Today I reinstalled Windows

[Michael Haney]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 8:53 AM, Fred Roller <froller at tnclimited.com> wrote:
> Odd wrote:
>>
>>  But MS has always cared more about
>> customers' convenience, rather than them being secure.
>>
>>
>>
> Here in lies the the primary consumer product being sold, convience.
> When the system gets corrupt then send them to a pc house to fix... wait
> "this new system is cheaper than the repair?"  /and/ "you can get my
> data and settings?"...OK :-)   hmmm.  I notice a pattern.  Then when
> putting linux on a box should technically make them cheaper and in fact
> makes them more expensive from the major manufactures (well, de11 from
> my own experience.), but have heard of the MS subsidy to manufactures.
>

Yes, this is called the Micro$oft Tax.  Its not an urban legend, it
really does exist and the DOJ just looks the other way.

> I did stay on top of my windows machine when I had one, practiced safe
> surfing with up to date AV.  Even with all the steps found myself
> rebuilding every 6-12 months just for GP because it seemed to clear what
> I call "creep".  It was easy except for the 2 hour fight to re-activate
> my key.
>

On Windows I dumped IE for Firefox, keep my anti-virus Avast 4 Home
Edition up to date at all times, periodically use the M$ Malicious
Software Removal Tool, and IF I have to to access questionable sites I
usually did it on my Linux box but now I can do it with Google
Chrome's Incognito mode or Firefox's Private browsing mode which
protects the host computer from malware.

> If you have no clue and walk in to Wally World and see a PC with
> printer, monitor, all the bells and whistles for $300 -$500 set up next
> to a $1200 PC with Monitor and Keyboard.  Which do you get?  It's cheap
> and supposedly will do just as much as the more expensive which probably
> just got some extra stuff on geeks need anyway.
>
> MS has definitely made PC's convenient and disposable.  I'll save all
> the "Free" Trial offers for another time. ;-)
>

Yes, but those cheap Big Box Mart (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI ) PC bundles are just that
... cheap.  Often the manufacturer skimps on the hardware giving you
bargain basement brand components where the more expensive machine
will often have higher quality components and also likely a better
video card.  The printer often offered in those bundles are built like
Fisher Price toys, take ink cartridges which are expensive, and the
ink dries up if you don't do a lot of printing.  While there are
exceptions to this, which is rare, most of the time you get what you
pay for.

Oh, and trying to get Linux to work with a lot of that cheap hardware
... good luck.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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