FUCK YOU BILL GATES!!!!

I would continue to rant, but I just got a blue screen telling me your windoze fucked up, now I have to reboot! Damn You!

I have been telling people that this shit is retarded an unacceptable since Windows XP first came out, but people go and buy that shit anyway. And I'm sure people are going to sit back and just go "Well, there's nothing I can do". (Uh, yes fucktards there IS stuff you CAN do. Doesn't mean you have to do it, we all have to choose our battles, but don't bullshit yourself! Oh, and get a Mac!)

Welcome to the Windows Genuine disAdvantage!

I would continue to rant, but WGA just shut me down! (Wait, my Windows 95 doesn't have that WGA virus. Windows 95 is superior!)
 

8/12/2007
"People Ready Business" - That is the slogan for a recent new advertising campaign from Microsoft. What a load. More like "Ready to to rape people raw because it's our business"

Oh, and those crappy proprietary new DOCX and XLSX office 2007 file formats are becoming a serious pain in the ass! This, I think, is throwing a major monkey wrench in to any OpenOffice adoption. Of course, that is what Bill intended. But what surprises me is that there are no really good converters after all this time. There is one from Novell but it requires Mono on Suse Linux, and the .Net runtime on Windows. So nowhere near universal.

5/13/2007
Oh, man Office 2007 is a turd. Moving from Office XP to Office 2003 was a pain but at least all of the BS could be turned off. Microsoft completely changed around the user interface!! They replaced the menu bars with "ribbon" toolbars.

They have been pushing that out at where I work and I have been watching people use it... well, it might as well have been the Japanese version! Nobody can  find anything they actually need. The first thing people started doing was adding their own custom icons to the tool bars! (You can add your own custom buttons the same as previous versions)  Highly undesirable as having users with custom menus/toolbars is a NIGHTMARE to provide remote assistance to.

Now, it seems that once someone is familiar with the new "ribbon" toolbars it is fairly efficient, but Pulldown menus have been around for ages, and this is what people are familiar with. This is the "language" that people "speak" and have "spoken" for more than 20 years.

How about in Office 2009 Microsoft do away with all those pesky other languages and make everybody learn Esperanto? (That is an invented spoken language) Hell, it might actually be more efficient, but people will still want to do things their own way. Heck English is the "standard" language around here but if I listen I hear plenty of Spanish, Chinese, and all kinds of other languages. Hmmm, I shouldn't be giving Microsoft ideas. The scary thing is they have enough power they could do that if they wanted to.

And isn't it nice how they completely changed the Word and Excel document format? Now we have .DOCX files flying around in e-mail - and the typical response when a person can't open them is "just get Office 2007". And now there are many non-MS applications out there that read MS-Word documents, but now have to be "upgraded", if possible,  to read this new proprietary format! (Yea XML yada yada yada, it's just all just a memory dump between brackets) Oh, and since DOCX is the default, users don't think twice - or even once - about saving and sending documents in this format.

3/18/2007
I.... hate... this early... daylight savings time. And energy savings my ASS, our wonderful corporate owned government is forcing us to get up earlier just to give business an extra hour of daylight money making. And of course consumers now have to throw out all their old non DST07 compliant clocks, VCRs, DVD players, computers, and cough up money for new ones. Personally I think the companies/government has too much power when they can just pass a law to force us all get up earlier.

And just by passing a law they created their own mini-Y2K type problem. And for whatever reason Microsoft dragged their feet getting an update out for Windows XP/2003 or something. Last week lots of computers still had the wrong time on them and couldn't just be reset because on corporate networks they usually get reset (using "universal" time) by a central server.

1/28/2007
Ug. It looks like Microsoft Windoze Fista... errr Vista is finally finding it's way to store shelves. So I came across this web site called "Windows Vista - Show Us Your Wow" and I'm thinking to myself "is this another joke/parody web site like SpreadInternetExplorer.com?" Because it looks kind of like the Firefox Testimonial thing from a while back. But right now it has an actual video of Bill on the front page preaching about stuff. So it looks like they want the public to show them their "wow" moments with Vista..... Like "WOW Windows fucked up again!" "WOW! This is the same old shit, only slower", or "WOW my old DRMed music won't play now!", or "WOW, I just gave Bill a whole wad of cash for this heaping pile of dung." or "WOW! I needed a newer version of Flash than my 95 machine will handle so I am viewing this site on my Mac!"

Oh, and now that Vista is out, let's see how soon MS decides to stop activating/reactivating Windows XP. I warned about the dangers of activation before when XP first came out. People see now how easily it can get "deactivated" by changing hardware or getting clobbered in various other ways. 10 or 20 years from now, if not sooner, that 2006 machine will not be an antique... it will be a DOORSTOP! Bookmark my words, it will happen.

10/21/2006
Well, Microsoft finally got around to releasing IE 7. Much in the same way one releases a bowl movement.
So here is my  extensive technical comparison of IE 6 vs IE 7:
 

IE 6	IE 7

2/5/06
IE 7, IE 7, IE 7, IE 7. Why is everybody so obsessed with IE 7?! Well, in all fairness it may have to do with the fact that MS has not released a new version since 2001 while all other browser vendors have been producing new versions like hotcakes - with actual improvements!!!! It actually would be nice if Microsoft would bring their rendering engine in to this century, but as I have explained before they cannot and will not do that because it would "break" all of the older content that relies on IE's fucked up behavior. I'm talking about content not just on the web but IE-only content on CDs and hard drives, often embedded in applications as well as huge corporate intranet applications that were programed buy a bunch of drooling retards.

At any rate the IE 7 beta is crap, and it will not be any better when it is released. Goofing up the GUI to make everyone go "ooohhhh, it's different!" doesn't change the fact that it is evil crap and always will be evil crap.

11/4/05
Well, Firefox has around 10% of the browser share now and some fuckheads think that is **STILL** not enough to warrant correcting their shitty sites to work in anything other than obsolete fucking Idiot Explorer!

And I'm not talking about some backwater geoshittys web site that has gotten all of 104 hits since 1998, Im talking about major banking sites, on-line stores, business web sites, and popular entertainment sites! Those entertainment web sites are really annoying and all of them seem to also want Windows Media Player on Windows 2000 or XP so they can use there  Digitial Restrictions Management in an imaginary attempt to keep people from copying there oh-so-precious videos (like they are worth copying or something) But the others are loosing customers! Would they turn away 10 out of 100 people at a brick and mortar store? How about 20 out of 100 or 50 out of 100? I can't wait until the day NO ONE can access their site and they go out of business because they are too stupid to survive.

Oh, and most likely those people who use Firefox *CHOSE* Firefox, are more sophisticated, and are more likely to be offended when you tell them you don't want to do business with them.

10/22/05
After all these years I would have thought that people would be tired of bundling IE with their shit. Especially since most software these days requires Windows XP or 2000 anyway which all have IE already  (regardless if you want it or not). It also boggles my mind why people feel the need to put software on video DVDs. It is bad enough that this software is always only for Windows but they also bundle IE! Ug.

5/20/05
Well, AOL finally went and did it. Netscape now requires Internet Explorer - and renders with it to! What the is the point? Fuckers who have sites that don't work in Gecko based browsers need to fix their sites or get the hell off of the Internet. But instead AOL has perverted the Netscape brand name and made Netscape 8.0 just another IE shell.

1/30/05
Well, it's official, and Netcraft confirms it too: Internet Explorer is dying! Soon the only place you will see IE in use is in large corporations because of badly designed internal web "apps" that depend on IE's broken HTMLor use obsolete technology such as ActiveX, and of course they are always too lazy and/or stupid to fix them.

In the mean time, please download a superior browser such as Mozilla / Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari, or Konqueror.

10/17/04
Recently they pumped M$ Office 2003 out on all of the computers where I work replacing Office XP. Once again in the long line of pointless MS upgrades I did not hear anything good said about it. In fact it was the same as always these days "I hate the way this new Outlook works", 'This new Office is all screwed up",  "What was wrong with the old version?", "I wish they would stop fucking with our computers". By default Outlook 2003 is configured to display an annoying popup message each time a new e-mail comes in, an ugly metal "chrome" that can not be changed, keeps bugging people about some kind of Office 2003 customer feedback thing in a system tray popup, and the Outlook folder selection bar at the left is much more complicated (in no way that is useful). Oh, and there are no new useful features of any kind. I can't help but wonder how much money was spent on this pushout.

And Microsoft needs to learn that thanks to them and Nazi IT people across the world that average users are actually AFRAID to customize anything - even something as simple as checking check boxes on what are supposed to be one-time notifications for "do not show this message again". They just won't do it!

7/27/04
Damn, haven't ranted in a while. Seems everybody is ranting about something these days.
So, IE 6 was released waaaay back in 2001. There have only been a few small patches but it is the #1 cause of PCs getting fucked by terrorist hijack-ware. No big update is planed until Windows Longhorny is released in a few years. Mozilla 1.7 is hot off the press and has much better rendering abilities, Opera has a new version out, Apple Safari is fairly recent, and Netscape 7.2 is right around the corner. So if you are still using Internet Explorer 6.0.... THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU!? Do you enjoy popups and spyware and viruses? Just download Mozilla and put that old klunky IE browser to rest.

Oh, and about the terrorist hijack-ware that IE users seem to love so much. Back when I first started this site nobody believed me that this would be a problem and they were going on about oh how so great IE was.

Well, fuckit I TOLD YOU ASSHOLES SO!!!!!!!

And BTW, this page is supposed to be hard to read because I say SHIT, DAMN, INTERNET EXPLORER, FUCK, and other naughty words quite a bit so I only want people who really want to read this page to actually read it.

3/12/04
Longhorn this, Longhorn that, why is everybody so freaking obsessed with Windows longhorn! It doesn't have anything new in it that anybody wants, it just has some shiny new theme and everybody is going oooohhhhh and ahhh over this crap like it is soooooo cool. Oh, yea, people still just love anything that starts with the word "Microsoft". ARRRAAAG!

8/9/03
Are the browser wars over? It seems like they are and both sides have lost. MSIE seems almost dead. The solaris version, which really was DOA, has been officially buried along side IE for Windows 3.1 which few people used. The Mac version was just killed off. The current Windows version does not run under Windows 95. Supposedly future versions will no longer be "stand alone" and will not be available for Windows 98, ME, or NT 4. Any future version of IE is a long way off as it is being developed with the next version of Windows.
Netscape got squashed like a bug by AOL after Microsoft paid them off. I bet Bill Gates is cumming in his shorts about that.
Mozilla is still alive and is actually doing quite well for the moment with quite a "grass roots" following.
Opera seems to be holding in there with their commercial web browser.
Konqeror seems to be making some progress, especially now that Apple is interested in using it in Safari now that IE for Macintosh is dead.
I guess from here on out for the immediate future it is just a browser skirmish between an outdated IE and Mozilla perhaps with Opera causing a ruckus here and there and Safari perhaps kicking some butt down the road when it is done.  Since most retards out there are using IE Microsoft COULD eventually use this as an excuse to make people upgrade to newer versions of Windows and if it can get enough people to design for just newer IE then perhaps lock out Mac and Linux users from the web. But that probably won't happen too soon.

5/17/03
Why the fuck does everybody want everything "on the web". That doesn't make sense. Of course people are fucking stupid so it wouldn't make sense. There are some things that just don't belong on the web! And the web just isn't good for some things! You throw a page at a browser and it is going to render however the fuck the browser feels like it. Even if everyone uses the exact same browser pages will still wind up looking different for a whole truckload of reasons! And don't get me started on javascript! ARRAAGGG!!!
So if you want something rendered exactly right, like a complex report or data entry form, or a complex application, IT DOESN'T BELONG ON THE WEB!!!! The web doses not and IS NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT! We have these nice little things called "desktop applications" that can do a wonderful job with that kind of stuff. If you are doing something that fancy on the web you are probably already requiring users to use Windows 98 or a later version of Windows (because you are a retard and  require MSIE 6) so why not give desktop applications a try? Oh, and because they are 20 years old does NOT mean they are obsolete! That means they WORK FUCKING WELL because they have been around, have been extensively developed, the tools are fucking mature, and you have to be a dipshit not to use them! There are even utilities that can take a desktop application and make it accessible to internet users!

Oh, and if it requires IE it is NOT a "Web application". The Web is not IE. What you have created is an "Internet Explorer application".

And Bill Gates: please go head and make Windoze use web pages for everything so I can point and laugh while people doing things the old sane way whip your ass. Same for re-writing everything in dot nyet.

3/27/03
Windows just keeps getting more and more bullshit stuffed in it. Eventually it is going to explode. Software like that needs someone to constantly take a "bullshit chainsaw" to the code and design to keep it sane. Its obvious nobody at Microsoft has done that since Windows 95/NT 4. And the useless shit just keeps piling up.

12/3/02
Why is it that people feel the desperate need to install software using Bill's web browser? Have you dumb fuckers ever heard of downloading? Oh, yea MS actually seems to forbid that. Oh, no downloading that 100meg Windows XP service pack and placing it on a network drive or burning it to a CD and taking it your different computers rather than re-getting it from Bill Gates web site over that shitty little internet connection each time would be soooooo complicated and way too fast.

Oh, and how about these shitty applications that act like they are "Web" applications but only run inside MSIE, which is (for the most part) only available for Windows (I bet the app won't run in MacIE, its probably an x86 active yuckx control). Here is a clue for you folks: When you put an application "on the web" but limit yourself to MSIE and Windows YOU HAVE JUST DEFEATED THE PURPOSE OF PUTTING IT ON THE WEB!

And what was so wrong with the old way? Oh, yea it required three mouse clicks instead of one. Jerks.

11/27/02 - I am getting so sick of bullshit technology it is ridiculous. Every modern technological device seems to want to record and analyze my every move, invade my privacy, sell me something, restrict my actions, and send the results back to microsoft. And there are so many retarded laws being passed it's almost to the point where it is illegal to use your computer for any use that isn't expressly approved by M$. In case you hadn't noticed Microsoft owns half of the government. (The RIAA/MPAA own the other half).
I think I'll dig out my TI-99/4A. (If it isn't illegal to do so. Aw, just throw me in jail).

11/2/02 - Well, the verdict on the punishment is in. M$ is just getting a slap on the wrist. It may look like MS has to do a bunch at first but most of it is stuff that they should have been doing from day 1. And that part where they don't have to give out APIs when they my jeopardize security, well fuck security APIs are the most important parts these days (not that they should be that important, but that is another rant)! And you KNOW they are going to say that somehow everything including the API that makes the speaker go BEEP is critical to the security of Windows. Have I mentioned I hate Microsoft?

10/16/02 - The other day I was watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3, it came to this scene where some guy was typing away on what was obviously a PC/AT 286 (I have a case from one of these, BTW I looked it up and this movie was from 1987). So I can't see the screen but I notice that is has a mouse attached to it so I wonder what is this kind of computer doing with a mouse? (back then most PCs didn't use mice) I sarcastically think to myself "perhaps they installed windows on it.... yea, being so old, Windows version 1!" Then the seen changes to where you can see the screen and I nearly shit my shorts, as I seen on the screen what clearly *IS * Windows 1.0x! (Or at least a simulated picture of it). I could clearly see the minimized MS-DOS executive icon and the green-red-blue-yellow color scheme was unmistakable. It looked like it was running Write displaying some oversized text. It was definitely version 1 because of the green icon area at the bottom of the screen.
Anyway, was this the nightmare they were referring to?

9/18/02 - The other day I saw Bill Gates on CNN or some news channel and he was talking about including some video capture software with Windows and he was going on about how it would only let you view what you recorded on your own computer, and how the ability to view it on other computers you owned would be included in the next version. Anyway that made me sick, only Microsoft could successfully stuff a crippled piece of shit like that down every customers throat and get away with it (what other product did they do that with.... hmmm... I forget.). It's all this Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) junk that the MPAA is trying to get everyone to buy in to and Microsoft just loves the idea. I may have some of the facts wrong as I just caught the end of that, segment, but it makes me want to hop in to a time machine an go back to 1990 with a copy of the Linux source.

Oh, yea and check out this sick web site http://www.trustedcomputing.org/ only when you read it replace the word "trust" with "restriction" which is what they really mean (I'm serious! Look closely at the graphics they use if you don't believe me! What they mean is companies like MS or the MPAA can "trust" your computer to prevent you from copying "licensed" material like movies and software).

9/8/02 - I recently had the opportunity to experiment with IE 5 for the Macintosh. I don't know how they did it but it's "installation" is just dragging a folder in to a location on your hard drive. And un-installing it is just dragging the folder to the trash! This is a huge difference from the Windows version that puts 99% of itself in the Windows system folder. Even IE 4 for the Mac used an installer and put all kinds of  extensions and shit in the Mac system folder. Not really sure what to make of this, perhaps they could port the Mac version back to Windows?

8/10/02  - You know what I can't stand about Microsoft? Everything. If I could just press a button and M$ disappear I would do it. I hate it how people think they need MS (or any) software "just 'cause" and of course don't actually need it. It's always MS software they want because "Microsoft" is somehow a magic word that will solve all of their problems!

I would bet that M$ has something to do with this sudden government mandate that all new TVs have "digital" tuners in them. Hell, MS practically owns the US government now. What are the benefits of "digital" TV signals anyway? Corporate encryption to control what you see and hear and what you are allowed to do with it? Blotchy compression that is (sometimes) worse than junk downloaded off the internet? Slow jerky pictures whenever there is movement in the picture? Incompatible with old TVs without some box (kiss your old pocket TV goodby)? Overly complicated  digital receiving and processing circuitry? This is similar to what MS did, shoving crappy unwanted technology down everybody's throats, it kind of sounds like MS doing the talking and using the government as a dummy.  Give me a good old fashion analog signal any day. BTW, FCC may control air wave allocation, but government has no business telling consumers what to buy.

6/2/02 - When I tried to install the software it said "Requires Internet Explorer 4.0 or better" so I installed Mozilla.

BTW Mozilla totally kicks IEs ass to the moon. If you don't already have Mozilla... why don't you? No more fucking pop-up adds! Completely standards compliant so if a page doesn't render it's the pages fault for being shit!

3/30/02
Well, looks like Micro$oft is doing it again, lying to the public about how they cant remove they're stupid gay web browser or any of the other useless shit they have bundled with Windoze.
They say it would increase their support costs by releasing a stripped down version of windows because it would create more configurations they would have to support. Well, first of all they can fucking afford it. Second of all they don't need a "second version" they only need to fix the existing one. Oh, and how many computers are out there now? Well, I have a news flash for you, that is about the same number of configurations that are out there because each computer is slightly different. And they say that it would cost megabucks and take lots of time to fix windows. Another lie, Most of the work has been done for them by 98Lite. They could just license that. They could fuking afford it.
They say they can't remove their applications because their "OS" depends on them. The kernel certainly doesn't call their stupid media player. Most probably they have applications calling other applications, which is a very bad idea. For example in some places Windows will launch the entire fucking IE browser even when some other browser is the "default". What if IE *CANT* browse the page because the page is non-mshtml or there is a new fanged proxy server in use that doesn't work with IE? No, microsoft doesn't care about what is right or logical, they just want to shove their product down our throat.

3/18/02
I hate computers.
What I hate even more than computers are jackasses who think they know everything about computers when they know less than squat about them.
Oh, and then even a brain dead monkey could get an MSCE. Who the hell needs some piece of paper to certify that they can play with fucking Fisher Price toys?
Oh, and to any Windoze purist: Linux rules you fucking pig!

3/2/02
GRRRRRR..... I have been reading some of the comments submitted to the DOJ about the MS trial and I am really pissed off at how many are pro Micro$oft. I do agree that this trial has gone on too long, but if the trial against the pervert who sexually molested your child went on for years and years (and he gets to walk around freely in the mean time where he actually goes and screws other kids!) would you really just let him go with a settlement that basically says "you will behave your self"?!?!? The way I see it MS should have been nuked off the face of the earth as a punishment from this lawsuit a long time ago.

Also, many seem to think that the lawsuit is not about customers! It is all about consumers! Do you really want to be left with only one choice of OS, browser and office suite? Guess you do.

1/16/02
I blame Microsoft for enabling all those idiots out there to get on the internet. It's partially AOLs fault too, but if people still had to go to extra trouble to get a web browser there would probably be fewer.
I hate the Internet! I hate the mother fucking ass licking internet! Go read a book.
What the fuck has happened to all of the bandwidth!? It used to be you could get unlimited bandwidth for around 15-25 bucks a month, now you can't get shit! In case you have never done the math you can NOT run a successful site on a shitty little 4 gigs of bandwidth per month! Oh, and why the fuck per month? Use up too much at the beginning of the month and your site is down for the rest of the month? That's fucking retarded! Where the fuck do all those big sites get their bandwidth? What about those Linux sites that have downloadable ISO CD rom images?  4 gigs would be about 7 downloads! Do they pay billions for this service or something? And I don't even want to think about how porn sites do it. There are millions of people who may want to see your web site but if just a few thousand visit you get fucked for bandwidth.
In the future there will be no personal web sites. Just huge business web sites. So you won't be able to read rants or opinions like this.

12/01/01
Well, 2001 is almost over so my "Preview Windows 2001" that I made several years ago is now obsolete. Compared to Windows XP my predictions weren't too far off the mark. So much of XP has been "webified" you might as well call it the "Internet Explorer Operating System". They might as well call it "Pages" instead of "Windows" as they seem to be trying to get rid of overlapping windows in favor of web pages.
Microsoft has gotten more involved with PC hardware design. Fortunately they still don't make PCs (Unless you want to count the X Box).
Their browser still isn't bug-free. But browsers these days are such complicated APPLICATIONS that it is impossible to make one without problems.
They haven't put advertising in every single dialog box yet, BUT they are using Windows to push their MSN and Passport shit really hard.
Finally, IE is up to number 6.0.
Oh, yea and I predicted that BOB would be unremovably bundled with Windows 2001. Ya know that little animated dog in XP? THAT IS "Rover" FROM MS-BOB!!!!!!

Since I am ranting, I would like to add that my Windows 95 OSR2 system is still 100% free of that bastard IE browser. But just about every new piece of software out there these days requires IE for at least "hyper help". I'm surprised Netscape for Windows doesn't require IE.

9/16/01
I was just glancing through the AJC and I noticed that every section started with something about the World Trade Center destruction. Until I got the the technology section which had a huge article about Windows XP. How appropriate.

Am I the only one who sees the dangers of "product activation"?

If you are not near a phone and don't have access to an internet connection you can not successfully install XP.

If Microsoft goes out of business nobody will be able to successfully install XP. They may be using this as a kind of insurance.

And the biggest danger is at some point in the future Microsoft could and most probably will refuse to "activate" XP any more to make people upgrade. Right now I can re-install Windows 1.01 released in 1985 or any other version of Windows. This will not be possible with Windows XP or other Microsoft products that require "activation".

Combine this with the fact that after upgrading 3 or more components of your computer's hardware will cause "deactivation" of Windows XP and a real sinister plot emerges. Five years from now you upgrade some parts of your old clunky XP machine, Windows requires you to "reactivate" with MS. MS refuses because they want you to buy the newly release Windows 2006 or whatever they call it. You wind up buying a completely new computer as a result because even with the hardware upgrades Windows 2006 does not run worth a darn on your old computer. Your old computer is toast thanks to XP.

Additionally, they say it is not possible for MS to attach a real-world identity to a single user or computer. But I have a hard time believing they would do all of this unless they somehow could. It is easy to imagine that Microsoft would refuse "activation" so some individual or company they don't like.

4/20/01:
Well, for the last few months I have been having some problems on my machines at work and at home with Windows 95 crashing on me after using Windows Explorer for a while. The thing ran out of resources damn quick! After fiddling with it, I determined that the problem was the COMCTL32.DLL version 5.80 that had been installed by some updator for something. This piece of shit has a huge ass resource leak! I extracted the original Windows 95 OSR2 version (4.70) and all is well again. Thankfully I do not have MSIE installed, because this faulty "update" is mandatory if you install MSIE 5 (It sticks it's nose up and refuse to run if the 5.8x dll is not installed). I also tried version 5.81 of the dll and it did the same thing.

It is simple to reproduce this problem. If you have IE 5 or 5.5 installed (or anything else that installed that DLL) on Windows 95 simply open your C drive, select a bunch of folders with the mouse right-click and select "open" and/or "explore". This will open a crapload of windows, after they are open hold down ALT-F4 to close them all. Repeat a few times and watch the system resources drop. I have not yet tested this with the IE-assimilated desktop, or under win98/ME. (Obviously this won't happen under NT/2000 as NT does not use resources like 95/98/ME does). Note: version 4.72 available from 401comupd.exe seems to work ok.

Anyway, the point is installing IE 5 WILL cause Windows 95 to crash more and now I have proof!!!!!

Am I the first to notice this because I am the last one left in the entire world who browses folders using separate windows?

Oh, and while searching for possible updates I discovered that MS is now referring to COMCTL32.DLL as the "User Experience library". BAAAARRRRRRFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!

Also I discovered that Microsoft Office XP and Internet Explorer 6 will not support Windows 95. I would like to know why in the hell as Windows 95 (ORS2) and 98 are almost exactly the same underneath the hood. There must suddenly be some push to eliminate Windows 95 and older versions for whatever diabolical reason. Heck they had even released IE 5 for Windows 3.1!!!! The above "bug" is probably part of the plot to eliminate Windows 95 by making it look less desirable. (MSIE ain't done until Win95 won't run?)
 

3/4/01:
Haven't ranted in quite a while. I have been busy and I have been trying to avoid new computer shit. However the other day I bought myself a new CD-ROM burner which uses Adaptec Easy CD creator Version 4 -well I try to install it and guess what it tries to install? Yup, Internet fucking explorer. ALL I WANT TO DO IS BURN CD-ROMS!!! WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH WEB BROWSING?!?! Of course I canceled the install and dissected the thing, trying it on a crash test computer with a copy of IE I was dissecting, Adeptec has made the entire damn CD creator look webby and they have this homosexual little animated CD-looking office assistant (MS "Agent" actually) type thing jumping around. Even if I didn't care about IE, the whole damn Easy CD creator 4 program was to gay for me to want to use.

Fortunately I was able to scrounge up a copy of Adeptec Easy CD Creator 3.5 which didn't require IE.

It's getting harder and harder to avoid IE, but I am still managing!

BTW, I heard that MS has changed the name of Windows Whistler (Win2001) to Windows XP. Depending a bit on the font you are using try looking at that sideways: XP  :)   :P  X)

11/12/00
Put together a new computer recently. I am not at all impressed with the Voodoo 5 card. I don't know how this compared to other cards, but I would recommend to anyone looking for video card to try an alternative. First of all.... the drivers want Internet gay Explorer to install! No, not just a warning saying that you must install it later to get hyper help, but the drivers completely refuse to install! Damn disturbing since I was setting up my new system to be 100% IE free. I mean, these are VIDEO DRIVERS!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH WEB BROWSING?!?!? I tried several methods to trick it in to thinking IE was installed without success, but in the end I found a way. (Requires IE my ass!). To get around this silly requirement all you have to do is start the driver setup, browse to the temp folder and open the file IsConfig.INI. Change the text "CheckIE4Installed" and "CheckIE5Installed" to "TestMessage". This way instead of checking for IE it just gives a nice little test message box. Oh, the hyper help control will fail to register (duh), just ignore it.
There are other problems that are not related to IE though - there is video corruption when exiting DOS programs and some programs don't render that great (but they render fast). I had to place the line "set FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL=0" in my autoexec.bat to get my DOS glide programs to work at all - if that is needed why isn't that a default? I only found that by stumbling on it by accident.  I also couldn't find XFree 4 RPMs for RedHat 6.2 (all RPMS on redhats site, including the new RPM RPMs required the new version of RPM to install!) so I wound up having to download and install RH 7 just to get Voodoo 5 support, and so far RH 7 has hosed up twice!

Anyway I am now using a new Athlon 900mhz with Voodoo 5 and I AM STILL IE FREE AND PROUD OF IT!!!

9/14/00
A few jokes about Windows ME's name:

ME operating system? - No, me Nathan.
Windows ME is the most worry free operating system. What ME worry?
Windows Millennium is appropriately named as it is supposed to be the end of the world and all.
Bill Gates originally wanted to call it Windows Bill, but he settled on ME instead.
98Lite for Windows ME could be called Mini-ME.
ME have good time with you hard drive.
Remember, its not about YOU (the user) it's all about ME (Bill).
The new name is an attempt to make users sound stupid to tech support: USER: "ME did something wrong". TECH: "I know you did"
Windows Mellennium - get Frank Black to investigate it.

7/29/00
Hmmm, haven't ranted in a while. Windows keeps me so busy I don't even have time to say anything bad about it!
Seems Windows ME (The next version of Windows based on the Windows 1.x,2.x,3.x,95,98 technology) is just going to have the same UI as Windows 2000  (MS's other OS based on NT 3.x, and 4.0)... whatever that is like. I still haven't gotten my hands on a copy of Windows 2000, but I am not about to run out and give more of my money to Bill.

Yes this page is hard to read... that's intentional. You will have to work a little to read this page. This way you can't accuse me damaging your  fragile little minds. :)

Anyway, here are a couple lengthy rants:
I don't want to live in a world where Microsoft controls the internet! And they practically do already! I personally blame all the idiots who want web browsers to be program environments and do all kinds of fancy crap. All a web browser should be is a simple document viewer, not a fragging operating system! All of these insane features have made it impossible for any one person or small group to write a browser from scratch. Microsoft has been adding to their same web browser since at least 95 while Netscape/Mozilla started a re-write about two years ago and it still isn't done yet!

Unfortunately, Microsoft is the only company in the world who can dump seemingly infinite resources on such a mindboglingly huge project and give the results away for free (not really free, it is part of their OS bundle - you *PAY* for their OS.) Of course they don't care about sharing the web with anyone so they keep adding proprietary crap browsing features while implementing standard browsing features in such a way as to not be standard.

The result is every web site thinks they must do fancy crap that only works in Idiot Exploiter. They then must either maintain two sets of pages (or code in a page), one for IE and one for standard web browsers. Who wants to do that? So, let's ditch IE and only code for standard browsers... oh, but IE doesn't render standard stuff right and since most users are enslaved by MS Internet Evil and there isn't ANY shipping web browser that renders standard stuff 100% properly anyway why not just code for Inter-anal Explorer? ARRRRAAAAGGGG!!!!

Now, if browsers were just document viewers like they were supposed to be originally then anybody could sit down and write a web browser.

Why do web sites try to lock out certain browsers? That is they put in a javascript or something that tells you to go away until you have downloaded some evil web browser. People seem to forget that the original idea of HTML was that it is TEXT with MARK UP codes in it - it was up to the browser to interpret the codes. If your browser didn't support some code then so what? You should still be able to view the content of the page, it just won't look EXACTLY the same on each browser or even each machine with the same browser. IF YOU REQUIRE THAT ALL OF YOUR PAGES LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME ON ALL MACHINES THEN YOU NEED TO PUT YOU PAGES IN PDF OR SOMETHING!!! HTML was never designed to look the same on all machines/browser, so deal with it!

Well, it happened again. We got ANOTHER Windoze 98 computer in at the office that is ONLY to be used attached to a piece of testing equipment. No LAN connection, no internet access, no webby shit needed or wanted! But of course, as usual, Bully Gates refuses to give us any option to remove the stupid web browser which is not needed or wanted - or even any easy option to hide all of the webby shit he has thrown on there. There were also piles of advertising on the stupid thing, even this thing that appeared to be displaying BANNER ADS! (But this banner ad thing was from the OEM, not MS).

4/2/00
Yes! Bill Gates (ok, Microsoft) is officially guilty! Hmmm... now that Bill's bubble has burst, will it still be fashionable to make fun of him? Well, he hasn't exactly lifted his strangle hold on the industry yet and with appeals, who knows he could still hork over the world.

3/31/00
Come on, get it through your heads people, Windows 2000 is NOT, I repeat NOT the successor to Windows 9X!!!!! Windows 2000 is Windows NT version 5, and Windows NT is a completely different operating system than Windows 9X!

3/4/00
Finally got my hands on a copy of Word 2000. The manual states: "You can also choose not to install Internet Explorer 5..."  But nowhere in the setup did I see anywhere you could choose not to install it! Perhaps the option is hidden in there somewhere (yea right) , the custom setup mode is very complicated. Oh, and even if you DO have IE 5 installed it goes ahead and installs extra IE shit like Outlook Excess even if you DON'T FUCKING WANT IT!

What the hell gives with these retarded "WIN"modems??! Reducing cost by lobotomizing the modem?! That's crazy! They use software to control the DSP instead of a controller chip in the modem pushing all of the thinking on to the CPU. What next, reducing cost of video cards by using software to render 3D video instead of hardware? Yea, let's ditch that VooDoo card and go back to that ISA Video 7 VGA 1024i. Sure some companies sill make those, but would you use one for your gaming PC? Then why would you use a Winmodem for your Internet PC? The very least they could do is make Winmodem drivers available for other operating systems besides Windows. As it is you can't even use these things in MS-DOS mode more or less Linux or BeOS.

2/7/00
Well, W2K has been released
Bill is still rich
Microsoft sill holds the PC industry in a strangle hold
People are still stupid

1/1/00
Well, it's year 00...
Lights are still on
Phones are still working
There were no riots or terrorist attacks
The computers are still working (as well as they can with Windows)
No crackers defaced any web sites
All of the traffic lights are functioning
People are still stupid

Bill Gate$ was on Larry King. He was asked about the MS vs DOJ trial several times and each time he just responded that he "didn't know what it was all about". He had better know what the fuck it is about! It is about him forcing all Windows users to also use his fucking web browser. I know he knows, he just can't or didn't want to comment on it there. An interesting way to avoid comment while making people believe he is all innocent.

I DON'T WANT INTERNET EXPLORER!!!!!!!!!!! 19 STATES DON'T WANT INTERNET EXPLORER!!!!!!

12/27/99
Hey BILL GATES! Eat penguin shit you ass spelunker!

While I am at it, why don't manufacturers of ISA/PCI adapter cards ever label their hardware? It's not uncommon for me to get some computer with a hosed hard drive, no documentation, and is full of mystery cards. If I am lucky whatever OS will recognize it, otherwise its off to searching the internet using chip numbers or any other vague markings.

Also why is it that every network card has to have a completely different driver? It's impossible to keep up these things! At the office there must be several dozen different types and I have to keep the drivers for most of them on floppy disks because, of course, you can't install network drivers over the network. Is there some reason why network drivers can't have at least some minimal functionality if no matching driver is found? At least with (newer) video cards you get basic VGA 640*640*16 video if it can't find your drivers.

12/22/99
Why is it that most hard disk manufactures don't think it is important for their drives to be re low-level formatted by advanced users? It seems that most newer IDE drives IGNORE low-level formatting commands issued by generic low-level formatters. That is somewhat understandable as each manufactures these days does "special" stuff under the hood that a generic formatter could not handle - but hard disk manufactures need to provide utilities to low-level their drives. Low-level formatting writes information to the disk that NEVER gets re-written during normal use - and can go bad from magnetic interference or power surges during reading. The only way to fix this is with a low-level format. Otherwise the drive may be unusable. Now, I have heard of some drives trying to do that on-the-fly to fix detected problem, but it is hard to say if this is really going on. In the old old days when low-level formats were always done by the user I saw low-level formats bring dead or weak drives back to life!

11/24/99
I swear, it is part of their conspiracy, Windows keeps me so busy that I don't' have the chance to say anything bad about it! ARRAAG!!!

Hello! I just noticed that AOL has an advertisement for their AOL 5 with Internet Explorer on WWW.NETSCAPE.COM  of all places!!! That is so stupid and evil!  I will never forgive them unless they eventually switch to Mozilla as their web browser.

Web integration is fucking stupid. 10 years from now (or perhaps even sooner) people will look at windows 98/2000 and wonder what the fuck MS was thinking (oh wait, everyone i know has been wondering what MS was thinking since I first showed them a beta of w98!) and the integrated gui will be non-functionl and obsolete!!!!!!!!!!!
Imagine if MS had grafted a com programs on to the win 3.1 IU. It would be obsolete now and we would be asking "why". This is going to happen to windows 98/2000.

In a healthy OS market, Microsoft's web bundling would have been a shot in the foot. Customers would have decided with their dollars that web integration is a bad thing by buying a different OS. Unfortunately, because there is no other viable end-user OS for the intel PC, users got fucked in to having to use MS's BS.

Microsoft keeps abusing the word "innovation". After listening to microsoft FUD it begins to sound like it means shit, as in "I need to go take an innovation" or "Innovation happens".

A while back Bill Gates made a comparison that Windows was to computers like gas is to chars. I was thinking about this and he is right, both are a hazard to the environment and it is time to start considering alternatives.

Why is it nobody gives a shit about standards any more? Microsoft comes out with some proprietary shit and everybody embraces it like it is the best thing in the world - even if it is the biggest pile of horseshit in the world. People are stupid.

IE 5 claims that it is a "system update" How is this? Is it really any different from any other application that overwrites an older version? What if there is no previous version of Internet Explorer on the system? How can it be a "system update" if it only adds major new functionality, none of which was present before? Bill is just planning with words, don't believe a thing he says.

9/3/99
Dern, Bill Gates takes a shit, they throw a label on it and market it as an web browser... go figure.  Hell, they couldn't even give that piece of crap away so they had to force people to take it by bundling it with Windows and making it uninstallable!

8/29/99
When was the last time M$ released an update to anything that actually improved performance or made some part of Windows easier to use? Updates from M$ are like "this fixes a serious problem in windows, but causes something else to crash" or "this update adds a new feature that you won't want but must have in order for new MS software to work". Occasionally their marketing hype mentions "faster and easier to use" but prepare to be disappointed big time.

8/25/99
Plug-and-play monitors piss me off. To get the correct refresh information from the monitor, the computer actually has to talk to the monitor... which means the monitor must be ON while the system is booting or else it will default to some shitty refresh rate for compatibility. And with Windoze usually the only way to get the right refresh rate back is to reboot!

8/20/99
Downloaded the latest copy of Mozilla the other day. I noticed they are now using custom drawn menus (in the Windows version anyway) in their chrome. I duno if I really like that, but I just wanted to say that I think they are justified in doing this and I would like to point out that Microsoft has already done this in their own products. If Windows 2005 has translucent menus or something, Office 97 will still have the same old boring Windows 98ish menus. Unless I am mistaken, IE 4/5 and any other programs that use a dragable menu bar do the exact same thing too.

6/17/99
I finally got a chance to load up RedHat Linux 6.0 with the "KDE" desktop... I can't believe the crazy thing, it's got built in web browser! And it seems to be "integrated" in the same way IE is in 98. What pisses me off about this the fact that everybody else is integrating or including their own web browsers with their OSes suggests that what M$ did was right, and totally smashes the DOJs case against them.
At least Linux users have a choice of desktop shell / window manager. TWM anybody?

6/5/99

Is this evil or what? This is what you get when you try to install IE 4 on Win98. They come right out and tell you that the uninstall feature is "disabled". I wonder why it is disabled? Oh, no reason.. just to FORCE YOU TO HAVE THIS SHIT!

Here is another rich one. One of the help files telling me how I HAVE to have that stupid browser. And what if someone NEEDED one of the older versions of Internet Explorer? Dual boot! Hell, you can run ANY version of Netscape Navigator with any other version and have as many different installations as you like, all under one operating system! Actually, the same is true for just about any other non-microsuck browser.

6/1/99
What is my problem with internet explorer? It is not that it exists, it is how how bill has made it unremovable from Windows 98 and welded other products to it. As the local support person I need to be able to choose what applications are and are not installed on the computers. And Bill Gates is going to have to physically come over to my house and lobotomize me before I believe that IE is not just an application.

5/15/99
ARRAG! The other day I loaded up Redhat Linux 6 on my computer at work and it installed the GNOME desktop, which isn't too bad, except that GNOME file manager looks too much like the Windows 98 "Integrated" explorer. It also had a bunch of default shortcuts that try to start Netscape and get important info from the web - just great when I haven't gotten the network card set up yet. Thank goodness there is a choice of desktop/window managers out there for Linux. Anyway, this got me thinking as to why it is that other GUI developers keep copying whatever M$ does. I am sure that part of it is because they expect there users to be familiar with Windows, and mimicking Windows will help ensure that users can user their new GUI. But my problem is when they copy bad ideas such as web integration or the appearance of web integration - That's just lame!

5/12/99
The normal GUI is designed for people who have a few brain cells, but don't have the time to learn the internals of a computer system. It is designed to allow the user to get work done with minimal distraction from the computer itself. The ultimate goal of a GUI is to give the user simplified control over the computer.

Windows 98 is designed for people who can't tie their own shoes. It is designed to slow down the user and make them look at Microsoft advertising. The ultimate goal of Windows 98 is to make Microsoft a lot of money.

The next consumer version of Windows (if indeed you can even call it "Windows" any more because 90% of it will be IE) will be designed around what Microsoft thinks is cool, totally ignoring what the users need or want. Bill Gates will be overheard saying "hu hu hu, users suck."

5/7/99
I hate bill gates. Why doesn't bill crawl into a corner and die. His body will decompose and turn in to ie 4. I'll tear his head off and feed it to my butt.

5/2/99
What gives with these fucked up power blocks? The other day someone brought in a laptop that not only had the electrical plug mounted directly on the power block but the plug STUCK out about an inch! Plug it in to a wall outlet and the block will pull the plug down and possibly OUT. Plug it in to a floor socket, and it will tilt down slightly exposing the electrical connectors! I have dealt with many power blocks that have the plug right on them and cover needed outlets on power strips, but this one was ridiculous! I would like to know what the engineer who designed this one was smoking! Or did his pointy haired boss make some "design suggestions"? :)

4/24/99
I have thought about this many times before, but it occurred to me again exactly how 1984ish MSIE really is. In Windows 98, not only is this useless program uninstallable (as if we didn't need choice) but YOU CAN'T EVEN TURN IT OFF!!! (Even with TweakUI you can only turn off part of it) All you have to do is double-click on "My computer" and there the damn thing is! The only way to really turn it off in Windows 98 is to swap out the shell with the Windows 95 one, and Bill frowns on that - selling a version altered in this way is probably illegal. Imagine, you could get years for turning off IE.

4/21/99
People who uninstall Netscape in favor of IE makes me sick. Real sick. These people are evil drones.

4/15/99
Ha ha try this IE lovers: Go to altavista and search for "best viewed with internet explorer" and count the number of matches. Then scan for "best viewed with netscape" - BIG DIFFERENCE!!! HA HA HA HA!!! Proves my point that the majority of the web is still designed for Netscape.

4/7/99
I have decided that I will continue to use Alta Vista search despite their idiot plugging of bill's evil browser, but in text mode only. Ha! No stupid advertisements at all. I wonder how long it will be untill they remove that option. They would. If not then Microsoft will make them.

Windows and IE - Two bad things that go worse togeather!

4/3/99
It's a damn shame that Netscape couldn't make one cent off of their browser while M$ is still raking in the dough from their web browser! It's part of Bill's operating system, so whenever you pay for Windows you also pay for IE. Additionally the downloadable version is, according to Microsoft, just an "OS update".

M$ has put all of the money it makes from Windows into development of its stupid web browser and not in to its operating system. Aside from the web browser there are only a few minor enhancements in Widows 98 over W95 OSR2. A slightly better defragger, a cleanup manager, slightly better hardware support, a few other extra bundled applications and that is about it.

4/2/99
Office 2000 will require IE 5 be installed. What do I need a FUCKING web browser for in order to edit a document? Create a database? Edit a spreadsheet? Put together a presentation? I suppose Outlook 2000 will use it for reading HTML e-mail. Still I can sort of understand shipping the browser with Office 2000 and making it an optional component that might add a FEW internet related options to some of these programs. But making it mandatory? Fuck no.

BILL WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?!?!?! If the DOJ doesn't kick your fucking ass off of this planet, then I can only assume that you have BOUGHT the DOJ!

BILL!!! BILL!!! I don't want your stupid browser! Get it off of my machine! If it is so fucking integrated then how can 98Lite exist? Why do you feel you need to dictate your insane "web integration" beliefs on all of humanity?

3/31/99
I was just wondering what the future will really hold. What if the world really comes to accept Bills evil "integrated" browser? I doubt the world has any choice but to do that. We will surf the Microsoft Internet using a Microsoft browser visiting Microsoft sites while drinking Microsoft Milk and everybody will be happy because they have no clue that alternatives ever existed.

What if Bill removes his web browser (if we are lucky the DOJ will order this), and then tries to sweep this huge ass mistake under the rug?. Microsoft could do it too. Will the browser wars be forgotten? To me it should rank right up there with WWI and WWII.

3/29/99
So Microsoft is reorganizing to focus more on consumer needs? More likely customers wallets. Microslop has spent so long focusing on the extraction of money from consumers that I find it hard to believe that they could change.

3/27/99
Microsoft Telletubbies!?!?!!? (sp?) Do I even NEED to say anything about this? Bill Gates, Barny, and the Telletubbies are all demonic creatures from hell so I guess it kind of figures that they would team up.

3/22/99
M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D M-S-I-E F-O-A-D!! Couldn't get this chant out of my head. MicroSoft Internet Explorer Fuck Of And Die!!!!!!

3/21/99
Well, I have been crash testing a copy of IE 5, and I can tell you that it is evil too. I did make some interesting observations: Eavie the Evil "e" has been removed from many of the icons. For example the control panel applets is back to being a world icon and the throbber now has a windows logo. What could this mean? It probably means that they no longer believe that they need to force users to see "hey you are using IE and don't you fucking forget it!" since nobody can compete with an illegally "integrated" browser. Also, there is no integrated desktop, but who would notice since most of the retards who would have installed that have already done so with IE 4 or Windoze 98. And why is JAVA optional? So you can continue to use the earlier messed up version if you already had IE 4? Also what the FUCK gives with that "Help for Netscape users" in the help menu, it's IE users who need help!!!
Anyway, IE 5 is just IE 4 with a few less bugs and a few new bells and whistles. Same old evil browser, same old conquest to take over the internet.
Oh, I guess this does give Windows 98 users a choice. Either keep the mandatory IE 4 or get the "Windows component upgrade" to IE 5, which they will be expected to do or new M$ software won't run. Still no option to remove IE compleatly. What a fucking load of shit, being dependent on a web browser is like being dependent on crack! Will somebody please stick Bill's head in a blender and turn it on!
Also the text in the installer and uninstaller arrogantly act as if IE has ALWAYS been a part of Windows by telling you that is "upgrading" an existing IE or "restoring the previous version of Internet Explorer" even when none existed!!

3/19/99
Damnit Bill!!!! IE is an APPLICATION not part of you FUCKING operating system!! It's an application! AN APPLICATION!!!!
Hmmm... Just noticed, looks like altavista has been assimilated. Nazis changed their netscape banner to a messy banner. Figured this would happen eventually since Digital was bought out by Compaq, which has Microsoft dick way up their ass.
 

3/18/99
Well, I was thinking should M$ have the right to "innovate". Duh, yes. Should they have the right to weld a browser to their operating system? Well, yea but they should use a little bit of common sense and see that users don't want that. I mean, the Ford motor company has the right to put huge tail fins on all of their vehicles that are so large that the bodies of the vehicles scrape the ground  when they move.  Of course if Ford did that they would drive themselves out of business because people would go elsewhere for cars that weren't fucked up. Microsoft, however has people so addicted to their products that they virtually have a monopoly. Still, think for a moment hasn't there been a significant increase in Macintosh sales and Linux usage lately? And more applications developing for non M$ OSes? Get the picture dumasses, you are slowly putting yourselves out of business because users don't want your fucked up product! Get a clue and remove IE from Windows and you dildos might be able to get back to ruling the desktop.

3/16/99
It just occurred to me why Dell Computers usually use the ctrl-alt-enter key sequence to enter their cmos setup. Just imagine the confusion if they did like AMI bios and on bootup displayed "Hit DEL if you want to run SETUP".  :)

3/6/99
Why is it that every idiot feels the need to put a button on their web page linking to MSIE? Hell, or even Netscape for that matter? I mean, THEY ARE READING YOUR SITE, THEY HAVE A WEB BROWSER ALREADY! Unless the person is some kind of M$ worshiper, or on the other extreme, a M$ hater (like me), there is no need for these buttons. It's just excess advertising and it even distracts users from the content of the site!

Does M$ FartPage automatically put these buttons in there? (I don't use that crappy program).  I have heard of Micro$oft offering bribes of one form or another to users who did put links to M$ or IE on their page or even putting Internet Exploiter viewable content only in their page. That is just royally evil.

3/2/99
Windows 98 is a piece of fucking damn ass shit! I can't emphasize that enough. One of the departments in my office bought themselves a new computer, which of course came pre-fucked up with Winfuckingdoze 98. This computer is being connected a a piece of testing equipment TO GET WORK DONE. It is NOT going to be connected to any network at all, and if it were to be connected to the office LAN we would NOT use the evil Internet Explorer shitware.

Anyway, I only noticed this computer because they had called me back there to load some software on another computer and while I was back there they were complaining about how this computer has all of this internet stuff that they didn't want on it. In case you are wondering, "they" in this case are a couple of typical joe-blow users who know how to click the mouse, but not much more and even they realized that what was going on was wrong. Anyway I spent about an hour unfucking and cleaning up Windoze 98 so they could get their work done without being bothered by Bill's damn browser or advertising. And I happen to know where all the damn settings are! And there are DOZENS of them!

Steps I took to unfuck the damn computer:
1: Resist urge to smash the computer with a sledge hammer.
2: Hide toolbars, location bar, and the directory bar. Turn off "View as web page". Select view - "like current folder"
3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 several times on different folders because view - "like current folder" does not apply settings to all folders.
4: Remove fucking web page from background and THEN turn off active desktop. (won't let you turn it off until you do).
5: Delete advertising from channel bar. Close the channel bar and tell it not to start again. Delete the advertising in the c:\windows\web folder. Delete contents of c:\windows\favorites. Delete unwanted icons from desktop (IE, MSN, Online Services, etc.)
6: Go to Add/remove programs in the control panel and remove internet related items and reboot. Now where is the option to remove IE 4? Oh, fuck, that's right, Bill won't let me do that! BILL!!!!
7: Install Netscape Navigator from CD (because this is not connected to any network) just so they have a REAL browser to use just in case they happen to need to open a local HTML document.
8: Re-install Netscape Navigator and mess with file associations several times because I accidentally clicked on something that launched IE and it took over the URL file associations again and for some reason refused to let Netscape take them back.
9: Broke out TweakUI 98  and told it to disable as much of Web bullshit as possible. Now the desktop properties look like normal.
10: Swear at the evil Bill as this is all I can do short of installing 98Lite or Win95 without IE 3, which I would have done if it weren't for the fact that technically this computer is not my direct responsibility since it was not purchased through the computer operations department.

Windoze 98... it ain't so great.

2/24/99
Pentium  III serial number? What gives with that?  I mean how could anybody really use it?  Something to uniquely identify a user would mean every computer or user must have this unique ID.  Only users of PIII cpus are going to have this serial number. There are plenty of Non-Intel, Pentium, Pentium 2, 486s and even a few 386s on the net. You can't use this to ID anyone if not everybody has it. So will sites deny access to non PIII users?

And if you did use a CPU SN to identify somebody? Well, what if they upgrade the CPU or swap CPUs with someone else? Anybody think of that?

Many brand-name computers store serial numbers in their system BIOS. Each brand is different, but still these could potentially be used for some kind of identification.

What if you use a multi-cpu system?

I think, and I hope, that even if this serial number exists, that nobody will use it because it just really isn't practical.

2/22/99
Floppy disks!? Floppy drives?!! What the hell do we need these pieces of shit for!?!?! They are so fuckinig ***S*L*O*W***!! I have been trying to load some messed up diagnostics from multiple floppy disks and I have been re-loading and re-loading over and over and they take forever! Arrraggg! And they are unreliable! Just about every day some poor slob brings in a floppy disk that has been physically damaged and they will bitch and whine at me about how they absolutely must get that life-and-death critical information off of that disk. Oh, and just about every other day also, someone wants to put that 20 meg PowerPointless presentation on to a floppy disk. Duuh, it won't fit Beavis. Hm hm hm, It's got to fit somewhere... maybe your butt! Course they don't know how to use Pkzip and Windoze doesn't know how to split files automatically. They could use a network drive, but they don't even know how to log in... well, that's another rant. The floppy drive technology has not changed in OVER 20 years! Perhaps a little smaller, but its exactly the same technology used on old 8" floppy drives. Same MFM encoding, same 80 tracks, same 500k bit data transfer rate. IBM introduced a 2.88 meg format using 1000k bit/sec and 80 tracks, but it never caught on. this was about this same time as their microchanel flop. And you wonder why iMacs don't have floppy drives. Because floppy drives suck!

Sad thing is I can tell you EXACTLY why PCs have to have them! You can't boot from anything else, that's why. Most PCs only know how to boot from a floppy disk and the *first* hard disk. If you are lucky a really new system will boot from a CD-ROM, and it usually emulates a floppy disk to do that trick. And don't get me started about "dynamic disk overlays" like EZ-DRIVE (up the wall) or ON(off)TRACK Disk Manager. Boot from a clean floppy and NO HARD DRIVE! I have heard rumors of some BIOSs supporting bootable Zip drives, but I can't help but wonder how that works. Anyway, BIOS has to jump through zillions of compatibility hoops in order to make any device boot. And a Mac or other SCSI bases system (well, not SCSI PC systems which have to EMULATE INT 13 bullshit), can just boot from any SCSI block device. Doesn't matter if it is a Zip, Jazz, CD-ROM, Bernoulli, or a hard drive.

Anyway Floppy drives suck.

2/19/99
Who was the fuckhead who invented those "trayless" CD-ROM drives!? I mean, sure it is nice that there is no tray for the users to break off and the CD just sliding in to the slot is kind of cool, but did they happen to think how many idiot users would try and put FLOPPY DISKS in these drives?!! Damn! Once when I wasn't looking *I* almost put a floppy disk in one of these CD drives! At least it looks like those may have just been a passing Compaq fad.

2/18/99
Manuals?! We ain't got no stenkin manuals? Oh, sure put all of the help on line where the users can't get to it because they have not yet learned how to click a mouse! Oh, so how do I click a mouse? See the online help!! Just click start-programs-helpsystem-mousehelp then click "find" (that looks like a picture not a button, but it is a button) then click the topic and then double click on the icon for the sub topic, locate the help window that is jumping around the screen get some medication to deal with that paper clip eyeing you. Of course Windoze and Orifice is so damn complicated that any manual would be 400000 pages, not including the advanced user programming guide which would kill every tree on earth if printed. And you know what happens whenever I show a luser the on-line help? Duuuhhh they PRINT IT OUT!! All one zillion pages! Why not just save some toner for us and include some damn manuals!

1/27/99
I finally got a chance to install 98Lite! It is sweet! The Win 95 user interface on the Windows 98 OS just ZOOMS! And it works too! Bill gates is being a complete dickheaded asswipe for not letting users choose not to install his phucking browser! 98Lite speeds up the system enough that that old P200MMX with 48 megs ram suddenly seems like it doesn't need to be upgraded to a PIII750mhz CPU with 512megs of ram.
Yes, there are a few minor bugs in this mode, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Microsoft may have put them there on purpose to "discourage" people from using other user interface shells. Unlike the implanted "bug" in the Windows 3.1 beta, (that gave an error message if run on a non-microsoft version of DOS) Microsoft left these bugs in the final product.

1/26/99
IE 4 is the biggest piece of SHIT I have ever had the misfortune of seeing! It is probably one of the few APPLICATIONS in the world that is actually incompatible with HARDWARE. That thing fucks up royally on our Compaq Armada 15xx laptops! Of course I keep telling these idiots to use Netscape Navigator, because I have NEVER seen Netscape Navigator cause any kind of hardware incompatibility, or software incompatibility for that matter!
It makes me physically ill to think that Microfuckheads is forcing OEMS to bundle this piece of trash, and it is UNREMOVABLE in Windows 98! (Or at least BILL doesn't give us that option) Jeeezzzz!!!!

1/22/99 (more)
More ranting on the USB conspiracy...
If network interface card (NIC) manufactures followed the same driver development path that USB has then they would be out of business!
Even BRAND NEW NICs come with drivers for more than just Windows 98!!!!!! Most come with drivers for Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows for Workgroups, DOS,  and Novell! Many others have drivers or at least boast compatibility with other systems such as SCO Unix or Digital Pathworks.!
In fact, I just looked at the drivers for my CHEAP ASS little ethernet card I got for my computer and it comes with the following:

Directory         Contents
---------         ---------------------------------------------------------
\AT&TUNIX         AT&T UNIX Driver Program
\LANTASTI DRV     Lantastic Driver Program
\MSLANMAN DOS     Microsoft LAN Manager Driver Program for DOS
\MSLANMAN OS2     Microsoft LAN Manager Driver Program for OS/2
\NDIS             NDIS driver program
\NETWARE          Novell NetWare version 3.x ,2.x and 4.x(ODI driver included)
\NT31             Microsoft Windows NT driver program
\NT35             Microsoft Windows NT advanced server program
\PCNFS            Sun PCNFS
\PKTDRV           Packet Driver Program
\SCOUNIX          SCO UNIX Driver Program
\SETUP            Setup & Diagnostic program
\SOLARIS          Solaris UNIX Driver Program
\UNIXWARE         UNIXWARE Driver Program
\WFW311           Microsoft Windows for Workgroups
\WIN95            Microsoft Windows 95
\NBIOS            NetBIOS program

Now if only USB had support like this!!!! BTW, I don't know if anybody has been doing this (haven't looked at cards lately) but perhaps NIC vendors should advertise Linux compatibility.

Anyway, I was trying to look for some updated Windows 95 drivers for a VIA Technologies USB port, but strangely (or not so strange if you know what M$ is up to) they were no where to be found. And the only add-ons for it were for... Windows 98! They, and the rest of the USB industry ought to be ashamed of themselves.

BTW, I had successfully installed M$'s USB add on to Windows 95 (that only works on OEM Windows 95, not the one available in stores) and had it RUNNING with a USB scanner, but the image was intermittently "tearing". And it doesn't work right in Winshits 98 either!

1/22/99
Well, did something interesting today. I had noticed that my dos apps report the version of DOS that is bundled with Windows 98 as being MS-DOS 7.10, which is also the same version number as what comes with Windows 95 OSR2. I had Windows 98 on a test computer, and I was getting ready to wipe it anyway, so I stuck in a Windows 95 OSR2 boot disk, booted the floppy and ran SYS C:. I then removed the floppy and rebooted.

"Starting Windows 95..." appeared...
The Windows 95 boot logo appeared...
Then the Windows 98 desktop appeared... go figure.

I thought this was funny as it partially proved that nothing had really changed between 95 and 98 other than IE 4. An in case you don't know, Windows 9x rides on top of DOS like Windows 3.1 did. (To illustrate, you can count the number of VDMs open in the system monitor and it will always be at least one, even when there are no DOS boxes open.)

Anyway, the Win 95 and Win 98 dos files are not exactly alike, the Win 98 version has had all references to "Windows 95" changed to "Windows 98". In my opinion it should have had its internal version number changed to MS-DOS 7.11 or something like that.

1/20/99
A secret internal Microsoft document was uncovered today entitled "To Serve Customers". It turned out to be a cookbook. Microsoft is bad, very bad. Bill eats users for breakfast and competing corporations for lunch. If Microsoft did what they did in any other industry, they would have been broken up and thrown in jail a long time ago.

1/16/99
I was helping this person who was trying to get some files off of an old 386sx to put on a Pentium computer that a friend had given her. The new computer had been "upgraded" to Windows 98 (some f$@$@ friend). Anyway, she was complaining how much more complicated Windows 98 (and this particular computer) was from Windows 3.1 (installed on the 386sx).  I had to agree. This computer was loaded up with all kinds of software, and the computer had extra video capture/tv tuner and other multimedia stuff that she didn't need or want. Anyway to start a program from the Start menu, I had to wait for it to scroll through tons of items in programs menu. Not to mention that mandatory "enhanced" desktop with folder viewing options out the wazoo.

1/6/99
Windows 98 is shit!
And just think, I rather LIKED Windows 95! (and still do)! I installed 98 on a test computer and I honestly could not find much that that changed since Windows 95, except for that evil IE 4 permanently borged to the user interface. Faster my ass! All of those "animated" pop-up menus and, scrolling list boxes, and the fact that it has to load IE 4 every time you double-click on "My Computer" all makes it the biggest flaming piece of shit I have ever seen. Before Windows 98 I was enthusiastically recommending people buy a Windows 95 PC, but now that Windows 98 and IE 4 are pre installed on every PC, I would recommend otherwise.

Not that there is any real choice.

To run popular software you have to have Windoze! Windows NT Workstation 4 will still be around for a little while, but not for long. NT 4 is not "integrated" in to any stupid web browser yet. If IE 4 happens to be pre loaded, at least it can be uninstalled.

After that though, the best runner up for the average user is the Mac. Microevil forces Apple to bundle IE 4.x on their Macs. Mac users clearly don't want it, why else did Bill get booed when it was announced?

For advanced users, Linux is clearly the choice though.

1/5/99
USB is a CONSPIRACY!
Where is the USB support for Windows 95? Only Windows OSR2 can support USB! And can you BUY a copy of Windows 95 OSR2 at your local computer store? Probably not. Of course they probably would try to sell you a copy of IE 4... I mean Windows 98. Windows 95 OSR2 is only available from OEMs to be sold with new computers. So before Windows 98, you could not just walk in to any store and buy a version of windows that supported USB. (Or Fat32). And many computers were shipping with USB ports! And no drivers! Why! Why couldn't the vendors provide their own drivers?
Do video card manufactures wait for MS to write drivers for their cards? Oh, you can only use 640*480*16 until Windows 2000 comes out... Hell no.
Yea, I know they are somehow "integrating" this support in to the windows kernel and uses WDM support, but did it really need to?
Speaking of kernels, on Linux all you would have to do to add support for a kernel level driver is update the kernel! Not upgrade the entire OS and application packages.
Anyway I suspect Bill somehow pushed vendors to sell computers with this unsupported piece of hardware so he could later sell people IE 4... I mean Windows 98 just to get that support.

12/23/98
I just had a really fucked up nightmare last night.

I dreamt I was a system admin for a large corporation with thousands of computers. I was somehow monitoring disk activity and process activity on all of the PCs and was horrified to see copy after copy of Netscape Navigator being uninstalled right before my eyes! I tried to save a few by locking files on some PCs, and somehow terminating the unstaller on others, but it was no use... I then went to this person (a boss I guess) and asked about what just happened. The person explained that they just announced to all users that they needed to uninstall Netscape Navigator, and ran this crap by me about how "multiple browsers were a problem in the work place and a waste of hard drive space". I didn't get a word in edgewise, but I was wanting to tell the sack of shit that the real problem was Microsoft not allowing users to remove Internet Explorer.

The scary part was when I woke up, I realized this really wasn't so far fetched.

• Bill lied about Win95 OSR2 not being able to boot up if IE 3 was removed. I have been installing OSR2 WITHOUT IE 3 for quite a while on a number of machines and they ALL WORK GREAT!
• Bill lied about IE 4 being "integrated" with Windows 98. (SEE THE 98LITE SITE!) Ok, it IS integrated in to the SHELL, but THAT IS IT! AND I HATE THAT "ENHANCED" SHELL!!!!!
• Just about every Windows 98 ad is a lie. Saying it will make your computer sing and dance when it will really make your computer groan and wheeze. (98 would actually be a little faster than 95 if it weren't for that FUCKING IE 4!)
• He claims his products are bug free. HA HA HA HA!
• He claims everything he does is "for the benefit of the consumer." the majority of the consumers would yell and scream about what he is doing if it weren't for the fact that 90% of computer users don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Well, lets see. End lusers just smile and drool, Experienced computer uses are screaming bloody murder about IE, corporate IT professionals ban or at least dislike it, the DOJ it bitching about it, 20 states are suing... Well why is that?

Oh, I don't know! Why could this possibly be? Perhaps users don't want that piece of shit on their computers damnit!

This tells me exactly how "integrated" Bill thinks his browser is! If you install anyone else's browser his OS and application programs won't work. I suspect that this is just an early example of a typical problem that we will see much more of in the future. I expect that in Windows 2001 or perhaps even as soon as NT 5 that if you install any other browser as the default browser, Windows and microsoft applications will refuse to work properly.

Anyway I did get the IE 4 shell installed by running the non-web based version of the IE 4 setup directly from the IE 4 folder on the Outlook 98 CD. What a fucking mess.

What the HELL is it with these right-handed only mice!? Not everybody is right handed guys! I am left handed damnit! We got some new mice at the office that have this gay little "feature" button on the left side. What am I supposed to press it with? My pinkie finger? Some people just don't think...

Microsnack Bendows 98 is bullshit!

Active X is dangerous bullshit!
Bill Gates is a goofed up goat and a son-of-a-bitch!
So, im just sitting at a Windows NT 4.0 SP3 server with a relatively fresh install. All of a sudden there is a "dr. Watthefuckson" error in EXPLORER.EXE and explorer re-starts. I have to log off and log back on before the icons in the system tray show up again. This is a MISSION CRITICAL SYSTEM and the EXPLORER shell is faulty?!?! DAMN BILL TO HELL!

Ohh Windslows and its frickin plug-and-pray make me so damn mad! I spent most of an entire day trying to install an ISA PNP adapter in to an old PNP compatible P90, well plugged it in and... NOTHING. Big surprise. Ran add new hardware, it detected it and installed drivers, rebooted... "your network adapter is not working properly!" WHAT?!?! It just detected it! Why wont it work? Well, grabbed an updated driver from 3COMs web page and tried that. The new driver installed, configured the card, said everything was A-O-K. BOOM, still won't work. Then I looked in device manager to check the settings, everything looked ok on the network card, but I noticed the SCSI adapter was not working.... duh, same interrupt! What? there are plenty of free interrupts these are PNP devices, isn't the BIOS supposed to... oh never mind. So, I set the configuration manually. I rebooted several time to make sure the settings would stay, tested  out network access. Well , finally I got it to work! Success? I thought so.

A couple of days later the user complained that computer would not connect to the network. Took a look and all of the network settings were gone!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!? On closer examination it appears that Windows 69 <<finally>> decided to see the card as a Plug-and-Play device and changed the settings. My manual settings didn't work anymore so it just wiped them all out! Well, re-installed the driver in plug-and-pray mode and it seems to be working for now. $$*##$&@@&@ It wouldn't have been so bad if I had not had to spend all of that time waiting on Windows 95 to slowly re-extract driver files and reboot.

Not really M$'s fault, but..: I have these Xircom credit card ethernet+ modem 33.6 disks. 3.1 drivers are on disk 1  "Installation disk - type a:setup" 95 drivers are on disk 2 "network drivers disk" it does not state anywhere on the disk what disk is for what operation system. The Win 3.1 drivers when installed will crash and bugger up win95. The proper way to install the drivers under win95 is to let it detect "standard modem" then update from the device manager. With no instructions the idiot user will stick disk 1 in, run setup and hose their system.

In fact I am sick and fucking tired of all of the Windows 3.1 drivers companies (especially HP) try and pass of as Windows 95 drivers. We just bought a brand new top-of-the-line Net workable HP Deskjet 1600CM and does it come with Win 95 drivers? NO! Just 3.1 drivers that are "compatible" with 95. Result: 1600CM Drivers can not be automatically downloaded over the network, they have to be installed individually on each PC. (We wound up using M$ provided Deskjet 1200 drivers instead - with poorer image quality). Heck, at least the 600 series drivers PRETEND to be 95 drivers by offering tabs in the printer properties. On the other hand, their laserjet drivers are usually decent.

Why is scandisk so $%%## slow? old norton 4.5 DT zooms on disk testing!

Why is it that when copying files from a bad disk (and yes bill, they still go bad) that Windows will simply STOP when it hits an unreadable file complaining that "windows can not read from the specified device". What happened to abort, retry, fail? Oh, yea, users were to CoNfUsEd by that. Now users are all pissed off about data loss.

Please wait while Windows starts
Please wait while Windows shuts down
Please wait while the program loads
Please wait while your computer crashes
Please wait while microsoft gets a clue
Please wait for the next great release of Microsoft Windows

Damnit and what the hell is with the desktop icons!? Every couple of days taco Bill rearranges them the way HE wants them. It just teats the positioning like any other folder... and LOOSES it after a while. DAHM!

Visual basic? FUCK THAT. I do a little bit of programming in VB 3. I thought VB 3 was bloated because it always required a several hundred K DLL file, even for a hello world. Try VB4. Yuck. MEGS of required DLLS just for hello world. VB 5 is a bit of an improvement, but its still a pig. With most languages and compilers you would expect new versions to generate FASTER code! Not the case with MS stuff.

And what the HELL gives with the "crash keys" on keyboards now days? I walk in to the local computer store to get a new keyboard for my Linux box, and all of the keyboards have these little gay keys on them with the evil Microsoft logo! Sure, I know they are for brain dead users who can't figure out CTRL-ESC. There was also this one brand (NMB I think) that had one of those wussy keyboard-warning messages PERMANENTLY PRINTED on the keyboard. I can understand leaflets and stickers, but what if I am not a wus and do not want to see that gay message? Don't even get me started about those <aheam> "natural" keyboards.

And I am sick and tired of dildos making their pages only viewable with IE 4!  Screw them and screw their wussy little web browser. They think that just because Bill tells them that they are at the center of the universe that they really are! They should be ashamed of themselves for not at least TRYING to make their web pages viewable and usable to ALL web users. Regardless if they are IE, Netscape, Mosaic, Opera or Lynx users.

Arag. both browsers have their problems. By the way, if Netscape ever crashes, it is STILL microsucks fault because the Windows version uses the Microsuck Foundation Classes (You know, good old GPF in MSVCRT40.DLL?). The Linux version of Netscape doesn't suffer from this problem. But if anybody says anything about Netscape for Windows just tell them:

How many UIs does a Macintosh have, does a Linux have, does a Windows have? Windows has THREE completely different shell modes! Program Manage, Windows 95, and "View your hard drive as a stupid web page". Linux has several Window managers that make the UI look like several completely different operating systems. Macs? Hu, I think they got their UI right the first time. And Bill still doesn't get it.

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