This has ______ to do with your opinion

Post #278,804 by andread 3/19/07 10:32:37 AM Reply	This has ______ to do with your opinion I'm sure that no matter what I do at my job or how well (or not) I do it won't change any of your opinions about MS (or anything else) but I'm the head guy for one of the 16 locations the company has The staff (about 40) are connected to the corporate WAN I have one server (W2K) that handles printing, an Oracle database for this market (2 locations), backup and my connection to AD We have a local network with about 300 stations that I am fully in charge of I have a DC and 5 Citrix servers all running W2K3 (all IBM dual Xeon) a NAS(Iomega) and another server running W2K except the NAS, everything is IBM I have a firewall and an Internet connection, tape backup, AD, etc. There are 15 people like me in the company, I have one assistant I've been doing this for a while at first corporate was AS/400 local was Novell then corporate went to NT 3.51, then 4.0 then W2K local network went to NT 4, then W2K, then W2K3 I still don't see the relevance of any of this A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #278,858 by crazy 3/19/07 7:52:20 PM Reply	I wanted to see if I could understand your point of view And I think I do now. This stuff is your life. Good or bad, makes no difference. You are an almost pure MS admin in a decent sized multi-location shop. You\ufffdve bet your career, your ability to feed your family, hell, your integrity on it. So I simply ask, do you have any responses to any of the points I made in my "rant", or are you simply going to ignore it?
Post #278,926 by andread 3/20/07 10:40:42 AM Reply	the "crazy" "rant" 1) MS destroys companies. I don't think you would say that this is policy. You offer no percentages, but I would suggest that the numbers would be rather small. Many people buy homes, a few people are ruined by a bad home purchase, do we stop home ownership? 2) There are good people and "MS robots." ERghhh, gears grinding, must phone home, talk to Ballmer, Argghhhhh. 3) The good people can't (or won't) work with MS software. I wouldn't work in an industry I found morally repellent, so I understand that some people have moral or ethical objections to MS. However, I know many people that I consider good that work with MS tools all the time. Many of them, myself included, have worked with other products in the past or work with them now. 4) MS has a strong sales force. Yes, they do. 5) Viruses, spyware, security holes. We got hit by a few viruses over the years. ILoveYou was a biggie. It got into the CEOs mail and sent one to everyone who works here. A lot of people wanted to "feel" the love from that source. We've learned and adapted. These things are at the level of minor nuisance at this point. When I had W2K server and Citrix Presentation Server 3, there was almost no security, spyware would jump from a users sessions to the servers with ease. Almost all of this is gone with W2K3 server and Citrix 4. I have a firewall, corporate has a firewall, AV software gets better, spyware fighters get better, maybe I've gotten better too. To me, what I do is a job, I wouldn't want to lose it because it might be hard to find another one in this area. I don't want to quit because this works for me. I don't really see my personal integrity being involved in my job, let alone the software used at the job. I would say this is a decent place to work. In the exceptionally unlikely event that I discovered that the company was being financed by child pornography and sex slavery, I would be more concerned about my legal exposure than any philosophical issues. I have no problem with you feeling differently. I also looked into the definitions of rant. Not all of them have negative connotations I think this one expresses my point of view: a loud bombastic declamation expressed with strong emotion A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #278,979 by crazy 3/20/07 10:52:39 PM Reply	Thank you. #1 \ufffd I didn\ufffdt mean MS destroys companies, as far as competition, or illegal leveraging of their monopoly. I meant that the MS tax makes life harder while adding minimal benefit (if any) to the end user. And when I say tax, I don\ufffdt just mean the obvious dollar amounts. I means when poor interoperability breaks things. When an OS upgrade takes out the network. I especially mean when things such as multi-database or multi-server configurations break, which then makes us scramble to find out what MS changed. In the old days, the OS wasn\ufffdt done until Lotus wouldn\ufffdt run. Now it is more likely to be ADS rejecting a Samba authentication request. Or how about this \ufffd I just had a hardware problem with my home network. So I needed to setup a new core Linux box. I have several new low end Dells. But when we say low end, they are still VERY fast for running a Linux KDE environment. At least they would be, IF they would let me install the OS. It seems to new low end Dells (I see multiple posting concerning this) have a locked BIOS of some sort, and refuse to boot Linux. So I had to scramble to setup a usable environment which include VMWare under XP running Linux, which makes it a bit slow, and loses a lot of my favorite desktop programs since it would be VERY slow if I turned them on. So while the box is somewhat usable, it is painful, and another reason for me to dislike MS. I\ufffdm not accepting "coincidence". #2 - I consider anyone who doesn\ufffdt consider alternatives an MS robot. I don\ufffdt know if you fall into that. #3 \ufffd Interesting. "I understand that some people have moral or ethical objections to MS". Do you feel they have a valid reason, or it is very specific to those people and can\ufffdt possibly have a good basis? #4 \ufffd They have a lying, cheating politically mudslinging sales force. You may consider that good. I don\ufffdt. #5 \ufffd Viruses are part of the MS tax. Cost of doing business. And yes, I see it is your job. But it is not just a job. It is a career. [link\|http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=+career\|http://www.webster.c...search&va=+career] Note your comment on how it might be hard to find another job. This means you have a vested interest in seeing it spread. Which goes back to my original problem with you being a fan. It is against my best interests, and the interests of my company. Not as a producer of software which is in competition with MS, but as a user of software that does not want its independent direction controlled by an outside entity that\ufffds only interest is in extracting as much money as possible. Note on MS specific characters. I\ufffdve been forced into using MS environment for the short term, so I might sprinkle them about a bit. Sorry.
Post #279,020 by andread 3/21/07 9:45:24 AM Reply	Re: Thank you. 1) Your Dell won't boot Linux. Was it sold to be a Linux box? Does MS own Dell? Since Dell sells Windows, it could make sense to them to optimize their units to run Windows better. Obviously, not all PCs do this. I have installed Linux on HP, Compaq and IBM without BIOS issues. Maybe you have a bit of MS paranoia. 2) There could be a wide variety of reasons why I want to keep my present job that have nothing to with MS (or my "damaging" you in some way). we could probably do this forever but neither one of us are likely to change as far as the moral or ethical issues, if you see them as important you should act on them. MS has been ruled against in the big anti-trust case of a few years back. So if illegal activity by a monopoly is a key issue, then so be it. Others felt the same way before the trial. Some believe that MS kills people, etc. my father was a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. the company he worked for was found to have violated anti-trust laws at least once while he was with them. if anyone told me that made him an immoral or unethcial person, even though I probably wouldn't do it, I would want to punch them in the face A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #279,032 by folkert 3/21/07 10:21:27 AM Reply	Microsoft cntinues the Monopolistic actions Daily, here in the US and abroad... The EU for example is staring M$ down vs. the USDOJ blinking. And since Microsoft does the "We require people and companies respect our Intellectual Property" thing... Why do they then blatantly not respect other people's and/or company's IP? This can be seen by the sheer number of lawsuits Microsoft deals with annually, dealing with them because they just using other people's intellectual property (down with OPIP), only when they are forced to pay for the "licensing" do they actually respect OPIP. Microsoft as a whole company is not ethical anymore. Sure many people that work there are doing the job they feel is right, many are even exceptionally ethical. But the people in charge of "destiny" at the company as a while are not making sound decisions for the company and the sales force to use. Trust me, the Sales force is starting the "Well, we will have to check with our numbers and maybe have to do a comprehensive audit to make sure you comply". Even though a large company about 500 yards from me has all the auditing software fully approved by M$. They presented the numbers and are paying "extra fees" for IP Protection and assurance. Don't tell me this is a company that is growing due to additional uptake, this is a company that is starting its death-throws. It doesn't have a chance to really do anything but, buy, buy, buy companies, coerce its customers and become a litigation and "deal" making company. The litigation and deal making is already happening against a foe it can not comprehend. The one thing I have to say to you: You actually depend on Microsoft for your lively-hood? Truly and really? -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Freedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0; 0 rows returned.
Post #279,054 by andread 3/21/07 1:48:47 PM Reply	Re: Microsoft continues the Monopolistic actions you wrote: You actually depend on Microsoft for your lively-hood? Truly and really? The company I work for uses mostly MS stuff, they do pay me so that makes the answer to your question yes except that the company got along fine before it used MS and if the decision is made to drop MS (not likely, imo, but I don't have a say) the company will still be here all our major data is in Oracle running on Sun so no hyper-paranoid MS lock-in could keep us from our data all spreadsheets and text documents would survive the end of MS if a few PowerPoint or Publisher docs were lost, who would really care once Office 2007 is rolled out, they will all become PDFs if they are important anyway we all know that MS is the largest s/w company in the world so why the surprise that someone or some organization is using MS A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #279,047 by crazy 3/21/07 1:08:28 PM Reply	Interesting my father was a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. the company he worked for was found to have violated anti-trust laws at least once while he was with them. if anyone told me that made him an immoral or unethcial person, even though I probably wouldn't do it, I would want to punch them in the face So he worked for a company that was CONVICTED (you said "found") of violating the law. And rather address the issue directly (hmm, "maybe there is a problem here") you would instead want to punch the person who said this. Yup, your choice of professional and willful avoidance of the facts surrounding it is making more and more sense.
Post #279,052 by andread 3/21/07 1:38:16 PM Reply	Re: Interesting your post made no sense A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #279,068 by crazy 3/21/07 2:54:48 PM Reply	To you, yes
Post #279,096 by andread 3/21/07 5:18:41 PM Reply	No, in general You incorrectly combine two things which are separate I said that I would take exception to anyone who said that my father lacked integrity just because his employer was found to have violated the law These are 2 separate things: the company's status my father's integrity look at the post from folkert in this thread he acknowledges that good people may work at MS A Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy Saturday 8 PM - 11 PM ET All Night Rewind 11 PM - 5 PM Reggae, African and Caribbean Music [link\|http://wxxe.org\|Tune In]
Post #279,101 by crazy 3/21/07 5:55:48 PM Reply	Ahh, but you put up a wall Without any possibility that your father might have been part of the crew that made the decisions that trigger the sanctions. I accept it is very unlikely, but without knowing the specifics, possible. You on the other hand responded with possible violence at the mere suggestion. Yes, some good people work for MS. Yes, some good people work for drug companies. I'd be in deep shit without a variety of drugs handy at all time (heart, blood pressure, pain killers, etc), so I'm very grateful to the good people working at drug companies. So what. It doesn't stop a reasonable person from being wary.

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