Speak English, you American fools!

I take the opportunity to release some flames having read this article. I probably agree fully with what was written, but nothing goes in, due to the fact that it was written in american. As I read, I can clearly hear the american R's scraping on my eardrum. Here is a list of the most annoying words you used to colour this article in stars and stripes:

· Intella
· k'ching
· now-dead
· doubloons and bezants
· beancounters
· Chipzilla ..............God I hate it when Kermit sounding dumb Americans 'Zilla this and 'Zilla that. Get over that cheesy, bearded, Spielberg, special effect, family-park dinosaur rubbish ! I haven't even been to any of Americas splendid fun-parks, and I hate all of them already. -Bad luck for my kids. One more Zilla now, and I'll... *@£,$'#-§ ¨' you.

Speak ENGLISH !

med vennlig hilsen
Hasse Krystad

[Jock McFrock writes: Go boil yer heid!]

Ballmer is right about Windows and Linux

Much of what Ballmer states is true. I'm a linux advocate all the way but the reality of this is that what he is stating is mostly true.

I don't think that the security issues will be that big of a deal to start, but when the hacks get a hold of the code and start to manipulate it they will be able to convince a lot of unsuspecting linux desktop users to download and install their products. Yes, proper security can limit the damage but the damage will still be there and burden the admins maintaining the machines. Mom and Pops using linux as their desktop at home will be at a major loss to resolve these issues on their own.

The big issue for me isn't that the issue is big now or when it will become big, rather it is what needs to be done now to ensure that it never achieves momentum. The linux community developers seem to feel they are immune to these potential threats and are not acting upon the possibility. Ballmer does a service to the linux community by addressing it so that users are more aware of the fact that no one is immune and that the developers need to do something now rather than later.

Ballmer's statement about "lack of structured software development" also hits home with me. Software under linux is messy, has more bugs, lacks refinements, and generally is very unstructured. This is no different though than the early days of DOS when software was ugly, unrefined, lacked structure, demeaned the user, and was unusable by the average desktop candidate (those who would ultimately begin to use computers once the graphical desktop came of age).

Even so, linux graphical desktops are decent but still have major bugs and problems that annoy the hell out of the average user (ugly fonts, desktop icons moving around on the screen, desktop scrolling, failure to resize the desktop after switching from one resolution to another and then back, bad sound, poorly designed menu structures, cheap tricks being used to make translucent taskbar icons, etc). These are all indications of a lack of structure. They are getting better but there are so many that have been in existence for so long it indicates they have no structured way to ensure that these bugs are quashed before they introduce more bugs in new releases.

This is not to say, though, that the linux kernel is this bad. That's a different story. It is obvious though that the average person doesn't look at linux as just the kernel. They look at it as the whole package. Microsoft is capitalizing on this. The linux development community should also understand that the ultimate desktop user doesn't differentiate their kernel from their install--all those programs and files that were installed when you went through the OS install.

What's worse, even the best of the distros are messy. One can only wonder how much longer linux can afford to have small groups of unpaid unsupported part-time workers developing software in competition with structured controlled software--and to be honest the structure alleged in Windows hasn't once created limited software with limited features, in a general sense.

Jim Blaich

Ideal BOM

Why the heck would buy one 300GB hard drive for $450+ when could of easily bought 2 200GBSATA 16MB Drives for less than $400? Why buy a $165 video card when you should be buying the $300 6800GT (this is supposed to be a DREAM machine right!). Again the Plextor dual everything is the same as the NEC 3500A dual everything which cost $70 versus $210+? These are simple decisions that you must have not really considered.

Al Collier