Open Source vs Atkins
Now Playing: Avril Lavigne -- So Much For My Happy Ending
Different people do different things with their computers. Personally, I like to play with operating systems. I've played with all the various flavors of Microsoft Windows, QNX, Solaris, and a couple distributions of Linux. I always return to either Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows XP Professional just because most of my toys require windows.
A few weeks back, I finished a complete reinstall of Windows 2000 and was installing some drivers and programs; one of which was Microsoft Office 2003. If you didn't know, office requires "activation" either over the Internet or by telephone. I tried to do the Internet thing and I was confronted with an error message that said I had used my installation key too many times. I called the Telephone support numer to activate by phone figuring that the tech could override the limit and give me a valid key. They kept asking me all these questions about how many machines I had Office installed onto. They had assumed that I was pirating the software rampantly. So I told the lady, "I just have it on this one machine." I guess she didn't believe me, because she asserted that I had installed it so many times, that it must be on an entire network of machines. I told her what I did with my computer and she still refused to accept that it was as simple as I reinstall my OS quite often. To make a long story short, I eventually got a valid install key and was able to activate office.
I was more than a little insulted by the insinuation that I must be pirating software. I don't pirate anything. All my music is legal, I don't download movies, and I certainly don't pirate software. The next time I installed windows, i installed Open Office instead of Microsoft office. Sure, It took some getting used to but in the end it wasn't half bad. It does the really neat trick of exporting directly to PDF. I don't make enough PDF files to justify buying a full copy of Adobe Acrobat. I had already moved to Mozilla Firefox as opposed to Internet Edxplorer. I use Real Player instead of Windows Media Player. In fact, I was only using Windows for Office and the fact that it was a system requirement for other utilities, like my Bluetooth adapter.
I decided to ditch Microsoft all together. I installed Suse Linux on this machine and to my surprise, EVERYTHING works. I have Bluetooth, I have CD Burning, I have more utilities that fill obscure niches than any commercial software developer could over hope to publish. As an added bonus my printer supports twice the resolution under X than it does under MS Windows!
It's been just a few days since I decided I wasn't going to use Microsoft products anymore, but I'm happier now with my computer than I have been in a long time. No more stupid Internet worms and virus threats. No blue screen of death. No more one errant application crashing the whole operating system. No more spending money on software.
Open Source / Public licsence software Is a lifestyle choice, like going on atkins. You just feel better. Your computer is lighter, faster, and more dependable.
OPEN SOURCE IS BETTER THAN ATKINS!
From:
The DollCase Diaries
Now Playing: Avril Lavigne -- So Much For My Happy Ending
Different people do different things with their computers. Personally, I like to play with operating systems. I've played with all the various flavors of Microsoft Windows, QNX, Solaris, and a couple distributions of Linux. I always return to either Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows XP Professional just because most of my toys require windows.
A few weeks back, I finished a complete reinstall of Windows 2000 and was installing some drivers and programs; one of which was Microsoft Office 2003. If you didn't know, office requires "activation" either over the Internet or by telephone. I tried to do the Internet thing and I was confronted with an error message that said I had used my installation key too many times. I called the Telephone support numer to activate by phone figuring that the tech could override the limit and give me a valid key. They kept asking me all these questions about how many machines I had Office installed onto. They had assumed that I was pirating the software rampantly. So I told the lady, "I just have it on this one machine." I guess she didn't believe me, because she asserted that I had installed it so many times, that it must be on an entire network of machines. I told her what I did with my computer and she still refused to accept that it was as simple as I reinstall my OS quite often. To make a long story short, I eventually got a valid install key and was able to activate office.
I was more than a little insulted by the insinuation that I must be pirating software. I don't pirate anything. All my music is legal, I don't download movies, and I certainly don't pirate software. The next time I installed windows, i installed Open Office instead of Microsoft office. Sure, It took some getting used to but in the end it wasn't half bad. It does the really neat trick of exporting directly to PDF. I don't make enough PDF files to justify buying a full copy of Adobe Acrobat. I had already moved to Mozilla Firefox as opposed to Internet Edxplorer. I use Real Player instead of Windows Media Player. In fact, I was only using Windows for Office and the fact that it was a system requirement for other utilities, like my Bluetooth adapter.
I decided to ditch Microsoft all together. I installed Suse Linux on this machine and to my surprise, EVERYTHING works. I have Bluetooth, I have CD Burning, I have more utilities that fill obscure niches than any commercial software developer could over hope to publish. As an added bonus my printer supports twice the resolution under X than it does under MS Windows!
It's been just a few days since I decided I wasn't going to use Microsoft products anymore, but I'm happier now with my computer than I have been in a long time. No more stupid Internet worms and virus threats. No blue screen of death. No more one errant application crashing the whole operating system. No more spending money on software.
Open Source / Public licsence software Is a lifestyle choice, like going on atkins. You just feel better. Your computer is lighter, faster, and more dependable.
OPEN SOURCE IS BETTER THAN ATKINS!
From:
The DollCase Diaries