Greetings,
I know this is gonna make me sound old. I first started playing on computer when I was in Jr High school. It was a HP3000 at the local Jr. College. I didn't start to really learn about them until I got my first Comodore 64. Only $500.00. Cpu + Floppy Drive and monitor. Whahoo.

Worked on several projects with others on the C-64.
Lap timer for the college pool. (Joyports + Jiffy Clock)
Tape controller for a local radio station. (serial port + clock)
Underwater Data Taker. (Make a cartridge, program eprom, cut unneeded circutry to save electricity {video and sound} enabled via small dip switch.)
Added second sound chip. Now really bad sound in Stereo.
Vibration hardened the mo-bo to place it in a model rocket, for guidance, telemetry and tell the camara to start clicking pictures.

I ran a PC based BBS for 12 years in my home town. Started with 2 phone lines, maxed at 4, ended with none (was tcp/ip before shutdown.) Artik Breeze BBS.

Degree in Electronics. I do mild programming. Mostly configuration and system troubleshooting.

I am not sure which of the last straws made me switch away from SmallLimp.

Even though I got A's in programming in college. (TRS-80basic, PETbasic 2.0 & 4.0, Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, C, 6502 assembly/ML, RPG-II) Not all of those are college taught. I could whip up an app to do a task. Even wrote a complete Inventory management program for a business friend for his CBM8032. Then I get Visual Studio while trying to get a degree in CIS. $250.00 and then there are the many 1500 page books. Ever try shooting a moving target? How about one where they obfiscate the HELP files? Help is supposed to Help. Not just waste your time saying nothing. (MSDN)

Windows Crashed. Registry bork. I found myself booting in the Linux partition to fix it. After a week I asked myself why am I fixing Windows. My machine ran faster in Linux. All the software I use is available in Linux. I could even run 3dstudio or Maya, which I use, in the Wine translator. Wine doesn't really emulate. In simple terms it just provides jump tables for replacement kernel routines. Besides Who really needs 14 layers of abstraction?

I really got sick and tired of the 'keep up with the Smiths' mentality. If it ain't broke. . . remind me again of why I need to upgrade/update/patch? Oh yea. Some software programming platform added a feature, that no one uses yet. So everyone must upgrade to the latest version.

The bloat. Why does a 2meg Excel spreadsheet save as a 350k .ods (uncompressed, plain text, xml file)? Why is the printer driver included in the spreadsheet file?

Why does sol.exe, a non networking card game, suddenly need to phone microsoft? (WGA) The whole big brother is watching you thing really felt insulting. How about the ET-phone home so that brother bill can be the MPAA/RIAA/software police? Just because M$ steals software. Doesn't mean all of their customers do. Then there is the 'we will tell you what software you may run' that really grated on my nerves. Since they are so good at making legitimate software not run well. Why can't they do the same thing for viruses?

The two months before next product release, critical security updates, tended to brick the computer. After you've seen it 5 times. You begin to see a pattern. BTW it is critical to M$ financial security that needs you to update. Not the security of the OS.

Then there is the FUD. I got a cold call from a person in Australia, sounded like he was in India. Not that I have a problem with tech support from other countries. It is pretty concetted of the USA to think that they are the only ones smart enought to innovate. The guy was insulting when he started telling me that I did not know what software was running in the background on my machines. "ps -aux" anyone? In XP it was process explorer, sygate firewall, AVG, Adware, Spybot S&D. Then use google to find out what the process is for. He wanted me to download a remote access program. So he could inspect my machine and fix any problems. Of course I didn't let him access my machine. He kept saying that it would only take 15 minutes. I replied, "It would only take me three minutes to rob a mini market with a gun. Time is not the problem." I told him that the best password is Smith&Wesson. In other words. You touch my computer. I shoot your face off. No one dares touch my computer without my permission. I also taught my ex-customers that same lesson. Access is the first step in security. Hey M$ stop taping the house key to the front of the door.

I also asked myself the question. Why is it, that of the 22 various machines I have, I only need to worry about the two M$ machines? My dads and moms. The Androids, Rokus, Kindles, DirectTV DVR, Routers, Wii, PS2s, PS3s, printers and PCs once configured tend to just work.

Recently my mothers machine <shiver>M$ system 7</shiver> told her that her copy was illegal and she needed to pay up or get the installer to pay up. She uninstalled the Kodak photo CD software. Which is what set off the false alarm. Then there was the virus she got. That was the death of M$S7. (does that spell Mist in ubertype?) She is now running Ubuntu KDE with ALL of the wiggly window, applets, and whiz bangs. Yet her PC runs twice as fast as before. The other day she wanted to save a picture of a newspaper advert, that was in a DRM reader. I typed 'screen capture' into the KDE launcher. There it was already installed. Clicked on save a rectangle. click click. saved. She was impressed. I heard her tell one of her friends on the phone. "I don't get viruses any more. I don't need a virus checker. I run Linux." Yup. I guess you could say, "Microsoft flunked sandbox." (kindergarden) We already know that they don't play well with others.

Yup. Linux is guilt free software. Upgrades actually ADD features. If a development group needs to track your usage or bugs reports. They actually ask. The whole process is transparent. None of this sneeking in nasty stuff via the back door.