrambled your brains. It's an incontrovertible fact that PCs offer more options in hardware and software than Macs do. Many pieces of hardware don't do diddly without a driver, and Mac drivers are scarce even for devices on the PCI bus. And as far as software goes, it's not even close. Apple is strictly boutique.

My comment about Apple's attitude toward the customer wasn't about bugs that unintentionally sneak into release - Apple's had plenty of those, but few people are affected - it was about a conscious decision made by Apple over and over to orphan the installed base. If you were familiar with the history of computers you would have known this.

But as you prefer the closed architecture of the Apple on aesthetic and masochistic grounds, have a ball.

And we have yet another bit of irony.

You obviously missed my statement that I use both platforms daily, or you would not venture the comment about masochism; you still apparently have not noticed what architectures are in use today, because you call Apple "closed".

I find it fascinating that you have made the claim that you design and build PCs - yet you do not recognize that the vast majority of PC hardware is duplicated effort. While you - no doubt - have favorite hardware you will go to extra lengths to include in your systems (including the considerable effort - wasted, of course - deciding or discovering what will and will not work), you discount the existence of hundreds of examples of lesser material.

In short, the majority of PC hardware and programs are copies of each other, or substandard.

I see the "boutique" comment, yet again. Such a pity that you don't know the state of the industry today. I am totally confident in that assessment, because you not only missed my link, you call an architecture which features support by the parent company at all levels of programming "closed".

I really wonder what applications you use, that you need them so badly, to the exclusion of all others, that you endure the constant spyware and virus siege.

I'm not bothered by spyware and viruses, and never have been. This is a crazy argument in any event as neither of these is inherent in a given platform. Only lamers are obsessed by this issue.

You continue to dodge my point about Apple's disregard and outright abuse of their installed base at many junctures in their history.

An open architecture is one in which the critical interfaces are publicly documented and third parties are encouraged to produce independent enhancements. The IBM PC pioneered this concept in the PC market, and Apple has only grudgingly accepted open peripheral bus architectures it was required in order to piggyback on the PC with PCI, USB, etc. Apple would prefer that you buy only from Apple, and they limit your choices.

If you think that the vast majority of PC design is "duplicated" you don't appreciate the role that standard components in both software and hardware have in systems design.

I expend zero effort in discovering what will or won't work; interface standards give me these answers.

In the final analysis, your argument goes like this: "PCs scare me because they offer too many choices."

The USSR must have been your idea of Utopia.

You're still here?

You should spend some of the effort you have expended in name-calling, and in the assertion of fallacies and incorrect information easy to refute, learning about the industry.

As everyone can see, you are behind the curve.