"Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC
11 Jan
2012
11 Jan
'12
3:48 p.m.
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:58:51 -0200
From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" <pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com>
I'd like to understand what you, old buffs, has
with newer technology.
I have gmail and (personal servers) accounts, use web, windows XP and have
NO problems with all of that.
Someone here is clearly wrong.
I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as in most instances of
closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very people who bad-mouth
Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that they would not stoop
to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant experience and their
opinions have no more authority than a KKK member's opinion of a
non-caucasian's intelligence. Fortunately their frequent personal attacks on
anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-)
It's probably safe to say that on average Windows users are more interested
in just _using_ their computers than in tuning and tinkering and as a result
probably have more issues than your average Unix or Linux user, but that's
more a reflection of their interests or needs, not their intelligence or
even their computer's OS.
But if a business' Windows system really needed rebooting every day I
suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another job.
And when people who say they support a Windows installation complain about
not being able to back up or migrate to another disk/computer as I read in
the previous round of this tedious ritual, that tells me more about their
competence than any flaws in Windows (and there are some, to be sure).
Sadly, no matter how often or how many people complain that they're tired of
these rants, the folks in question either don't care or just can't help
themselves.
Apologies for adding to the pile...
m
11 Jan
11 Jan
4:43 p.m.
[T]he very people who bad-mouth Windows, Yahoo etc.
the most also
brag the loudest that they would not stoop to using it; therefore
they obviously have no relevant experience [and are thus unqualified
to hold such opinions]
Speaking personally, I wouldn't go near webmail for reasons that have
nothing to do with the user interface, and more reasons that have
little to do with it. But I also wouldn't use anything that imposes an
interface anything like what I've seen over the shoulders of friends
and cow-orkers and acquaintances who do; actually trying to use it
myself is not necessary, given the list of things, obvious on even the
sort of cursory inspection I can carry out under such circumstances,
which I would find somewhere between unpleasant and intolerable.
As for Windows itself? Again, many of the reasons behind my remark
upthread that Windows is "a horrible, horrible OS" for my purposes are
things that do not need experience to back them, at least not
experience with Windows in particular. As for the ones that do, well,
I once spent a month working as a Windows sysadmin (I was curious and
figured I could at least tolerate it for a month; I was right, barely).
It was in the NT 4 days, but, again based on what I've seen over
others' shoulders and heard others complaining about, I have reason to
think the essential-to-me problems remain unalleviated, in some cases
perhaps even exacerbated.
But if a business' Windows system really needed
rebooting every day I
suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another
job.
I work at, among other places, an ISP. An ISP which offers hosting
services. Hosting services on, at least, Windows, Linux, and NetBSD.
I personally don't deal with any of them much, and the Windows not at
all, but I interact regularly with people who do. Based on what I've
heard from them, I would say that, while your remark may be correct as
worded, the sysadmin load required to achieve that level of reliability
is significantly higher for Windows than for either Linux or NetBSD.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
5:18 p.m.
On 01/11/2012 03:48 PM, MikeS wrote:
I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as in
most instances of
closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very people who bad-mouth
Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that they would not
stoop
to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant experience and their
opinions have no more authority than a KKK member's opinion of a
non-caucasian's intelligence.
Wrong. In my case at least, yes it's true that I don't use it, never
really have save for the odd installation here and there to help a
friend, but that doesn't mean I have no experience with it. This is an
incorrect assumption.
Fortunately their frequent personal
attacks on
anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-)
Only when it's deserved. ;)
But if a business' Windows system really needed
rebooting every day I
suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another job.
Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want; many major
Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating
procedure. When I ran a colocation company, we'd see about a dozen
people filter in every friday night to reboot their machines, with about
fifty more incidents in the ICMP logs when machines had gone down on a
schedule. This added up to ALL of the Windows machines in the colo.
(out of a few thousand machines...to some math-challenged
Gartner-is-gospel types, this means "95%")
And when people who say they support a Windows
installation complain about
not being able to back up or migrate to another disk/computer as I read in
the previous round of this tedious ritual, that tells me more about their
competence than any flaws in Windows (and there are some, to be sure).
I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've
watched highly competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and
even days trying. Have YOU done it? If so, how did you get around the
tied-to-the-hardware thing (whose name escapes me at the moment)?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
5:59 p.m.
New subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck!
At 04:18 PM 1/11/2012, Dave McGuire wrote:
Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you
want; many major Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating
procedure. [...]
I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've watched highly
competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and even days trying. Have YOU done it?
Dave's 100% right. Apart from all the other inanities, what drives
me crazy are the subsystems that are so poorly engineered as to seem
non-deterministic and/or capable of spontaneous change.
- John
6:43 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 9:19 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce,
compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for
8080/Z80 BASIC
Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you
want; many major
Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating
procedure.
Err - no actually - we have system critical IVR applications that run on
Windows servers - these are mandated to have an availability and uptime
(note BOTH terms) of 99.95%. In the last 12 months we have managed 100% - I
cannot same the same of the Solaris hosts which have a slightly lower
availability requirement.
Also, please point out where Microsoft "recommends" periodic reboots of
critical servers - and please don't point to something that was released 15
years ago - something recent. Deny it all you want, but Windows servers are
reliable - if they are managed correctly (this applies to all server
operating systems). TOC on the Windows hosts is also far cheaper than on
some of the other systems as well.
Horses for courses, but it irritates me no end when people who have little
experience with managing data centres constantly spout of (usually ancient
history too) about how bad Windows systems are.
For home use, apart from my 8 bit Commies (which I certainly don't use for
anything like email or browsing although they are of course capable) I have
two systems - one is a dev box running Red Hat enterprise 5.7, this isn't
used for day to day "stuff" as the packages are generally poorer than
commercially available ones for the "other" OS. That OS is Windows 7 - it's
been running for close on 18 months, has never crashed and is only updated
when *I* decide it should - ergo only reboots when *I* decide it should.
The Windows haters need to get out of the mentality that Windows is a poor
OS - that may have been the case with W95/98 (and definitely ME) but two
releases (XP and 7) stand out as well designed and reliable systems. I would
not use either in a server environment, but then neither would I use Debian
in a server environment for the same reason - they are all consumer
operating systems.
The world has moved on - perhaps the old stodgies should do the same.
Lance
7:18 p.m.
On 01/11/2012 06:43 PM, Lance Lyon wrote:
Horses for courses, but it irritates me no end when
people who have little
experience with managing data centres constantly spout of (usually ancient
history too) about how bad Windows systems are.
Is this where we get to compare resumes? Oh goodies! Add another
digit to the quoted number of machines in your current datacenter and
then you'll be in the right order of magnitude to compare to datacenters
that I've managed nearly single-handedly. Should we quote numbers and
company names? I'm fine with that. You're not dealing with a hobbyist
here. (well, you are, but not exclusively so! ;))
Your dismissive arguments are typical of MS pushers. Anyone who
doesn't like Windows is automatically labeled as either "behind the
times", "inexperienced", or "religious". I'm sorry to
disappoint, but I
don't fall into those categories.
To be fair, though, with the zeal with which I pursue these
occasional flamewars I can easily see how I might be perceived as
"religious". Not that you'll take my word for it, but I'm really not.
I don't say "Windows sucks" because I don't like it...I don't like
it
because it sucks. Yes, it's improving, and I applaud that. But it's
still not good enough for me, because I'm an extremely anal-retentive
perfectionist who loves cutting-edge technology, but loves reliability
and predictability a lot more, and does NOT like the idea of using the
wrong tool for the job.
I'm a professional, I do this for a living, I've done so all my life,
and I CARE about this industry and the science behind it. Because of
that, every time I see someone screaming or crying that Windows just
lost all their general ledger entries or all their baby pictures (both
of which have happened in the last month, out of the maybe half dozen or
so people I know of who still use it) I feel a measure of personal
responsibility because "my" industry has failed them. It bothers me.
You are to be commended for achieving the uptimes that you get. But
why, really? I'm sure if someone worked hard enough, and was driven
hard enough by some sort of reward, they could build a skyscraper using
a Volkswagen as their only hauling vehicle. But why not just use the
tools built for these sorts of jobs anyway?
For home use, apart from my 8 bit Commies (which I
certainly don't use for
anything like email or browsing although they are of course capable) I have
two systems - one is a dev box running Red Hat enterprise 5.7, this isn't
used for day to day "stuff" as the packages are generally poorer than
commercially available ones for the "other" OS. That OS is Windows 7 -
it's
been running for close on 18 months, has never crashed and is only updated
when *I* decide it should - ergo only reboots when *I* decide it should.
Sure, and it takes a Windows expert to do that. I readily
acknowledge that Windows machines can develop some uptime. Nowhere near
that of a mature OS, but still, 18 months is approaching reasonable.
But it needs someone of your level of experience to get there, and most
datacenters (including ones I've managed with a few racks of Windows
machines in the corner) just don't have that. I know of a few people
who can get real reliability out of a Windows machine...there are even a
few that I know of on this list. But the poor sods I see plodding
around the Windows machines scratching their heads and just rebooting
when something doesn't look right are NOT of your caliber, and they are
in the vast, vast majority.
The Windows haters need to get out of the mentality
that Windows is a poor
OS - that may have been the case with W95/98 (and definitely ME) but two
releases (XP and 7) stand out as well designed and reliable systems. I would
not use either in a server environment, but then neither would I use Debian
in a server environment for the same reason - they are all consumer
operating systems.
Wow. I don't know of anyone, not even the most hard-core Microsoft
worshipper, who claims Windows to be "well designed". The evidence
presented by others in this thread (since clearly you don't believe ME
simply because I don't like Windows!) stands clear. And in case it
doesn't, I'll utter one word: "Registry".
As far as Debian, I've never used that Linux distribution
specifically, but then I'm not much of a Linux person. I can say,
however, that I readily got multi-year uptimes out of a stack of very
high-traffic (hundreds of simultaneous calls each) telephony servers
(needed Linux on x86 due to binary-only CODECs) upwards of 6-8 years
ago. At one time I disliked Linux as much as I dislike Windows
now...but it really has grown up in the past decade.
The world has moved on - perhaps the old stodgies
should do the same.
The further dismissivity of stating anything that's not Windows is
somehow "old" is entertaining but ludicrous. Windows has evolved, as
you so loudly say...but so has the rest of the data processing world.
And the rest of the data processing world has a very large industry and
hundreds (if not thousands) of companies behind it...not just one. Like
it or not, the world's heavy lifting isn't done by little Dell machines
running Windows. In your datacenter, maybe. But not much else. Before
you decide that I'm a hobbyist trying to envision a datacenter full of
Commodore 64s, please recall that I've worked in this industry, for
real, for a good long time. I speak from experience, not assumptions,
suppositions, or wishful thinking. All of your desire to simply dismiss
my statements with that assumption will have to be disappointed this time.
Now can we please drop this shit for once? When *I* of all people
get tired of a good flamewar, you know it has gotten pretty stale.
Thanks go to Richard for starting this one, as it was a good one.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
7:27 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: 11 January 2012 22:19
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING
(Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming
to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC
On 01/11/2012 03:48 PM, MikeS wrote:
I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for
more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN.
However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I
have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which
recommends weely re-boots?
It can be tedious to move disks to a different Windows box, because many
windows installations use custom IDE drivers that only work with one
particular chip. If the disks are IDE you can load the generic IDE driver
before the move it works fine. If you can't a little hacking may be
required.
Some consumer Windows installations are tied to the BIOS in the machine, and
will un-licence themselves when migrated. However any one with more than 5
PCs can get a Volume Licence hich gets round this...
The BitLocker encryption system also locks disks into a particlar PC ...
I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as
in most
instances of
closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very
people who bad-mouth
Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that
they would not
stoop
to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant
experience and their
opinions have no more authority than a KKK
member's opinion of a
non-caucasian's intelligence.
Wrong. In my case at least, yes it's true that I don't
use it, never
really have save for the odd installation here and there to help a
friend, but that doesn't mean I have no experience with it.
This is an
incorrect assumption.
Fortunately their frequent personal
attacks on
anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-)
Only when it's deserved. ;)
But if a business' Windows system really
needed rebooting
every day I
suspect their IT person would very shortly be
looking for
another job.
Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want;
many major
Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating
procedure. When I ran a colocation company, we'd see about a dozen
people filter in every friday night to reboot their machines,
with about
fifty more incidents in the ICMP logs when machines had gone
down on a
schedule. This added up to ALL of the Windows machines in the colo.
(out of a few thousand machines...to some math-challenged
Gartner-is-gospel types, this means "95%")
And when people who say they support a Windows
installation
complain about
not being able to back up or migrate to another
disk/computer as I read in
the previous round of this tedious ritual, that
tells me
more about their
competence than any flaws in Windows (and there
are some,
to be sure).
I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've
watched highly competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and
even days trying. Have YOU done it? If so, how did you get
around the
tied-to-the-hardware thing (whose name escapes me at the moment)?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
7:43 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote:
I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for
more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN.
However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I
have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which
recommends weely re-boots?
I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ...
and I
had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*.
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want.
So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I
won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken
glass."
-Stephen Colbert
8:10 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great John Many Jars once stated:
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave <dave.g4ugm
at gmail.com> wrote:
You found it? [1]
-spc (Wow ... )
[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_af…
I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for
more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN.
However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I
have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which
recommends weely re-boots?
I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ...
and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*.
8:35 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Sean Conner
Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 12:10 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce,
compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for
8080/Z80 BASIC
You found it? [1]
-spc (Wow ... )
[1]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_aft
er/
I reckon this is an urban myth - I've heard exactly the same story applied
to an OS/2 box!
Cheers,
Lance
8:44 p.m.
On 01/11/2012 08:35 PM, Lance Lyon wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Sean Conner
Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 12:10 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce,
compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for
8080/Z80 BASIC
You found it? [1]
-spc (Wow ... )
[1]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_aft
er/
I reckon this is an urban myth - I've heard exactly the same story applied
to an OS/2 box!
I'm pretty sure I heard the Novell version; I wasn't reading The
Register regularly back in 2001 so I must've heard it through the grapevine.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
8:50 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:10 AM, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote:
You found it? [1]
-spc (Wow ... )
[1]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_af…
Ha! We knew where that one was. My next job, at EDS, was in a huge test
lab.
There were several machines that we never did find. Ever.
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want.
So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I
won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken
glass."
-Stephen Colbert
8:23 p.m.
New subject: Uptime contest :/ - Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck!
On 11/01/12 7:43 PM, John Many Jars wrote:
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave<dave.g4ugm
at gmail.com> wrote:
It's not very unusual. I've admin'd several Linux servers with 3+ year
uptimes.
--T
I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for
more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN.
However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I
have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which
recommends weely re-boots?
I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ...
and I
had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*.
8:51 p.m.
New subject: Uptime contest :/ - Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck!
my friend has a thoshiba 100mhz laptop that ran a teamspeak server that had
heavy traffic for close to 6 yrs befor the hdd failed runing nt4
it was using a Xircome dongled 10/100 eithernet card for its networking sat
under his bed all those yrs untuched he tossed a different drive in it and
i think its back up to 3 yrs now
12 Jan
12 Jan
2:43 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Many Jars
Sent: 12 January 2012 00:43
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING
(Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming
to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote:
At the risk of bringing things back on-topic, about 10 years ago I once
spent an enjoyable morning running between two buildings with a box of
floppies, copying files from one Netware system that was working to another
that wouldn't boot. Apparently the broken one had run out of disk space so
the System Manager~h~h~h~h~h~h~h Janitor had deleted some old files that
didn't look as of they had been used for a long time. The problem is they
some were system driver files for the backup drive. When I finally got the
thing working and restored all the missing bits I found the tape they were
on was scheduled to be overwritten the coming weekend. Note this was again a
major company in the UK....
I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not
had a re-boot for
more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN
connections to
the new SAN.
However this does mean they havn't been
patched for 300
days so I guess I
have some overtime coming up. Please show me the
Microsoft
document which
recommends weely re-boots?
I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel
administrator) ...
and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*.
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single
thing they want.
So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want
some bread, I
won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin
made of broken
glass."
-Stephen Colbert
4575
days inactive
4576
days old
14 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
dm561＠torfree.net -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
lance.w.lyon＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG -
spc＠conman.org -
tdk.knight＠gmail.com -
toby＠telegraphics.com.au