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Taking It Up The Ass!

 
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Maurice Ali



Joined: 14 Nov 2003
Posts: 7654
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2004 8:13 pm    Post subject: Taking It Up The Ass! Reply with quote

Taking It Up The Ass!


By Maurice Ali, Journalist


Well, now that all the excitement and scrutiny over mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq is abating; we can go back to our more important - but mundane by comparison - task of the plight of the "little man". I am a "little man": a little man who needs a computer. "Why do I need a new computer? So begins a sorry tale.....

I have an old P2 computer that was updated to 500mhz P3 and runs Win98 on it. This was a very good computer for me and served me well for almost two years. The trouble stared about two months ago with the new software no longer being supported for ordinary Windows 98. This was a program called Cubase (an audio editing software) and only supports Win98SE and later versions. The thing installed on my computer but hung up much of the time and then failed to work at all. I solved this problem by downloading a freeware editor called: "Quartz" This program never fails and was used to produce our first audio commercial. The second problem was my purchase of the new Nikon D70 and accessories from our photographic work at FOF and IAIJ. The only problem was that there is no way to download pictures from the camera because the software does not support Windows 98 - in fact the drivers can not even be loaded on to Windows 98. More examples keep springing up in my mind.....like MSN Messenger requiring Windows XP for audio (a lie) and punishing Windows 98 people using net meeting by presenting the webcam images upside down! I even complained to the makers of the webcam about this who never gave me a straight reply. But I know the answer to all of the above; it is the planned obsolescence of software in order to line the pocket of Bill Gates.

More than 95% of visitors to fortressoffreedom.com use Microsoft Windows. Windows is an essential service in the lives of most people today; that is why I was in "sticker shock" over the prices quoted for Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional. In Canada XP Home can be had (no upgrade) for $165.00 and XP Professional for $240.00 This is extortion! There is no way Microsoft can justify the price it expects to get on each computer with R and D and programming. This simply is extortion! But there is more to this that the lowly proles throwing up their hands in disgust and bending over for the "Bill Gates Rape"!

The sad fact is the third world communication is now being done on the internet. One big way is with medical care via the net. But the third world lags behind, particularly in rural areas, when access to the internet is taken into account. Windows98 could be copied from one machine to another and really is the defacto operating system of the poor. But the increasing software that refuses to recognize Window 98 only shut out the poor from what many people can not live without.

Operating systems should cost no more than a music CD! The fact that Microsoft participated in unsavory practices to limit competition meas (to me) that it owes the human race a generic universal operating system that all new software must accommodate. Like my privacy issues with Internet Explorer 6 - for example - Mr. Gates refuses to do the world a favor and produce a product that ensures privacy for the end user. Similarity, Mr. Gates is pricing Window out of the hands of those who need it the most - the third world; the internet is free speech and proprietary software will keep these individuals from accessing it.

Even Henry Ford understood that his employees needed to be able to afford the cars they made; but how many of the dark skinned "third world" programmers (from India for example) can afford the products they design on an average salary of 4,000 dollars a year? What does the third world do? Do they put up with poor performing copies to do the work that must be done? Or do what many of these countries did with HIV drugs, and simply defy trade agreements and produce the products for their own people.....Mr. Gates.....This is your wake up call!

As for me and my computer problems - I believe that I have not done enough to keep using my "third world" computer; and I will try a little longer to get the old machine running. I will then try to get the machine to download pictures from my camera and catalogue the procedure. It is only when I have conquered the software problem that I can start to look at a new computer. I can only do this out of choice.....never necessity; those in poorer countries do not have this choice and I will not sell out on their plight.
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