Apr 1: The Wow Starts Now!
(Oh, OK, I just used that subject line to annoy people - and whilst tipping my hat to Tim Hall, who used it a while ago. Deep breath; flame-retardant jump suit on ...)
For the past couple of weeks I've been using my new PC (with Windows Vista installed) for everything, remote DBA support work included. First things first ... I have found using Windows Vista a complete joy in my short time working with it. That's in despite of reading the following comments from good friends ...
"Vista is a [expletive deleted] awful OS"
"And as for Vista - I couldn't agree more! Load of [expletive deleted]. I certainly won't let it anywhere near any machine I have. Don't know where you get your ideas from Doug, but if you publish hyperbole, prepare for a response!"
"I'm glad I never loaded Vista after finding out a little more about it!"
"Vista sucks!"
Mmm, where have I got my ideas from? Perhaps by actually using it? What a strange way for me to develop my own ideas! Far better to read a few articles about it and form my opinions that way, eh? In this, I'm reminded of Howard Rogers recent blog, particularly this sentiment.
Keep an open mind, in short; and use the right tool for the job, whatever that may turn out to be.
Do I think that businesses should rush to upgrade? Absolutely not - that sort of exercise is complicated, time-consuming and, therefore, expensive. Worse still, if even one existing application doesn't work, why on earth would any business take such a retrograde action? It's not as though Vista offers anything startlingly important for businesses.
No, that's definitely not my argument and, what's more, I very much doubt that I would have gone for a Vista upgrade as a personal user. I don't like the latest and greatest of everything - I'm too old to be dazzled (I thought) - and it's far too expensive for a home or small business user. Actually, of the various tech people I know, I would say I have one of the lowest opinions of Microsoft's operating systems.
The only reason I have Windows Vista is because it came with the new PC I bought for my business. (This is important, as you'll see later.) I needed a new PC because, frankly, my laptop is driving me nuts with it's slow performance only a year after I bought it. I put this down to a few factors.
1. I am convinced, based on long experience of using Windows-based PCs, that they have to be reinstalled regularly to clear-out all the rubbish deposited in the registry by all and sundry. That's the ironic thing, here - I have some pretty poor opinions of Windows, having used many versions.
2. I under-estimated the memory requirements of modern applications. 512Mb just doesn't cut it, sadly.
3. I'm now dependant on my laptop for my work. Whilst it worked pretty well for browsing, using Putty and writing a couple of presentations, it can't cope with the multiple applications I have running concurrently while working.
I ordered my new PC, had to wait too long for it to turn up, was not that excited about Vista, dreading cutting over all of the applications I need for work, but pretty excited about having my first desktop unit at home for a long time (4 years or so?). Laptops are great but, for the same money, a desktop still seems to me to offer more. What's more, I need never deal with over-heating or slow disk drives again and, when things aren't as I want them to be, I can upgrade easily!
What about Vista, then? Well, when I first booted up the PC I was, frankly, stunned by the visuals initially. Visuals do matter - I remember a guy I knew who never worried too much about his base unit, just the monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer, because that had this biggest effect on his working experience. I'm not sure I would go that far, but I could see his point. However, if I just focus on the visuals, I might be deemed an easily-dazzled boy, which I am most definitely not.
What's truly dazzling to me is that whenever I want to do something, it seems completely obvious to me how I do it. I haven't taken any refreshers, am rarely bothered by minor differences and yet find an O/S that I've spent a short amount of time with to be more obvious than the existing versions of Windows that I've been using for years. To date, every application has worked without the slightest hiccup, although I needed a beta Cisco VPN client that I learned about from Tim Hall's blog and comments.
That's my experience of actually using it. I hope readers will note that, of the Oracle bloggers I'm aware of who are using Vista, the two that spring to mind are Howard Rogers and Tim Hall. Far be it from me to speak for them, and they can pop along here and post their own thoughts no doubt, but I recognise a distinct lack of criticism in their blogs. Do you think, just maybe, that three people who are not known as the cheeriest, least critical souls who have actually used the software might have something worth saying?
So why the animosity from people who I respect and yet have no personal experience? Well, there are many issues around Microsoft protecting content, on behalf of content providers they say, and one friend emphasised the 200 checks per second Windows performs in this area. I say, as a political issue, this is crucial, and they will no doubt pop along and add their rants as comments. But, when I'm using the thing, I don't give a monkey's. Which is to say I'm finally moving towards that boring middle-aged guy who doesn't fight for his beliefs fervently that I always feared I'd become.
Look, I suppose DRM issues are important but what this blog is really about is this. At least one of the critics (he knows who he is) proudly stated that it was a good job he knew Vista was terrible because it saved him from installing and trying it. Well, if that isn't the most blinkered nonsense I've heard in a long time, I don't know what is 
Oh, I said I'd come back to the PC and I feel it would be unfair to point out that this is a nice dual-core PC with 2Gb RAM. The likelihood is that this is why the bloated nature of Vista, with all of it's security checks, doesn't seem to impact my experience because it has more than enough horse-power to cope. So what? For the machine I've got, Vista is doing a marvellous job and much, much better than I expected. It's still the case that if I'd installed Linux, I would have been faffing around with everything getting it to work. Trust me, I know, I love Unix and have used lots of variations of Linux! I'm just telling the truth here about the respective experiences I've had.
Do you want to know the real scandal at the moment, at least for ordinary internet users? I've been occasionally approving comments to an old blog on Yahoo mail problems. More on that later ...
#1 - Alex Gorbachev said:
2007-04-01 01:32 - (Reply)
Nice April's Fool joke Doug!
#3 - Noons said:
2007-04-01 14:12 - (Reply)
Good one, Nial! "reduced energy consumption" indeed. Must be all that green in the box.
But my kids want it now, so I might have to upgrade their pcs to the home edition...
Apparently that one is a little less demanding on resources. IOW, XP in different clothes.
#4 - peter robson 2007-04-01 19:23 - (Reply)
Yes, Vista is truly outstandingly beautifully wonderful, but not as good as the beta that will replace it in five years time. I have read all about that, installed a monkey copy from a M'Soft friend, and I can assure you, Doug, that when you see it, you will regert having ever bothered with Virus. Its so good that they could release this new beta right now. It may be called Panorama. Trust me...
peter
#5 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-01 19:42 - (Reply)
Mmmm, no actual specific criticisms, then? I suppose it must be difficult if you have no experience to base them, on
#6 - peter robson 2007-04-01 22:06 - (Reply)
Hey smartie - I don't need to experieince it to know that jumping off a tall building without a parachute isn't the cleverest thing to do...
I don't even need to start learning Cobol either to see whether it will help my use of Oracle!
I'll give you some measured crit once we have sailed past this, hmm, significant point in the calendar...
peter
#8 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-02 17:42 - (Reply)
Oh, believe me, you won't be the last to comment on that. The rest are just too lazy to show up yet
#11 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-04 04:40 - (Reply)
There was an implicit challenge from Doug to some of us here in Scotland over his love for Vista.
I do believe the challenge was laid in my direction first!
First - if you elect to change the hardware of your machine, Doug, you will probably have to re-validate your licence. At some arbitrary point, M'Soft will decide your amended machine has departed sufficiently from original that they will require a new licence.
What, you mean like Oracle would require you to pay an additional licence fee when you add CPUs to a server? They might not check it, but they require it and you'd be breaking the law if you don't pay more.
Secondly, the M'Soft firewall. It defaults to open all, which IMHO is nothing less than scandalously irresonsible.
Agreed, but has absolutely no effect on me because I don't rely on the machine's own firewall software anyway. i.e. It has no bearing whatsoever on my personal experience.
That's not to say that I condone Microsoft's behaviour, but my blog was about the positive user experience I've had and none of these arguments change that one jot. If I'd listened to others I might have missed out on that.
Still not tried it yet?
#13 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-05 07:09 - (Reply)
Hi Mark,
Thanks for adding your experience, particularly the details, which I'm sure others will find useful.
I haven't had any app compatibility problems other than the VPN client but I probably use a much smaller subset of apps than most people - Erm, putty
Well, a bit more than that, but no fancy Java stuff or VMs.
Thanks again.
#14 - Thomas said:
2007-04-05 11:43 - (Reply)
[*deep* breath and bite my tongue hard!]
So you like all the bells and whistles of Vista? Fair enough since you've got a new powerful PC with lots of memory so it actually works without problems. You obviously enjoy the experience, windoze tax and every thing else which has a shiny sticker on the box with an exceptionally high price tag? Think of all the kit (which still works OK) being thrown into the bucket just because it won't run Vista - what a big waste and it's also not good for the environment either.
Very good luck to you Doug! You obviously don't copy files too much :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/vista_copying_bug/
Even Dell have given in to the demands of customers who didn't want to pay the windoze tax:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6506027.stm
So you can save yourself a substantial amount of cash on your new kit if you don't use windoze and use OpenOffice as opposed to the expensive Orifice - probably around £350 or so. It will also run more efficiently, all your music will always play in high quality and you won't have to fill in numerous forms for your software to work! The Open Document Standards are the way forward not this XML zipped file nonsense! But I digress...
I've been really impressed by the Ubuntu community and all their efforts. The fact that it's a live CD and you can try it without installing it is quite impressive for those unsure users. It comes with all the software you'll need for most things: Open Office, Gimp (alternative to Photoshop) amongst many, many other things. It even has a tool to search the massive library on the internet for free software and it will download and install the software for you too and keep it up to date if you like without the need to fill in numerous registration forms and part with any cash.
I suppose the fact that I never got my scanner to work with windoze ex pee successfully and never had *any* problems with using it on Linux (even using the scanner by booting off the live CD!) was an interesting experience for me.
The power of the people in the community and their willingness to help is incredible. I noticed a chap posting on the Edinburgh Linux Users list about some installation problems and immediately a few guys responded to his request for help and he's now up and running with *FREE* software. I know that we get the same thing going on at Oracle-L, etc, but I doubt the guys there would be willing to pop round to your house to help you out for free!
It's the passion behind everything and everyone in the community which is so much more powerful than the excessive needs of shareholders and the value of their shares on the stock market. This passion will only get bigger and stronger as the uptake of Linux continues.
You should check oot http://www.badvista.org 
#16 - Alex Gorbachev said:
2007-04-07 19:15 - (Reply)
Doug, don't forget to let the world know whether you manager to get Unicenter client up and running.
#17 - Alex Gorbachev said:
2007-04-07 19:21 - (Reply)
Oh... boy do I hate Open Office... For some reason I can't stand it! I use it for half a year (well, trying to avoid using it to be more precise) and so far I really miss MS Office.
I think OS X + MS Office is a killer. Anyone here running on Mac?
#19 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-08 07:09 - (Reply)
So you like all the bells and whistles of Vista?
It's such a cliche to type-cast my experience as bells and whistles, whereas yours is about all that's good and meaningful in the world. We are talking about operating systems here, aren't we? Although Vista looks good, my main point was that it's easy to use and helps me do my job better. Still, much easier to subtly devalue the message by dealing in the more trivial aspects.
So, I'll skip over most of the corny anti-corporate rebellion and stick to the meaningful points.
Think of all the kit (which still works OK) being thrown into the bucket just because it won't run Vista - what a big waste and it's also not good for the environment either.
I agree wholeheartedly with you if it is thrown into the bucket. Alternatively, you could pass older kit on to someone who wants to run Linux or similar, right? Does that mean that I have to keep using the same equipment unti it breaks? Actually, I think I have some sympathy with that view, too.
Very good luck to you Doug! You obviously don't copy files too much
I copy them all the time actually and haven't come across this particular bug. However, anyone with real Linux experience will know it's an absolute nightmare of bugs at times. That's the software of today, isn't it? Are you going to paste a ton of links in here about Linux bugs in your next comment? If you don't, you might end up looking seriously biased and desperate for any peg to hang an argument on.
Even Dell have given in to the demands of customers who didn't want to pay the windoze tax
So Dell have decided to offer more than one operating system pre-installed? Woo-hoo. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with my personal experience and is even less proof that Windows is a bad operating system. I simply don't see the connection, I'm afraid. Sounds like political rabble-rousing, to me
So you can save yourself a substantial amount of cash on your new kit if you don't use windoze and use OpenOffice as opposed to the expensive Orifice - probably around £350 or so.
That depends. For business use, yes. But for home use, if you have one child in education of any kind, it costs around £90 for three PCs. Having used OpenOffice a lot, I'll spend the £30, thanks very much.
Tell you what, let's all chuck out Oracle while we're at it and use MySQL, eh? Yeah, sure, when MySQL comes within a million miles of being the same thing, maybe. I'm sure it will eventually, but that doesn't mean I should have to use it now and help make it better. Isn't that what people slag off the likes of Microsoft and Oracle for?
It will also run more efficiently, all your music will always play in high quality
I don't use my PC to play music. It's really not my main priority, or working on graphics, or ripping DVDs. I just don't care. I want it to do the jobs I want it to do, not all the jobs that people like you tell me I could use it for.
The Open Document Standards are the way forward not this XML zipped file nonsense!
Sigh, maybe they are, but there's absolutely no evidence here as to why, just more tub-thumping!
I've been really impressed by the Ubuntu community and all their efforts.
snipped ...
The thing is, Thomas, that's great if you have a lot of time to play around with a PC and try new things out but, frankly, I've been a Linux user for a *long* time and sometimes I just want something that works without faffing around with it constantly.
There's still nothing so far that explains this weird contrast between my personal experience and your speeches. If you just keep (metaphorically) shouting, "it's bad, it's bad"; but I've enjoyed using it, aren't you in danger of sounding like Chicken Licken?
I suppose the fact that I never got my scanner to work with windoze ex pee successfully and never had *any* problems with using it on Linux (even using the scanner by booting off the live CD!) was an interesting experience for me.
Now you are truly stretching the bounds of your credibility. For anyone reading this, please correct me and feel free to post your wonderfully positive experiences getting hardware to work with Linux as opposed to that tricky Windows! Ludicrous, frankly.
It's the passion behind everything and everyone in the community which is so much more powerful than the excessive needs of shareholders and the value of their shares on the stock market. This passion will only get bigger and stronger as the uptake of Linux continues.
Again, something I think is great to hear and I tend to agree with you. So why do you have so much difficulty agreeing with me that Vista might be better than you think and that you should try it before attacking it? If someone toes a 'party line' so much, whatever the party line, I start to lose interest because I can't trust their views without seeing a little balance in there.
Let me give you the punchline. As I keep saying, I've been using Linux for donkey's years on-and-off. On the Eric Raymond-Richard Stallman line of opinions, I've always tended to side with Richard Stallman and his rather more fervent and clearly-defined philosophies. It would appear you are attacking the experiences of one of your own, and that will be to the ultimate detriment of your cause.
t's like when the government goes around telling kids that drugs are bad. They try ecstasy, have the time of their lives and the whole argument collapses it on itself.
You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I find your views reactionary (yes, it's not just about right-wingers)
All good knock-about debating fun, though. Thanks
#20 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-08 07:19 - (Reply)
+1 on that.
One of the things I most enjoyed about working at Sun was not having to use Windows at work (hear that, folks, I'm not a MS fan-boy!). OpenOffice? Yeah, I had to use that at work too and have tried my damndest at home and it isn't a patch on Office. It's excellent for a free product, but I remain unconvinced that I'd choose it over Office.
Good for the price, but not as good.
That remains my argument on a lot of free software I've used. If people were more honest about the fact that most free applications still have to catch up with the commercial alternatives I would be more prepared to listen. What's so difficult about saying, yeah, Office is much better, but OpenOffice is free!?
Oh, and Mr. Gorbachev, put your friends out of their misery, buy the damn Mac and report back to use all on your experience via your blog! I'm sure it will be rubbish, too, though. Have you tried Linux?
#21 - Alex Gorbachev said:
2007-04-08 22:03 - (Reply)
buy the damn Mac and report back...
Who told you I don't have one? Remember that strange old fashioned monitor in Alex Jr.'s room? Yep - that's an old good all-in-one Mac. It's an old piece of hardware - 400MHz PowerPC and 384M of memory but runs 10.3.9 OS-X just fine including MS Office 2004 for Mac (MS Office rocks). It's a bit slow at times but it's damn real *nix and has quite a bit of bells and whistles that I do like and I was working on it for 1+ month for oncall until I've got my real PC shipped over.
What do you need for work? Shell, VNC, Remote Desktop, Emails, Browser and Parallels with Windows to run fancy stuff like Unicenter console (never tried it though) unless you have it installed on a shared server somewhere. .
So my experience with it was quite good even though not that extensive.
#22 - Doug Burns said:
2007-04-09 08:11 - (Reply)
You know, it's *really* time for you to buy one of the new Intel ones and tell us how it is. Tell Olga it's just for research to benefit the community
#24 - Howard Rogers said:
2007-04-09 13:36 - (Reply)
feel free to post your wonderfully positive experiences getting hardware to work with Linux as opposed to that tricky Windows
Ahem. Right: Thinkpad X40. Shipped with XP. Naturally, I wiped it and installed my own XP (don't ask!). Ran fine for yonks. Then I wiped it again and put Suse on it. Then the thing wouldn't reboot, claiming the hard disk had failed. Then I wiped it and put XP back on it, and the hard disk wasn't mysteriously failing any more.
Here's the punchline: XP can now make neither head nor tail of my Gigabit Ethernet port, displaying it as 'Unknown Device' in Device Manager, and refusing to make use of the drivers downloaded fresh from Lenovo for it.
Boot up with Knoppix, and the network interface just works.
Make of it what you will. To me, it looks like Suse broke my hard disk and XP fixed it; but the fresh installation of XP made me realise how many drivers etc. I have to install immediately post-install before anything at all works, and how that process is not quite so stress-free or indeed as successful as we remember or think it to be.
But nevertheless, I'm with you: I find talk of "windoze" and "micro$oft" and "ex pee" just childish. The refusal to acknowledge that anything other than your own choice of software is valid and reasonable is utterly infuriating, but expected from O/S zealots.
Bottom line is: if doesn't do what you need it to do, it's crap whether it's open source or not. And if it DOES do what you need it to do, then the fact that it's made by a Seattle-based company and sold at high prices doesn't render it pointless.
Dogma of any sort is tedious, even when it's from the truly righteous.
