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Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: guest on October 19, 2007, 06:14:34 PM

Title: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 19, 2007, 06:14:34 PM
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/19/microsoft-creates-millions-jobs

Now I am (until Feb 2008) a MS "Partner" and this is the biggest load of bovine faeces I've ever seen - even for a MS IDC survey.

We cannot find one customer (not one) who have any plans at ALL to use Vista. That's none. Nada. Zilch. Now given that MS will no longer supply XP to anyone other than Tier 1 "partners" what are we supposed to do?

I'll tell you what we have done - we have bought 3 OEM licenses (2 x XP, 1 x Win2k3) and that's it. We are 100% legal and no more s/w from MS will be purchased by me. The kids schools use OpenOffice now and so do we. The MS Partner agreement expires in Feb and they can go forth and multiply.

I've used Windows since IBM effectively canned OS/2 - an OS that I could do voice recognition (that worked!) on back in 1996. With a Cyrix PR166+ and 32MB of memory! I usually do have a Linux box up but frankly until recently Wine etc was too much hassle to get going to contemplate having Linux as an os for the kids. I've sold shedloads of hardware/software but that's it for us and MS - I'm simply not going to try to convince businesses that Vista is right for them as in 95% of cases it patently isn't. Nor I'm sad to say is Office 2007 due to the retraining costs - and frankly its just another load of bells & whistles that 80%+ (MS own figure) of users will never use - hells bells there are companies making decent money modifying Office 2007 to behave like Office 2003.

I haven't participated in OS wars for well over a decade but MS have lost the plot entirely in my book. The only people getting Vista are the poor sods who have no choice in the matter (bundled with new computer) - yes there will be some who want it but apart from DX10 (which WILL be back-ported to XP - bet on it) and Aero it offers little of true value while shovelling lots of TURDS (Technology Users' Rights Denial Systems*) in your face :)

Anyone have any thoughts?

*(c) Morely Dotes - someone I disagree violently with over the way mail abuse policies should work, but he has this one nailed!

PS - TURDS = DRM

PPS - don't get me wrong, WindowsXP + Win2k3 (SBS usually) is a stunning buy for most businesses as their existing admin costs disappear. Vista + SBS? I think not.

Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: roseway on October 19, 2007, 06:51:13 PM
As a long term Linux user (more than 10 years) you can probably guess what I think. :)
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 19, 2007, 07:23:13 PM
Yes I can :D

Thing is I've done the OS wars, I've used and deployed OS/2, Win2k/XP/2k3, Solaris (yes really), Suse (as was) etc etc. I don't care what it is, as long as the customer is happy. Can't find any business customers for Vista though - well not quite true, we get muppets (Asian lads around here - exclusively*) who seem to think that half a dozen copies of XP/Vista/whatever as long as it "does the biz" and a 2k3 server ought to cost £250 or so - installed and deployed! I'd charge more than that for Linux if I had to install/deploy it on half a dozen boxes!

*I am not being racist. I have lived in Leicester for 18 years and I know the market. Whites (no idea what religion) will pay the price if they approach you - no debate (lots of piracy goes on obviously), Asian (Hindu) will bargain and bluster then buy it illegally; Asian (Sikh) will argue then buy regardless of price but gods help you if it goes wrong; Black (afro-carribean) won't buy or ask - they will pirate it; Asian (Muslim) don't want it once their kids are out of school but while they are will buy whatever is recommended; etc etc. Just demographics (mainly to do with available cash) but we hang colours around people. I still get loads of abuse in England and I am white. However I'm a Scot ;)

PPS - you can tell after 18 years in Leicester as soon as you walk in a business/home door whether it is Muslim, Hindu, Sikh etc which is why I added religion to "Asian" people. Its Diwali down here soon which is fun, as are the Sikh festivals which involve them giving food and drink away to people they have never met :) Eid is OK but I'm not keen on the precursor to it - Ramadan.

PPPS - way off topic or what? :D
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: soms on October 20, 2007, 09:15:18 PM
In July I bought a new Dimension 9200 PC from Dell factory outlet, came with Vista Home P pre-installed.

Thankfully the machine came with two hard disks so I simply bought XP Home OEM (technically not correct as I had no accompanying hardware but at least it is genuine) and installed it on the second HDD as a dual boot system.

I never use Vista now, set XP as the default OS.

Vista is a poor performer in comparison to XP (this is on a dual core, 2GB RAM, SATA PC) whereas XP performs like nothing I have seen before (the joys of a well spec-ed £400 PC).

Vista in a bad attempt to be more "user friendly" etc etc to me an an experienced user it simply over complicated and bloated. The number of different options and control applets has multiplied, how can that be simpler? Everything is harder to use and it seems to laggy, always running background tasks and so on...

Rant over, your right to dump Vista and M$ althogether if they wont let you ship XP which now has a well established place, especially for those who aren't fans of Vista.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 09:54:25 AM
>> The software behemoth reckons it's directly responsible for creating 14 million jobs worldwide,


<sarcastic hat on>
That would perhaps be ironing out problems in Vista for the punters would it?
</sarcastic hat off>

Ive been a fan of Windows in the past.  Although I have issues with some of the things Gates does he gotta admit that the guy is a marketing genius.  Hes taken some damn good ideas (not necessarily M$ ones if you know what I mean!) and made them available to the masses.
The concept of Windows meant that many who couldnt get to grips with other O/S's at least stood a chance.

Some people slated off Win ME - yeah it did have its faults compared to say 2k, but I personally never had a problem with it nor any of the machines I installed it on.  A lot of people moaned about XP but I found it resolved a lot of issues and for the home user I think it was good.

However - Vista is another matter.  I dont have as much to do with other PCs these days so perhaps thats something to do with it.. but Im really disappointed in what should be a highish spec PC - well media center that Ive built.  Not because of the hardware thats in there, but more the problems and niggles with getting stuff to work just right.  Theres still things I havent as yet ironed out.. and Im beginning to regret ever purchasing a copy of Vista to put on it.

Yes I will admit my knowledge of PCs/ operating systems/hardware has declined over the past few years (It does if you dont stay on top of it), but if someone like me struggles or tears my hair out over stuff - then what chance has joe public?  Aside from the fact IMHO Its way too big and eats up too many resources.

*Ive dabbled with linux too (RedHat) a few years back, but drew the line when it came to compiling my own drivers :(
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 10:01:51 AM
>> PPPS - way off topic or what?

<mods hat on>
Comments noted. 
</mods hat off>
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: Floydoid on October 21, 2007, 10:13:33 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 11:04:03 AM
Linux (Ubuntu for sure) is a LOT friendlier to newbies now kitz. It is just about idiot-proof :)
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: roseway on October 21, 2007, 11:16:45 AM
http://linuxmce.com/
http://www.linux.com/articles/51047

and many others.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 03:13:37 PM
I suppose I should have another go.. 

TBH I didnt think RH8 was too bad - and I was starting to get the hang of it...  but this was pre adsl days and I gave up after too much fruitless searching for drivers etc :/   
If Id been building a new box obviously I could have chosen the hardware etc..  but the "RH box was just a play around machine" made from a system I'd originally built a few years prior to that.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: roseway on October 21, 2007, 04:18:15 PM
Did you watch the Google video of LinuxMCE? It's very impressive, and has got me thinking about building a media centre now. :)
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 04:29:55 PM
nope - remind me and perhaps its something I could consider  ;D

Although Im still a bit dubios of linux and hardware since my last goes -  my confidence isnt enamoured either that Vista seems to be having a few probs with simple things like a keyboard and a broadcom wireless network card.   Should post the specs up some time.

Just a bit downhearted atm about it all - cause I kinda bust the budget for something I wanted - that doesnt quite work as it should :/
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 04:41:06 PM
I bought a (sort of) pre-built/designed "videobox". A KiSS DP600 (we have a KiSS DP1500 upstairs which is perfect for old portable TVs and will work well on wireless).

It does what it says on the tin (it's really just a cut-down Linux kernel) provided you use wired ethernet and are aware of how MPEG4 (DivX/XVid) works. ie people moan that it takes ages to FF/RW but that's down to key frames and how the video was encoded. You simply can't (right now) have the compression MPEG4 offers and have the FF/RW speed consumers expect if the content is on a network rather than a local hard disk.

I dabbled with some mini-ITX stuff for a while but the problem is that they simply don't sell enough to reduce the price via economies of scale. Getting decent ITX kit in a DECENT case can be quite eye-watering when you reflect on the processing power you get.

One thing for sure (I decided this years ago) is that the Windows MCE is not the way to go. Linux is as you can get a nice lean kernel with ONLY the stuff you need linked into it. Back to the nice (but expensive) mini-ITX h/w again though as if you're going to do something right then..... :)
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 04:46:31 PM
kitz - try wired ethernet. Really. Wireless is rubbish on this sort of thing unless you live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere (you know where I "came" from now - that's what I mean).

Also I seem to remember some whinges about Broadcom and Vista. I have Broadcom chipsets in all the important machines here and I wouldn't touch another vendor. It isn't Vista though....
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 04:59:09 PM
>> kitz - try wired ethernet.

Thats what I do need to do - I need a piece of cable long enough though to give it a test...  and tbh the location means that permanent wired is going to be out anyhow :(.

The only solution I could perhaps think of is something like the Netgear powerline adaptors.

Direct line of vision there isnt really that much distance for wireless - but because of layout of the house, wired ethernet isnt going to be possible.   The router is located at the front of the house..   yet I can take my lappy right down to the bottom of the garden and still get a decent signal... so I dont think its the router.

Ive got an extender plugged into the card atm which has helped a little - and at least Im not getting 50kbps now.

Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 05:04:01 PM
>> I seem to remember some whinges about Broadcom and Vista

Forget to mention did try looking for some updated Vista drivers but didnt have much joy there either.
The card is actually BT one (freebie someone made a mistake)  but they are broadcoms.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 05:10:30 PM
PM me with your address & I'll send you a couple of the old 10Mbps DLAN adaptors. They're never going to be used here again (we are now GigE on all wall ethernet sockets).

Provided your MCE box and the source is on the same ring main you'll get 8Mbps throughput which should be enough for anything bar HD. If you are doing (or trying) HD then wired is a pre-requisite IMHO as 802.11n (and associated QoS) is the attempt to get 2 HD streams running concurrently with wireless. I wouldn't put a penny on them ever getting it to work myself - in the lab/test facility then yeah of course. Real world? Hmmm.

Edit - the 10Mbps DLANs were better than 802.11g (54Mbps) I found. Obviously its not a patch on 100Mbps - or GigE as we have on our Terastations :)
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: mr_chris on October 21, 2007, 05:19:11 PM
With a bit of patience and a lot of energy, wired would be possible... I have some cable.. unfortunately it's bright blue, wouldn't exactly blend in if you left a little bit showing, would it!!
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 05:23:55 PM
Personally I just drill holes to the outside world and run the cables that way. We live in a detached house but on one side there's only 1.5m or so between us and the next house so I run cabling that way. You can only see it if you are down the side of the house and it's all 4m up the wall anyway so no probs about accidental damage.

I doubt kitz has either an SDS drill or a drill bit long enough for that though :P
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: mr_chris on October 21, 2007, 05:25:28 PM
lol... wouldn't be any good for this particular scenario anyway... she could always drill into next door's living room and run the cable through there :lol:
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 05:32:53 PM
Hmm. Do neither of you know a friendly sparky (electrician) then? If you give him the cable and ask him to pull the cable through the walls (but not do the wiring) then he ought to be charging no more than 50 quid. Money for old rope for him really as all he's doing is using his experience to find a way to route the cable. You guys can then crimp/terminate/whatever the cable in sockets as and when needed.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 08:50:57 PM
Its just unfortunate I guess - that of all the places in the house to actually  run some CAT 5 cable to it would be there.  I cant really re-locate - since media centre = under the tv.   I thought wireless would have been ok since it seems to be elsewhere in the house and the lappy does ok.
Theres no outside wall nearby - in a corner against the kitchen and next doors lounge.

Until I can test it with a length of CAT 5 then Im not sure yet if its a Vista thing or Vista/wireless card.  Using the arial extension thing it is better and now sees speeds at around 2-4 Mb, but it does sometimes fluctuate to even less.
Tried all the usual stuff - moving router around, changing chans, searching for drivers.  I'm not really moving much stuff to and from other PCs atm - but it obviously is something I'd like to do in the future.

CAT5 would have to go from this room up to the loft and then down between a cavity in the wall between mine and next door. Dunno which way you were thinking chris - otherwise down the stairs, hall, across/round the room to far corner.

btw pic - yeah I know need to sort the wires lol.. and the thing at the front sticking up front of the tv is the ariel extender for the wireless - thats the best position so if anyone touches it theyre dead. :)

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 09:04:09 PM
2-4Mbps?

If that wasn't a typo then forget it. Really.

Edit - As always I assume people know things they have no need to. Apologies.


If you refer to your wireless connection as connecting at 2-4Mbps then halve the connection speed and then take 15% off that kitz. That will be what your connection can SUSTAIN. You will see far higher peaks but the connection will not sustain speeds above that.

Wi-Fi advertising simply proves that anything goes :( Like "unlimited" but lets not go there :D Again. and ..... :P
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: mr_chris on October 21, 2007, 09:13:46 PM
I think 2 - 4 Mbps is sustained data transfer speed rather than the actual connection speed....
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 09:35:13 PM
>> I think 2 - 4 Mbps is sustained data transfer speed rather than the actual connection speed....

correct.  Yet on the lappy in the same location I can easily get around 11Mbps.  The lappy will rock steady max out my adsl connection... as does Chris's lappy when round here.


Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 09:41:11 PM
Good :)

Not that good though. Its not an acceptable rate for DivX/Xvid unless you NEVER FF or RW.

Really I think kitz your problems are bandwidth based.

Eg I have a Linksys bridge which will sustain 18Mbps and the family think FF/RW is rubbish. LAN speed = just works. Its obvious why when you think about how 802.11g works.

Edit - I guess maybe its not obvious. 802.11g = 54Mbps. Now divide by 2 = 27Mbps. Then take the wireless and TCP/IP overheads and you're down to about 24Mbps but of course then anyone can use your wireless connection so we must encrypt it. Ths results in a maximum throughput of about 21-22Mbps
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: roseway on October 21, 2007, 10:49:11 PM
In that situation I would use a powerline connection - no wires and no wireless problems. But of course it's not particularly cheap.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 21, 2007, 10:51:57 PM
Powerline stuff only really works it its all on the same ring main. Worth mentioning I feel.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 21, 2007, 11:52:00 PM
I'd decided about a month or so ago that it was likely to be the best solution.

Re the same ring main... that obviously concerned me since like most households I have an upstairs and downstairs, and it was the first time Id heard mention of it.


Ive just been doing a bit of reading up and it doesn't always seem to clear.. but I have found many refs where people have used them successfully this way.  Digital spy has a good debate on them http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=477821

Its all a bit academic though right now and will have to wait as a few other things have priority :/

Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 22, 2007, 08:29:41 AM
Heh our house was built by morons. It is the only explanation as to why they split the ring mains down the middle of the house. Seriously there are two sockets in the hall and they are on seperate ring mains - I found this out the hard way :D

I have run the DLAN stuff on seperate ring mains but I lost 60% of the speed. It does radiate beyond your meter too, regardless of what they claim - maybe it doesn't in Germany but it does in the UK. No big problem really - unless lots of people are using them in your area I guess? Just like wireless in that respect probably.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: Astral on October 22, 2007, 08:39:08 AM
Quote
It is the only explanation as to why they split the ring mains down the middle of the house.

The idea with ring mains is to distribute the load more evenly. In a domestic situation the kitchen and living room usually create the most load and should be on separate rings, even though they are usually on the same floor. The upstairs/downstairs split is the moronic choice IMHO.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 22, 2007, 08:47:20 AM
Hmm having two sockets 3 feet away from each other in the same "room" on different ring mains is pretty dumb in my book :D

Our kitchen is on its own ring main now - we had a new kitchen in last year and they had to put a 16A spur in anyway for the microwave so the sparky put it all on its own ring.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: kitz on October 22, 2007, 11:02:42 AM
>> The upstairs/downstairs split is the moronic choice IMHO.

Yeah I see where youre coming from on that.  I actually have 3 (+2 for lighting).  The 3rd one I didnt bother to mention cause that only seems to cover 1/2 of the kitchen ie the cooker, extraction fan, and switch for the combi-boiler and a couple of sockets, but I cant recall which ones it does and doesnt.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: roseway on October 26, 2007, 07:28:27 PM
I've been looking further into Linux media centre possibilities. I have to say that LinuxMCE which I mentioned above probably isn't ready for non-geeks. The Google video was impressive, but it glossed over the many rather difficult configuration requirements. And it's probably over the top - it's not just a media centre, it's a complete home control system for everything including the kitchen sink.

For a straightforward media centre, MythDora looks like the bee's knees to me. (The daft name derives from MythTV, the well-known but difficult software for media centres, and Fedora, the Linux distro it's based on.) MythDora automates the difficult bits, and has excellent documentation for the rest. I'm installing it on a spare PC at the moment, and I'll let you know how it goes.
Title: Re: MS Partners make 7.5 times as much as MS
Post by: guest on October 26, 2007, 07:49:55 PM
Used to be a no-brainer Eric - KiSS. The evil empire has them now. Anyone who thinks the "evil empire" is Intel or MS needs to get out of the last millenium :P