Reply to: Poll about Microsoft

[AlfredJPruffock]

Give me a computer which is reliable and functions well then I care not as to the manufacturer OS etc

[Peter Loew]

At home, I do not use any MS products at all, though I do have Fusion on my Mac for the odd time I might need to do or check something in Windows, but I'm even considering removing that now.

At work unfortunately, it's MS all the way. Can't wait for the day businesses move away from MS. It almost happened at a major Gov. organisation I used to work at, well at least they were thinking about an OpenOffice implementation rather than MS Office...

[NickFitz]

I have to use Microsoft browsers (IE 6, 7 and 8) simply to determine which of their many bugs I have to provide fixes for. That just means three XP VMs running under Parallels for a few minutes once or twice a week.

That's the only thing I ever use MS products for though. A few years ago I used to use things like Office out of necessity; but now the OSS alternatives are good enough that there's no reason to.

Oh, I also used to frequently fire up Windows solely to use the excellent free HTTP debugging proxy Fiddler (written by a Microsoft employee, though not strictly a Microsoft product); but I now use Charles, having happily paid the twenty quid or whatever it was for a full licence. That's an example of my choosing to pay for an application so as to avoid the inconvenience of running Windows just for the sake of a free application.

I still highly recommend Fiddler if you're already on Windows, though

[minestrone]

I have a XP desktop, zune mp3 player, xbox 360, vista laptop and XP laptop, windows mobile phone.

Their software maybe a bleedin trial at times but it does work well and better that anything else.

[Board Game Geek]

Avoid Mac's on principle

(ooh, look, it's bright and shiny and has an Apple logo...<opens wallet> )

Avoid Linux and other hobbyist O/S's.

Hey, here is a wooden door, and some round wooden wheels, and here is a kit you can make axles from, and after countless hours buggering around, you can make a sort of car, and then all the people who hate Ford Motor Co can own their own wooden contraption car-things and feel all jolly smug and superior because they did it their way. Alternatively, you can just buy a car and it works.

[BrowneIssue]

I am being held back by Quicken (I know there is an open source alternative, I just haven't got there yet) and DigiGuide.

Otherwise, I'd be all on Linux / OpenOffice.org / Firefox / ThunderBird / et al.

[themistry]

Tried that book recently. Read 150 pages and then gave up.

i did the same thing... apparently, if you get past the first half, its really good... who could?!

[Pondlife]

Tried that book recently. Read 150 pages and then gave up.

Got through it all on the 2nd attempt - mainly due to cancelled flights

[oracleslave]

As Joseph Heller said when told he had never written anything else as good as Catch-22: "Who has?"

Tried that book recently. Read 150 pages and then gave up.

[dang65]

If they released product that works every time and all the time, that would be wonderful.

However they don't

As Joseph Heller said when told he had never written anything else as good as Catch-22: "Who has?"

[Jog On]

They pretty much made computers accessible to the general public!

If they released product that works every time and all the time, that would be wonderful.

However they don't

That's actually a good thing

[Doggy Styles]

I wanted to vote for "pretty much use all MS stuff. Vista, Office you name it I use it", but like a lot of people I don't and won't use Vista.

So I went for Andyw.

[thelace]

They pretty much made computers accessible to the general public!

If they released product that works every time and all the time, that would be wonderful.

However they don't

[lightng]

MS at work.

MAC OSX and linux at home.

I like and dislike *nix and windoze os's for different reasons.

MS have done some great stuff. Visual Studio 2008 is the best dev environment since sliced bread and generally the stuff they've done for productivity is spot on. MS is also the reason why I have work. It doesn't stop me moaning every now and then though.

[Moscow Mule]

Is this home or work?