The message
from Flower Bobdew contains these words:

There's never going to be an easy way around this, though. Aside from
persuade people to educate themselves about the potential threats.


Unless people start writing programs which inhabit the web and sit there
like sea anemones or cruise about it like sharks, eating any scumware
they encounter.

And ISPs like Telia are taken out.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

"Flower Bobdew" wrote
snip
There's never going to be an easy way around this, though. Aside from
persuade people to educate themselves about the potential threats.

And of course the best way to do that is patronise and insult them.
Riiight.

As one of those you deem 'clueless' I'm always mildly amused when I
google info from security or techie-help ngs (some of us do, you know)
to see how the very same M'Softophobes, busy sneering at OE users, are
having such a lot of trouble with their own setups. All those
persistently crashed systems, re-re-reinstalled progams that just
won't - you know - work. It's reassuring to see they don't always know
as much as they think they do.

--
Sue

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"ned" wrote
That's the way it seems. There just aint no tolerance left in the
world.

snip

I've concluded that it is hard enough for me to live up to my own
standards without trying to live up to the conflicting standards
of
everyone else.
:-)



Totally agree with your observations Ned :~))

Two of us! United against the world!
We will survive. :-))


BTW compliments on your site!
Nice tight design, brilliant pictures and lots of useful info - duly
bookmarked
for future reference :~))

Oh, you can visit anytime. :-))

--
ned

http://www.bugsandweeds.co.uk
last update 05.02.2006

In article ews.net,
Sue writes

"Flower Bobdew" wrote
snip

There's never going to be an easy way around this, though. Aside from
persuade people to educate themselves about the potential threats.

And of course the best way to do that is patronise and insult them.
Riiight.

As one of those you deem 'clueless'

GAH! If I could take it back again and again and again I would.
Particularly if it's going to avoid alienating people from researching
their computer use/knowledge. The initial comment really was meant
tongue-in-cheek. [I honestly didn't expect this to become a worthy
thread - in that many people would read/respond.] Hence my subsequent
comments amending the term used.

I'm always mildly amused when I google info from security or
techie-help ngs (some of us do, you know) to see how the very same
M'Softophobes, busy sneering at OE users, are having such a lot of
trouble with their own setups. All those persistently crashed systems,
re-re-reinstalled progams that just won't - you know - work.

You don't have to be a 'techie' to appreciate the benefits and, more
importantly, to use software other than that which came bundled with
your Microsoft PC.

Can you think of any other walk of life where you would put all your
eggs in one basket and not be able to make the most of freedom of
choice? We don't all drive the same make of car, shop at the same
supermarkets, use all the same electrical goods, etc. - and it would
probably appear absurd to assume we would/should.

And yet most folk, somewhat lemming-like - the majority presumably for
that 'techie' reasoning - follow the Microsoft route and all its
inherent security issues.

This discussion could go on for quite some time, and this really isn't
the place for it, I guess. But if you have any questions I'll be happy
to try and answer them - and there are at least a couple of other
knowledgeable people here that can put us right/offer alternative
thoughts - in a completely *non-techie* way...because I couldn't be much
further away from that label!

It's reassuring to see they don't always know as much as they think
they do.

Absolutely. But technical NGs are filled with people going the extra
'techie' mile - and therefore creating their own additional problems.
Try not to lose sight of the wood for the trees.

I've now had a rock solid [relatively, you understand ], stable
computer set-up for many years now, and it's not because of hours of
peering under any metaphorical bonnet.

Again, apologies for any perceived patronising tone.

--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

"Flower Bobdew" wrote in message
...

And yet most folk, somewhat lemming-like - the majority presumably for
that 'techie' reasoning - follow the Microsoft route and all its
inherent security issues.

IE and OE only have inherent securiy issues because they have
such a large installed user base. It's not worth a hackers
time finding a flaw in software with a tiny users base.

No software is perfect and free of all possible security
holes, and anyone who thinks it ever can be is simply
demonstrationg their cluelessness, both on a theoretical
and practical level.

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase
of the Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the
farm on ditching IBM. If it wasn't for Gates and Intel there'd be
no cheap hardware available on which the Linuix geeks could
demontrate their superiority. Never mind parasitising the
Xerox Parc|Mac|Windows GUI look and feel.

The geeks would still be busy with their soldering irons, while everyone
else would still be forking out £5000 for 90mhz boxes offering
one of 20 different operationg systems - none of which could
print pound signs on your £500 9 pin dot matrix printer.

And having to remeber 50 character long command line parameters.

But just because someone loves Bill, that doesn't mean they won't
buy OEM Microsoft products on eBay for peanuts if given the chance.

Bill is best. You know it makes sense.


michael adams


rest snipped




--
Flower Bobdew
South Facing Garden
South West: UK

"K" wrote in message
...
michael adams writes

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase of the
Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the farm on ditching
IBM

The thing that started the personal computer revolution and planted in
people's mind the idea that they could have a computer at home for their
own personal use was the generation of cheap (relatively for the time)
'play' machines like the Beeb and Atari.


They started as fun machines for Basic programming, but soon developed
word processing programmes adequate for short letters, and that is what
set the scene for everything that followed.


Acorn, and Atari, like Commodore, Sinclair, Apricot, and countless
others all went out of business years ago. The reason being that they
all had different operating systems, or variants of operating systems
and so were of no use for business, as they generated incompatible
files. What was needed was an industry standard, which the Microsoft
Intel duopoly supplied. Having ditched IBM along the way.

Apple pioneered business computing with Dan Briklin's Visicalc
spreadsheet, but as soon as IBM came along the next year with
a non-proprietary architecture which other manufacturers could
copy, they took over their market. Up until that point managers
had been buying Apples to use at home - their firms then bought
them IBMs and latterly clones. But up until a few years ago it
was still impossible to read Apple and Mac disks on standard PC's
because the Apple disc drives used a totally different mode of
operation. Designed by Steve Wozniak the real unsung hero of
the Apple duo.

What brought prices down was having an industry standard, so that
everyone knew where they stood. Industry standards are seldom
cutting edge, they build on previous innovations. And Microsoft
set the industry standard by building on others work, making
them into commercial propositions, and in the process bringing
prices down, simply through economies of scale.

When Microsoft launched IE they stole Netscapes thunder - but Netscape
with Jim Clark at the helm were no shrinking violets themselves. Despite
raising the biggest sum up to that point ever in an IT flotation
Netscape had no realistic prospects of establishing a steady revenue
stream apart from simply selling the browser. Gates sensed this, got
enthusiastic for the Internet, hired some Mosaic geeks to build IE
and bundled it for free with Win 95

Same with fonts. John Warnock and others invented PostScript at Xerox,
sold it to Apple, and with an Apple laser and Pagemaker you got
smooth fonts on screen and smooth 300dpi printing on your Apple
Laser. A total revolution compared with what had gone before.
PostScript Lasers were £4000 plus and to this day individual PostScript
fonts still cost £50 each. Adobe (Warnock) and Apple were only really
interested in selling DTP to the graphics industry and or rich
Californians. This was no good to Bill who wanted everyone to be able
to produce smooth printing on a laser - created with mathematical
curves and so easily scaleable not blocky bitmapped fonts restricted
to certain sizes. And so he commissioned TrueType. So everyone can now
buy a laser for under £100 and have loads of quite reasonable
WYSIWYG fonts. (Or buy secondhand PostScript lasers on ebay for
£30)

All down to Bill. Bill is our friend.

Some might claim it was (Sir) Clive (Sinclair) rather than
the BBC or Atari who first got the ball rolling, when he got
W.H.Smith and Boots to stock the ZX. Whatever his other faults
(and they were many according to his detractors) Clive certainly
had the gift of the gab. If only it wasn't for the high proportion
of returns, the C5 car, the miniature TV's.etc etc. Clive allegedly
once bought and dug up a load of Ferranti chips which he'd
found a use for.

The other breakthrough was (Sir) Alan Sugar and the PCW word processor
which like the original Macintosh combined everything in the monitor
casing, like a lot of Sinclair's machines made big savings with
innovative circuitry, and most crucial from a users point of view
came already bundled with an integral printer.



michael adams

....




--
Kay

"K" wrote in message
...
michael adams writes
Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase of the
Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the farm on ditching IBM

The thing that started the personal computer revolution and planted in
people's mind the idea that they could have a computer at home for their
own personal use was the generation of cheap (relatively for the time)
'play' machines like the Beeb and Atari.

They started as fun machines for Basic programming, but soon developed
word processing programmes adequate for short letters, and that is what
set the scene for everything that followed.
--
Kay

Amen to that. But predating that lot was the Sinclair ZX spectrum.
So that make me older than you but at least I am not too old for tinternet
;-))

"michael adams" wrote in message
...
Snip.
All down to Bill. Bill is our friend.

michael adams

Bill owns 40% of Apple pureley to keep a second rate business in business
:-)

The message
from "michael adams" contains these words:

IE and OE only have inherent securiy issues because they have
such a large installed user base. It's not worth a hackers
time finding a flaw in software with a tiny users base.

No software is perfect and free of all possible security
holes, and anyone who thinks it ever can be is simply
demonstrationg their cluelessness, both on a theoretical
and practical level.

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase
of the Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the
farm on ditching IBM. If it wasn't for Gates and Intel there'd be
no cheap hardware available on which the Linuix geeks could
demontrate their superiority. Never mind parasitising the
Xerox Parc|Mac|Windows GUI look and feel.

Where do you think Gates got it from? And the rest?

Have a look at Unix.

And my ZX Spectrum (still got it) was way pre-Gates. He started by
buying DOS and offering it to IBM when they fell out with the writers of
CP/M - which I was using before DOS was in his grasp.

The geeks would still be busy with their soldering irons, while everyone
else would still be forking out £5000 for 90mhz boxes offering
one of 20 different operationg systems - none of which could
print pound signs on your £500 9 pin dot matrix printer.

You could do that with Apricots and Amstrads while Billyware was in its
infancy. Also have a look at CP/M and all the other 'hobby' computers
which were around at the time, and some of which are still going and
being developed.

And having to remeber 50 character long command line parameters.

Who does?

But just because someone loves Bill, that doesn't mean they won't
buy OEM Microsoft products on eBay for peanuts if given the chance.

Bill is best. You know it makes sense.


He's contributed a lot, not least because of resistance to his megalomania.

I use some of his products, but get a bit miffed when the latest
security rollup for Win 2000 won't work unless I install IE6, and
similar anti-trust violations.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

michael adams writes

"K" wrote in message
...
michael adams writes

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase of the
Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the farm on ditching
IBM

The thing that started the personal computer revolution and planted in
people's mind the idea that they could have a computer at home for their
own personal use was the generation of cheap (relatively for the time)
'play' machines like the Beeb and Atari.


They started as fun machines for Basic programming, but soon developed
word processing programmes adequate for short letters, and that is what
set the scene for everything that followed.


Acorn, and Atari, like Commodore, Sinclair, Apricot, and countless
others all went out of business years ago.

True - but they were still the start of the 'affordable personal
computers'.
Before that you had the PET and one other, but they were several
thousand pounds rather than several hundreds of pounds. That was the big
quantum leap, and what brought computing to the home user.



--
Kay

Rupert writes

"K" wrote in message
...

The thing that started the personal computer revolution and planted in
people's mind the idea that they could have a computer at home for their
own personal use was the generation of cheap (relatively for the time)
'play' machines like the Beeb and Atari.

They started as fun machines for Basic programming, but soon developed
word processing programmes adequate for short letters, and that is what
set the scene for everything that followed.
--

Amen to that. But predating that lot was the Sinclair ZX spectrum.
So that make me older than you

So how good are you at reading paper tape? ;-)

but at least I am not too old for tinternet
;-))

As I said, it's how old you feel ;-)

I'm out of tune with life.
--
Kay

"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
k...
The message
from "michael adams" contains these words:

IE and OE only have inherent securiy issues because they have
such a large installed user base. It's not worth a hackers
time finding a flaw in software with a tiny users base.

No software is perfect and free of all possible security
holes, and anyone who thinks it ever can be is simply
demonstrationg their cluelessness, both on a theoretical
and practical level.

Affordable personal computers were only made possible becuase
of the Microsoft Intel duopoly and Gates decision to bet the
farm on ditching IBM. If it wasn't for Gates and Intel there'd be
no cheap hardware available on which the Linuix geeks could
demontrate their superiority. Never mind parasitising the
Xerox Parc|Mac|Windows GUI look and feel.

Where do you think Gates got it from? And the rest?

Have a look at Unix.

....

Unix was a command line OS developed by Bell Labs. And?

....


And my ZX Spectrum (still got it) was way pre-Gates. He started by
buying DOS and offering it to IBM when they fell out with the writers of
CP/M - which I was using before DOS was in his grasp.

....

He and Paul Allen started by writing a 7k basic for the Altair
after seeing it on the cover of a hobbyist magazine, and offering
it to the maker of the Altair - who since went back to being a
dentist. And died last year(?) By the time he was contacted by
IBM, Gates had sold MS Basic to almost everyone and it was for his
Basic that they contacted him. Gary Kildall, or Kildalls wife wouldn't
sign the non disclosure agreement demanded by IBM for CP/M, and
it was Digital Research who suggested they see Gates for the OS.
Gates bought QDOS from Seattle computing, and sold it on
to IBM as PC Dos. Early PC's stil shipped with CPM/86 as
well. When the clones came along next year, Gates also started
selling it as MS Dos. Thus risking upsetting IBM. Kildall claimed
there was still CP/M commented code in DOS.3 going all the way back
to cde filtched bt Seattle Computing for QDos.
Kildall who pioneered the notion of interchangable BIOS's
which revolutionised OS's for small computers - along with
with contributions by students in his classes died in a flying
accident.


The geeks would still be busy with their soldering irons, while everyone
else would still be forking out £5000 for 90mhz boxes offering
one of 20 different operationg systems - none of which could
print pound signs on your £500 9 pin dot matrix printer.

You could do that with Apricots and Amstrads while Billyware was in its
infancy.


Amstrads PC's came bundled with MS DOS. If you wanted to pay extra
you could buy DR DOS. Apricots which were more expensive had a
propietory DOS for some unaccountable reason. Sugar still has
a presence on the PC scene in Viglen, while Apricot went bust IIRR.
Dell has the corpotate market sewn up.

There were other GUI's such as GEM but nobody wrote any software
for them and so they died. End of.

Unlike Windoze.

....

Also have a look at CP/M and all the other 'hobby' computers
which were around at the time, and some of which are still going and
being developed.

....

CP/M had a large installed user base of business users as well.
However unlike Kildall, Gates was happy to sign non disclosure
agreemants with the main player at the time - IBM. And so
all business developemant on CP/M came to a halt. DR DOS did
provide utilities that PC DOS and MS Dos didn't. But that
gave Norton Tools and PC Tools an opportunity to establish
a market niche for themselves. So Peter Norton had reason
for liking Bill as well.

....


And having to remeber 50 character long command line parameters.

Who does?

But just because someone loves Bill, that doesn't mean they won't
buy OEM Microsoft products on eBay for peanuts if given the chance.

Bill is best. You know it makes sense.


He's contributed a lot, not least because of resistance to his
megalomania.

....

Its not meglomanaical at all. Just sound business sense.

The computer business, because it grew so quickly is very efficeient
at weeding out bad business models. That's why Netscape Navigator
was always going to fail whether they had full access to the
Windows API or not. Regardless of trust suits they had no real
business model as to how the browser was going to generate
steady income. Maybe one would have come along as with Google -
but at that time they weren't making sufficient profits to
fight off the Microsoft challenge.

....


I use some of his products, but get a bit miffed when the latest
security rollup for Win 2000 won't work unless I install IE6, and
similar anti-trust violations.

....

I've never installed a single security measure on any computer
I've ever used. Nor had to*. I Ghost** the C partition after the
first clean install and tweaking of the OS and apps on each machine,
and do an automatic incremental backup of OE directories, docs,
favourites, all the other C partition stuff every week.
If I want to add an app, I reinstall the Ghosted C: partition ,
install the app, and re-ghost the lot. 10 minutes, Then copy
over the latest docs, favourites, etc. The ghost image files are
kept on the F: partition plus on CDR's.

* Never open attachments from strangers, disable HTML scripting
in email, be wary of tinyurls, and stay clear of obviously dodgy
websites. What could be easier?

** Norton Ghost - not written by Norton but by Symentec a small
NZ developer - the best application ever.(That is, after the first
(and only) time you have to re-install Win 95 (as was) and from
floppies, plus apps etc.


michael adams

....










--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

"K" wrote in message
...
Rupert writes

"K" wrote in message
...

The thing that started the personal computer revolution and planted in
people's mind the idea that they could have a computer at home for their
own personal use was the generation of cheap (relatively for the time)
'play' machines like the Beeb and Atari.

They started as fun machines for Basic programming, but soon developed
word processing programmes adequate for short letters, and that is what
set the scene for everything that followed.
--

Amen to that. But predating that lot was the Sinclair ZX spectrum.
So that make me older than you

So how good are you at reading paper tape? ;-)

but at least I am not too old for tinternet
;-))

As I said, it's how old you feel ;-)

I'm out of tune with life.
--
Kay

Paper tape as in Telex machines?
I am a child of the sixties --punch cards for me.

I am *blissfully * out of tune with life.
Last of the Summer winewise

"Flower Bobdew" wrote
Sue writes

"Flower Bobdew" wrote
snip

There's never going to be an easy way around this, though. Aside
from persuade people to educate themselves about the potential
threats.

And of course the best way to do that is patronise and insult them.
Riiight.

As one of those you deem 'clueless'

GAH! If I could take it back again and again and again I would.
Particularly if it's going to avoid alienating people from researching
their computer use/knowledge. The initial comment really was meant
tongue-in-cheek. [I honestly didn't expect this to become a worthy
thread - in that many people would read/respond.] Hence my subsequent
comments amending the term used.

Ok. I did write an even grumpier reply the previous night - but deleted
that one.

You don't have to be a 'techie' to appreciate the benefits and, more
importantly, to use software other than that which came bundled with
your Microsoft PC.

I know that, and I'm sure that, just like me, other OE users have
installed things that aren't part of the Gatesian Empire and have
ditched some bundled progs that were a waste of disk space. I wasn't
implying that you have to be an expert to use other software. Similarly
you don't have to be an expert to find info on how to whip OE into shape
and deal with security.

Can you think of any other walk of life where you would put all your
eggs in one basket and not be able to make the most of freedom of
choice?

Quite so but, as in other walks of life, you can't simply assume people
aren't doing that if they haven't made the same choice as you.

snip

Again, apologies for any perceived patronising tone.

Alright, you're forgiven just this once.

--
Sue

Sue wrote:
"Flower Bobdew" wrote
[...]
Can you think of any other walk of life where you would put all your
eggs in one basket and not be able to make the most of freedom of
choice?

Quite so but, as in other walks of life, you can't simply assume
people aren't doing that if they haven't made the same choice as you.
[...]

I think it's easy to misunderestimate the _confidence_ difficulties
people have with IT. I'd bet that about 80% of users would be scared to
_instal_ a new word processor, let alone feel competent to choose one.
As for real computing, well, hardly anybody even needs to go there. I
think GardenBanter offers an example. My take on such sites is that most
people don't even know that Usenet exists, still less what it is: so
along comes what looks like a convenient interactive site, and they're
pretty pleased with themselves for finding it and seeing that their
message actually appears. And I maintain they _should_ be pleased with
themselves: most people haven't even got that far.

The MS bundle-the-bloatware approach may annoy some of us for sound
reasons; but it's not only a good business move, it actually delivers
the goods for the majority of users. Jack and Jill want the thing to
work straight out of the box, and that's perfectly reasonable: these
folks don't even make real coffee!

--
Mike.