7 Mar
2001
7 Mar
'01
2:46 p.m.
This is like buying a fridge, taking it home, and
having the light globe
continually blow, calling the manufacturer, and being told that "This is a
common problem, we charge $25 for solutions, can I have your credit card
number please?"
OK.. While the frige model is simplistic we can still draw some meaningful
analogies.
First let's look at the reasons that you might buy a particular model of
refrigerator. You probably bought it based on feature set, maintainability,
usability, performance, product familiarity, name brand recognition, because
it's company policy, just to name a few... There's certainly other reasons
but, you get the idea.
So dazzled by all the hype, you buy the WIN model and haul that sucker home.
Now this particular fridge is real popular with vendors and they bombard you
with all kinda things that you can add to make it bigger, better, faster,
larger capacity, more ice, and so on. As a matter of fact, there are
thousands of vendors and hundreds of thousands of different components for
your fridge and you can install them yourself in billions of different
combinations. There are very few restrictions to what you can install. You
don't need any special training, no certification, no tools, in most cases
you don't even need experience. Hey... You can install 4 different ice
makers from 4 different competitors and have them all work at the same time.
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that you can get for this
model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
If I made the refrigerator, I'd tell you to put it back the way it was when
you got it and see if that fixes the problem. Which is exactly what most PC
manufactures do.
You want me to troubleshoot your fridge under these circumstances... Credit
card please :-)
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
7 Mar
7 Mar
3:02 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Steve Robertson wrote:
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that you
can get for this
model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
Actually, Microsoft provides you with their own lightbulbs now, ever since
they partnered with that one lightbulb company, reversed engineered their
design, came up with their own LightBulb 1.0 (that was buggy as hell and
less bright, but their marketing took care of those issues) and then drove
the small lightbulb company out of business.
Anyway, this argument might have had merit if it weren't for the *fact*
that MS strategically introduces bugs into their "OS" so that a
competitor's product will fail.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
8 Mar
8 Mar
3:45 a.m.
New subject: OT - Ethics in Business
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Steve Robertson wrote:
Jerome Fine replies:
The problem is with ethics - and likely Microsoft has no more lack of this
feature than most other companies. But because they have more clout,
it is more apparent. How many examples can you think of for other companies
that have either tried or would like to do the same thing. If everyone except
Microsoft was ethical and all said that they would stop doing business with
or using Microsoft products until Microsoft behaved in an ethical manner,
Microsoft would either behave ethically or disappear. When the ethical
standard rises outside of Microsoft, it will rise inside Microsoft as well.
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that
you can get for this model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
Actually, Microsoft provides
you with their own lightbulbs now, ever since
they partnered with that one lightbulb company, reversed engineered their
design, came up with their own LightBulb 1.0 (that was buggy as hell and
less bright, but their marketing took care of those issues) and then drove
the small lightbulb company out of business. Anyway, this argument might have had merit if it
weren't for the *fact*
that MS strategically introduces bugs into their "OS" so that a
competitor's product will fail.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
As you stated in an earlier e-mail today:
"If MS would just give us the source code, we could fix it for them."
But if Microsoft gave us the source code, we would see just what
"bugs" had been introduced for that purpose. Being forced to
"license" source code which is guaranteed by law to reproduce
the EXE files and all of the other files used to run an application
would be the best safeguard against such behaviour. While the
comments could be removed, looking at the different code between
different versions would show the changes that were made to
produce the "bugs". If enough users demanded a minimum standard
of ethics, then requiring that source code be made available after
a certain number of years have elapsed and a bug is not fixed would
also accomplish the same result since seeing what Microsoft had done
with previous versions would be an ethical revelation as well.
There are probably many solutions to the ethical problem which do
not impact (or have a negligible impact) on profits. But how can we
expect any help from politicians when their ethics are likely just about
the same as the companies they accept campaign contributions from.
I don't expect any answer from this reply, but if we are complaining
about Microsoft, perhaps we should look at ourselves as well.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
7 Mar
7 Mar
5:22 p.m.
You forgot other attributes of this fridge:
The manufacturer has created a machine:
1) Due to poor product planning your fridge doesn't protect its mechanical
components from unauthorized modification or force your aftermarket parts
to install to physically separate places, so when you try out those
different icemakers, the ones you don't like and remove leave half a dozen
hoses leading into the back of the machine and odd modifications to the
compressor with no indication which ones are needed.
Looking in the back, you see all the wires are the same color but with
tiny barcodes to identify what they do. You have to buy the Wire Registry
manual to identify what the barcodes mean but many codes are missing from
the book. The compressor stops frequently, spoiling your food.
2) Through poor product planning, allows people outside your family to
readily inspect or tamper with your food, or sneak their food onto your
shelves. Consumer convenience justifies this, you are told.
3) Forces you to upgrade from 115V to 220V to 460V power feeds every few
years to provide sufficient power to activate the innovative new features
such as the talking snowflake which recommends where to place your pizza
in the freezer. Meanwhile, the fundamental mechanical flaws are left
essentially unchanged or are fixed in an even more expensive model. You
can disable the snowflake from talking, but you can't remove it to free up
space or your freezer won't freeze.
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Steve Robertson wrote:
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that you
can get for this
model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
If I made the refrigerator, I'd tell you to put it back the way it was when
you got it and see if that fixes the problem. Which is exactly what most PC
manufactures do.
You want me to troubleshoot your fridge under these circumstances... Credit
card please :-)
5:51 p.m.
The MICROS~1 Outlook automobile, instead of having a speedometer, fuel
guage, oil pressure guage, etc., has a TV set and video games in the
middle of the dash.
It makes it harder to use/drive normally, and is a problem for not only
the owner, but everyone in the vicinity.
But Yes, it IS what the public wants.
As has been pointed out, Microsoft is not alone in what they do.
There appears to be NO WAY to do plain text e-mail in AOL 6.0!
If you want text, rather than dancing kangaroos, you are SOL
7:24 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Robertson" <steven_j_robertson(a)hotmail.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: Virus Alert !!!
OK.. While the frige model is simplistic we can still
draw some
meaningful
analogies.
Very simplistic, granted.
First let's look at the reasons that you might buy
a particular model
of
refrigerator. You probably bought it based on feature
set,
maintainability,
usability, performance, product familiarity, name
brand recognition,
because
it's company policy, just to name a few...
There's certainly other
reasons
but, you get the idea.
So dazzled by all the hype, you buy the WIN model and haul that sucker
home.
Now this particular fridge is real popular with vendors and they
bombard you
with all kinda things that you can add to make it
bigger, better,
faster,
larger capacity, more ice, and so on. As a matter of
fact, there are
thousands of vendors and hundreds of thousands of different components
for
your fridge and you can install them yourself in
billions of different
combinations. There are very few restrictions to what you can install.
You
don't need any special training, no certification,
no tools, in most
cases
you don't even need experience. Hey... You can
install 4 different ice
makers from 4 different competitors and have them all work at the same
time.
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that you can get for this
model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb
is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
.
I agree that there are 3rd party apps that may create issues, but if you
were to look at (say) a VMS box, there is very
little beyond a crook device or device driver that will bring the O/S
down. With Windows this is a daily occurence at times,
sometimes several times daily.
It would depend on what uh, extra features I have installed, and who
made them, and
whether they were installed according to instructions, and incorporate
the latest uh, engineering change orders
Assume that the answers to these questions are Office 97Pro, Microsoft,
Yes and Yes (in that order).
If I made the refrigerator, I'd tell you to put it
back the way it was
when
you got it and see if that fixes the problem. Which is
exactly what
most PC
manufactures do.
The point you seem to have overlooked is that even the basic, as
delivered, fridge is
broken in various places under conditions of normal useage. (ie 'as it
was when I got it')
Yet they still want my money to fix their broken as designed fridge.
Need I mention the various Win98SE shutdown bugs? (to name just one
known issue)
I'm sure you know of plenty more?
You want me to troubleshoot your fridge under these
circumstances...
Credit
card please :-)
Your reasoning also fails when the extras are provided at extra cost by
the fridge manufacturer,
are sometimes installed at the factory/retailer (bought a bundled system
recently?) and
it still falls over. Repeatedly. And then 'certified' (or certifiable
in some cases) 'engineers' install
it and it still falls over. Repeatedly. It's like buying an ice
dispenser from the fridge maker, paying
a 'fridgie to install it, and every time you use it, it trips the
compressor out.
The 'fridgie can't figure it out, the fridge was factory standard and
the ice dispenser was installed according
to the manufacturers instructions.
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Systems Manager
Saint Mark's College
Port Pirie,
South Australia
geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au
netcafe(a)tell.net.au
ICQ: 1970476
8 Mar
8 Mar
7:33 a.m.
From: "Geoff Roberts"
<geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Virus Alert !!!
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:54:59 +1030
Reply-to: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
The point you seem to have overlooked is that even the
basic, as
delivered, fridge is
broken in various places under conditions of normal useage. (ie 'as it
was when I got it')
Yet they still want my money to fix their broken as designed fridge.
Need I mention the various Win98SE shutdown bugs? (to name just one
known issue)
I'm sure you know of plenty more?
Yes, same with shutdown bug on 98 (not SE) too. Once in awhile power
didn't go off and I had to manually turn it off. win95 nothing wrong
with it's shutdown on ATX machines.
Wizard
8538
days inactive
8539
days old
6 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
geoffrob＠stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au -
jhfine＠idirect.com -
jpero＠sympatico.ca -
steven_j_robertson＠hotmail.com -
thompson＠mail.athenet.net