Christoph's Profile

Member since May 6, 2001

  • Name

    Christoph Greiner

  • Location:

    DE

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Recent Posts

  1. Comment - SGI Gives Linux XFS

    (May 7, 2001 - 1:20 PM)

    I am looking forward to a comparison between the different file systems! I have tried ReiserFS but foung it not stable enough. After pulling the plug a few times it corrupted. I know it is not the way to test... ;-)

    IBM is porting the AIX file system as well. AIX has a great LVM. Does anybody know if XFS comes with something similar? I still do miss a couple of tools for ReiserFS. Hope they are working on it. That would make me test it again... ;-)

    A fail safe FS will make Linux a strong contender in the big iron world... For the desktop market other features obviously are more important.

  2. Comment - AOL Marshals Troops Against MS XP Offensive

    (May 7, 2001 - 1:09 PM)

    Sorry folk, but I don't hate Office and I don't whine.

    IE is NOT the best browser. Take a look at IE for Solaris. Aaaaaah, Solaris doesn't count?! Okay, IE is perhaps the best browser for Windows. iCab is by far the better browser for MacOS. It is faster, more compliant and lots smaller. It just costs money. If that makes a product inferior, then show me one superior form Microsoft they charge money for.

    What makes Office the best suite? It still has lots of bugs, check the MS TechNet database for it. Of course they don't call it a 'bug', it's just an 'issue'. The usual euphemism...
    Office is an industry standard, but the A20-gate is one as well. Does this make it automatically technically superior to Smartsuite, StarOffice, KOffice, etc.? NO.

    I have used 'Intellieye' mice ten years ago on a SUN Sparc. It was invented by HP (and Xerox?) even longer ago. I have used optical mice ever since.

    What makes XP the best OS? Can it do all the things AIX or Solaris or Linux or BSD or ... can? NO!

    Concerning MS vs. AOL, none of them both deserve pity. Let them get at each other real hard. Has anyone ever seen one of these companies trying to compete with superior products? If they can't sue then they give away for free. Netscape is no a victim of the Open Source spirit, it is a victim of AOL. At least AOLServer is a stable and fast product...

  3. Comment - AOL Marshals Troops Against MS XP Offensive

    (May 7, 2001 - 7:05 AM)

    Really? Miguel, it seems that you have never worked with anything else than Microsoft products. Otherwise you wouldn't...

    ... say that they build great software
    Sure not all form Microsoft is bad in terms of software design, especially the products they originally bought from another company.
    But great software stands the test of time. Which MS product is up to that?

    ...compare their products to even worse ones
    I haven't used AOL software ever, because I did not feel any need to. But from what I have read here, their software is not the spearhead of software design... Still this does not make a competitors product the non-plus-ultra anyway.

    ... state that IE is small
    This one is real classic. What is small in your eyes? Just 80 megabytes for a browser that may load fast but still does not comply to W3C standards in Version 6 the way it should? What is Opera then - supertiny? What about iCab? Both products are not free but still a whole lot more compliant to standards, more flexible and much smaller.

    ... say that everyone loves Office
    Your Mom and your Dad do. Okay. You do obviously. Okay. But there still are bugs in version 10 (?) that already existed in version 2 of MS Word (footnote bug). Word blows up with too many graphics in a document? This is not software that I will ever love.

    ... hope that Java crumbles
    Java is not going to vanish. Your MS version of JRE may be bloat, slow and unstable. But in the real world - on big irons - Java is here to stay. How many companies are so unsatisfied with C, C++, Java that they will jump on the C#-train? I don't know... Most of the larger companies already have huge investments in Java. They are not going to throw money away.

    ... love a product you haver never seen in action
    How .NET-platforms are there really today? Windows and CE. Any more? Does your mobile phone run CE? I can do online banking today, I can buy flight tickets today, check flights, book hotels today. All that with my mobile phone and without MS.NET. So where is the huge advantage?
    What files do you want to use in any location? Office documents? Don't make me laugh? How many platforms support MS-Office. Really, only one. Now that's a lot. Still better than none, isn't it?

  4. Comment - AOL Marshals Troops Against MS XP Offensive

    (May 6, 2001 - 6:47 PM)

    Although in favour of open source, this is an interesting one for me:

    Will Microsoft really be successful with their Hailstorm plans? I guess Linux and the success of open source scared the s... out of Bill and Steve. They are looking for new markets to dominate because the only way the have learned to sell their OSes is by domination. And there are fields where they have to struggle hard - this is everytime when it comes to highly engineered products, like supercomputing OSes and software for these big irons. Microsofts plans to harm Solaris, AIX etc. have plainly failed. So clearly, this is not where the future of M$ is.

    Where is it then? They have to sell products that are turnkey-easy-to-use as long as you do not need anything else that goes beyond that what M$-delivered wizards can offer. And they have to sell in high volumes to keep the shareholders happy...

    Okay, if they cannot win the software battle against unstoppable open source then they have to sell something that open source cannot deliver. Something that goes beyond pure software. Yeah, let's become an ASP! But how can M$ use sheer marketing power to dominate other independent ASPs? Let's define a strategy that uses the still existing software market power and transform the products so that they will only function with us M$ an ASP. No other company would survive this bold attempt, but hey, we're M$- we'll sell it, you see.

    AOL has never really attempted to break into the M$ market. All they wanted was to protect their AOL/Compuserve monopoly from MSN and to share equally. This is true friendship among two thieves... AOL's future is not as bright as their shareholders would like it to be...

    Anyway, if M$ fails with its hailstorm strategy, there still is noting to worry about. They have such an enourmous amount of cash that they can continue to look for new markets until ....

    If people do not adopt Windows XP and the hailstorm strategy, then they just won't buy the products but keep using whatever have installed (98/ME/NT/2000). Microsoft is going to earn less money, but new PCs will always be sold and they will have XP preinstalled as no other OS will be available from M$.

    What would be the next market? Will they start online banking? I still haven't found a single service that Microsoft offers that would be co exclusive or singular that I would use it or even pay for it!

  5. Comment - AOL Marshals Troops Against MS XP Offensive

    (May 6, 2001 - 6:23 PM)

    You don't know what you are writing about. Apple has never closed away any of its APIs to anyone. So what is the problem? You are mistaking their combination of hardware and software development as closedness. How open is Microsoft then? Does any M$ OS (I am not talking about the buried corpses) run on anything else than PC hardware? Don't say WinCE. Everytime somebody bought one these devices the came out with a completely new design that made your brandnew device a piece of brandnew trash. Engineering is not a M$ strength, but Apple has always been loyal to their developers and their customers. And now listen: The MacOS kernel (Darwin) has become Open Source! Will Windows XP be Open Source as well?