Changing Traditions and other Cultures Differences

[Bear]

Dave,

Is that magicJack working for ya?  I's still having problems with mine for some reason.  Still for $19.95/yr itts hard to beat.

The Bear Family

[Dave H]

Hey Bear,

The MagicJack is working great, despite having a poor Internet connection. The only problem I am having is whenever the phone rings, the Internet, thus MJ goes down. Once I sign on again it is back up. I am changing ISP's tomorrow, so hopefully that problem will be solved and we will have a quicker Internet connection.

My brother had problems with his Norton Anti-Virus and/or firewall, blocking the MJ at first. Once he straightened that out, it has been working great!

Dave

[Bear]

For some odd reason when ever I plug my iPod in or a USB memory stick mine quits working.  When I call for support they want me to uninstall just about every program on my computer.  Then after hours of uninstalling and re-installing, its still does the same thing!!

The Bear Family

[Dave H]

For some odd reason when ever I plug my iPod in or a USB memory stick mine quits working.  When I call for support they want me to uninstall just about every program on my computer.  Then after hours of uninstalling and re-installing, its still does the same thing!!

The Bear Family

Wow...that really sucks! I haven't plugged in the IPod yet (maybe I won't!), but have had no problems with USB memory sticks.

[Bear]

With the iPod the trick is to have it plugged in when you boot.  But if there are USBs plugged in they then cause a conflict.  So you have one USB plugged in and no iPod it works but then plug in the iPod and the MJ has a conflict with the USB again?  Really annoying.  I missed quite a few calls of the last few months because of it.  Especially if you use a memory stick for a memory boost in Vista.  But then again maybe the problem is Vista?

The Bear Family

[william3rd]

If he is married and has minor children by then, the wife and kids can come along.

But if the children have turned 21 then you have to look to CSPA  to see if they still qualify and if not, then those children do not come. Usually those fine law abiding folks that are waiting have already tried to get you to "adopt" those children so that they can get over here with every body else.

[Dave H]

But then again maybe the problem is Vista?

The Bear Family

I have Vista in one laptop and XP in two others. I can't stand Vista! It is the newest and only computer giving me problems here. I won't buy another computer with it! I can't wait to change this one.

Dave

[Bob_S]

I have Vista in one laptop and XP in two others. I can't stand Vista!

Grrr.  Vista.    So much potential but just constant problems.

My missus needs a new 'puter.  Her old one is underpowered and still running Windows Millennium.  It can't handle the newest programs or even the printer driver that doesn't even come in a Me version.  So we're looking to get another machine for her, more memory, more power, but with her language font and GUI.  We'll see if we can get one with XP rather than Vista.  It is FAR better in so many ways.

[Bear]

I have tried to get HP to retro my laptop/and desktop to XP and they flat refuse.  They always say "reinstall the software and drivers" which of course never works and when you call back they just repeat "reinstall the software and drivers".  I have a voice modem that was the first certified to work with Vista that still doesn't work and when I try to explain it to them they just can't understand "no one can hear my messsage"!?  The response is always "reinstall the software and drivers"!  My new laptop I have the selector all the way up on sound and can barely hear it but if I plug in an extention speaker it works fine and of course they can't find anything wrong with it?  They just say "reinstall the software and drivers".

The new Windows 7 will not upgrade Vista, they are abandoning the Vista software.  They say it will go the way of Millennium.  But 83% of businesses are saying they will not upgrade to 7 either for at least a year because of Vista.

The Bear family

[Jeff S]

I concur with Marshall's assessment of Vista in his March 8th blog post: http://emsique.blogspot.com/

- Jeff

[jm21-2]

Vista...

With some quick mods it can work really well, BUT there is one nasty habit that just about gave me a heart attack. It apparently moves your bookmarks whenever it does a big update, and it did that to me when I was in the middle of writing a journal article...had just completed the research and had all my sources bookmarked, then BAM. Thought I had lost several days work with the deadline only a couple days off. I would never use it for my business computer, but I do like some of the features once you change a bunch of settings.

[Dave H]

I concur with Marshall's assessment of Vista in his March 8th blog post: http://emsique.blogspot.com/

- Jeff

Hey Jeff,

Short and sweet...Marshall nailed it!!!

Dave

[Shadow_mas]

Working on Vista for 2 years now an never had a single program refusing to install or work (except a game that was beyond the specs of my laptop).
Its like with every new version of Windows, a lot of people are moaning about new things. They want to keep the way they click, install and tune the PC the way they learned with Windows 95 (though they woul prefer MS-DOS), and anything new is per definition bad.

Follow the instructions on the screen, do not try to make Vista look like the ancient type of Windows and do not switch off the new options. All will work great.

[Dave H]

Its like with every new version of Windows, a lot of people are moaning about new things. They want to keep the way they click, install and tune the PC the way they learned with Windows 95 (though they woul prefer MS-DOS), and anything new is per definition bad.

Thanks for the tips Mr Gates.  But it sucks!

There must be a lot of "people moaning" about Vista because it is on it's way out. It probably works fine for the Geek Squad set, who have nothing better to do than play with their 'external hard drives' all day.  Sadly, the vast majority of Vista users are normal people who have lives that don't include driving around in black and white Volkswagen Beetles. 
 
Dave

[Jeff S]

Screw them both!

[Dave H]

Screw them both!

I agree!

[Shadow_mas]

I admit to be member of the Geek Squad....the first PC I worked on ran on CP/M, in the time that every manufacturer had their own DOS.
There for I have used:
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows 95
Windows 98
Winows ME
Windows XP
Windows Vista

And those are just the 'home' versions

I have helped many users to upgrade, and with windows 98, ME and XP the same type of complaints were during release.
All from half-geeks who refuse to get used to something standing left instead of right, even if it is much better for new users.
Most of those guys now run Vista under Linux, like sitting in a Ferrari loaded on a truck so it will run without problems...

[jm21-2]

Ah, you missed win2k, which was my favorite.

I think Vista is sort of like how 95 was when it first came out. They put in a lot of new stuff that they need to sort out a bit, features that aren't really in common use yet, and not enough backwards compatibility (neither my mp3 player or cell phone can be accessed from Vista unless I update their firmware). The next release should be a bit more polished, a bit more useful, get a better reception, and eventually become necessary since the new hardware won't be supported by XP. For right now I like Vista on my home PC (after modifying some settings) but don't really trust it for use with my business computer and my business computer wouldn't be able to run it worth a damn anyways.

This thread has gotten so ridiculously off-topic...

[Bob_S]

They put in a lot of new stuff that they need to sort out a bit, features that aren't really in common use yet, and not enough backwards compatibility

That's my main complaint.  Previous incarnations of Windows had greater backwards compatibility.  Even Windows 3.0 could shell to DOS to run old programs meant for that operating system.  But I have a number of programs that ran fine on XP that will either crash immediately when run in Vista or not install at all.  Vista supposedly has an option to run programs on earlier versions of Windows to make it more backwards compatible, but it doesn't work, at least not with mine.  You can't really piece-meal a Vista system like on XP where you could still run Office 95 if you weren't ready to get Office 2000.  With Vista you need to upgrade all critical software at the same time which can get expensive.  And the freebie Windows Movie Maker that comes with Vista that I use to edit home movies to send back to my mother-in-law has less features than the XP version.  Any time I breath on my home network, I have to re-boot to get it to re-detect everything (it hates my daisy-chained VOIP and router) whereas my wife's Me version smoothly auto-detects.  I'm thinking that whoever beta-tested this thing only used it to download porn.  It's adequate (barely) for home use, but our office full of tech geeks who love the latest and greatest toys will not upgrade from XP yet.

What was this thread about again?

[Jeff S]

All of my engineering software (AutoCAD, Solidworks, etc.) was a no-go on Vista. It's cheaper to buy another box with XP to run the programs than buy new versions of some of these very expensive software.

[Bear]

So you're saying you can help me fix this thing?  I am one of these half geeks you're talking about.  I spend hours a month helping friends with their computers.  I spend lots more working with proprietary software and and about 20% of that writing code for it that allows my customers to maximize their energy efficiency at the highest comfort index and prove it was done.  So although I am not a specialist in Windows, I am computer literate above most.

Let me point out some things that tick people off about Vista, well at least the people at my house.

File sharing.  My wife takes pictures (it's Asian thing!!!???), probably 200 gigs of our hard drives and she just bought a new HD video camera.  I had all the computers in the house networked so she could go to any machine and grab a photo, modify it, whatever and put it on another or upload it with the 10 or so webpages and blogs she has.  Can't be done with VISTA because I've spent hours trying to make the computers share files and VISTA WILL NOT ALLOW IT UNLESS I put the files in the PUBLIC folder.  And then she can not access her software.  Of course all the XPs can talk to each other all they want and I can get on Vista and grab the files from the XPs and move them but not the other way.  Even the two Vista machines will not allow each other to access anything but the PUBLIC folders.  It won't even let me access them from my own personal folders with password protection.  Thing is I do not want to put our private pictures/software, etc in a public folder.  I can't put a movie in my sons XP and watch it in my room like I could when I had XP in there.  I refuse to use Windows Firewall because I just know it is giving every one it considers safe access to my PUBLIC harddrive without my prior knowledge.

Besides the three I mentioned yesterday - the modem which works great on the XPs won't work on Vista and the MagicJack having iPod/USB memory conflicts and the speaker that won't work on the laptop but will if I plug in an extention speaker there is also the new Media Player software upgrade.  Every time now I plug in my iPod, MP dials out (to god know where to tell them anything they want without my knowledge).  My other firewall blocks it and tells me about it.  So each time I want to transfer one of the movies or pictures my wife makes to the iPod I have to block MP from telling someone somewhere about information it.  I like MP for other applications but I hate this violation of my privacy.  I'm pretty close to un-installing MP because I do not want to spend hours trying to find out how to block one part but keep the other.

Saving window locations.  I used to be able to set up my machines to open windows in certain locations.  Spent hours trying to find out how to do it on Vista and still can't.  I'm sure you can find it but why should I have to spend hours to learn how to do it?  Now everytime Yahoo opens (since its last upgrade) it opens on a second monitor and no matter what I can't get it back on the main screen.  Guess what happens if the monitor is off?

I could care less about passwords.  I want my machine to just come on.  My desktop would not allow me to do the initial startup without a password and now I have to put one in every single time.  This is another one I occasionally look for a method of changing.

About 6 months ago a patch was installed on my machine in an update.  Since that patch I have to wait 5-10 minutes for my computer to start.  No place to change it or even find out which patch caused it.  Yea I could role it back if I knew when to role it back to.  No its not my configuration, virus or spyware.  I run three spyware checkers, my virus software is up to date and I use registry cleaners and keep my harddrives clean on a weekly basis with programs like CCleaner and I defrag it monthly.  I do a reasonable good job at maintenance.  But still it gets slower and slower with every update.  Numerous other "gotchas" I am tired of searching for ways to change what just worked before.

It has become "work" not recreation or a tool good at assisting previous efforts.  

The Bear Family

[Bear]

Visio screws it up too.  My office won't even consider it cause we are changing for AutoCAD to Visio this year.

The Bear Family

[jm21-2]

Vista has some new security features (or so it seems) that make file sharing with other versions of windows a bit difficult. I don't remember any major problems sharing between vista, or transferring files from vista to XP, but all sorts of problems trying to transfer from XP to Vista. I did find a way to do the transfers reasonably well at one point, but can't remember now.

There may be some firmware updates out that let the hardware work on Vista, especially if it's newer hardware, but that's a big weak point. It seems to be a very big problem with any sort of media device (mp3 players, cell phones, probably digital cameras too). I just figure people will have replaced a lot of those items within the next couple years, so by the time the new windows comes out there won't be too many incompatible devices around and people won't notice the problem as much. Same for software programs.

I don't have an ipod and don't use windows media player, and vista won't even pick up my mp3 player, so can't comment on sending information. My computer boots up in a flash so it might not be vista that's the problem.

On the other side...if you have a newer 64-bit processor with 4+ gigs of ram then Vista is more compatible in some ways. Doesn't XP cap out at 3gb of ram? And from what I remember of the benchmarks vista 64 did very well at multi-tasking which I do a lot of.

Maybe because I dealt with the same problems using win2k and longhorn I wasn't affected by the compatibility issues. After a certain period of time praying that the windows compatibility program will actually do something your expectations and surprise are greatly diminished.

The issues that really bugged me were the having to click a window every time you moved a file and various other security issues designed to make vista stupid-proof. Also the backup processes and such that seemed to take a huge amount of memory (my main hdd at home is very small). Security update this and that, windows firewall, etc., etc. When I first installed it, it seemed like I had to click a warning window practically every time I moved my mouse. And my settings didn't apply properly because things weren't set to run in administrative mode. But the stupid-proofing has driven me nuts since windows 95 and the introduction of "plug and pray" technology. Maybe there are fewer problems now, but it seems like it takes longer and longer to troubleshoot anything because there isn't as much control.

[Shadow_mas]

So everyone scream about the safet of Windows XP and then when confronted with a more secure system hates it. 
Be careful what you wish for in Windows 7, you might get it. 

[Jeff S]

My only wish is that I don't have to buy all new software to the tune of five figures every time Microsoft decides to "improve" their product and make their old system obsolete. If that's the case of Windows 7 then I applaud it. If I have to go out and spend another 12 grand, I'll NEVER own another Microsoft product. There are enough open source products now with cross OS compatibility files, and more being introduced every day to be able to get along just fine without them .