[geeks] MSFT == a-holes! (please excuse this OT rant)

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Thursday, September 6, 2001 at 20:46:19 (-0400), Michael S. Schiller wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] MSFT == a-holes!  (please excuse this OT rant)
>
> well the program I use for keeping track of my ebay auctions is one. It's called
> Auctiontamer, and while it uses IE as it's browser, it does a lot more than just a
> browser. Could I get along without it? Sure, but it does make auction management much
> easier.

OK, so there's a little tool that's highly dependend on M$ software in
practice, but not in principle, and it's probably something any
half-clued developer could write up for nearly any browser, right?  In
fact I'll bet there already exist Netscape variants for MacOS.  ;-)

Often the problem with such tools is that people never look further than
the first solution they find, just as in any situation where there are
lots of alternatives.  M$'s trick is just to get in your face first, or
in the case of something like this Auctiontamer thing to get in the
developer's face.  (Not that Apple and all the rest don't also cozy up
to developers and entice them to lock into their platforms....)

Personally I just use a couple windows running really simple text-only
browsers that won't get hung up because some counter/image server is
overloaded, and then I use cut&paste tricks if passwords, etc. are
necessary.  But I'm not much of an on-line auction nut.  If I play the
game I'll usually just strike once, very quickly, at the very last
second and either I win, or I don't.  I usually only have one top price
I'm willing to pay, and most auction servers (all the ones I'll use,
anyway) are nice enough to only show the seller the amount necessary for
me to win the bid, not what my limit was!  ;-)

> And besides, if I didn't have at least one app that used Windows, how would
> I justify having a SunPCi card in my U5?

So, you've not only bought into the Evil Empire, you stuck its tentacles
directly inside your pretty little Sun machine!  Gak!  :-)

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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