Jason | GetYourOJ.com
February 1, 2008 / 13:09

I hate evil empires but I'm not sure what makes Microsoft so evil?

Toronto Mike
February 1, 2008 / 13:29

Don't get me started on this rant. This Slashdot page covers most of what I dislike about Microsoft: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/13/019241

At the end of the day what drives me crazy is the shitty nature of their products, the licensing costs, the bloated code, the disrespect for standards and their approach to DRM.

I actually work for a Microsoft shop and there are licenses for all things Microsoft floating about, but I can't stomach them because they're made for people who don't think they're technically savvy enough for anything better.

They gave me Expression Web and it was so awful I begged and screamed for Dreamweaver. The SharePoint server is a frustration machine with collaboration techniques that you'd never see from Google. I don't know how anyone finds anything in Outlook, I can't believe sensible people find WMP to be a decent audio player and anyone who uses Spaces over Blogger needs their head examined. Hotmail users don't know what they're missing, the MSN messenger is the MySpace of IM clients and when was the last time you searched the web via a Microsoft search engine?

I could write forever on this topic, but I'll close with the Microsoft product that has caused me the most grief in my life. There is one Microsoft product that is so inferior, so insecure and so disrespecting of standards it causes pain both in my personal life and professional life. I'm talking about the one and only Internet Explorer web browser and knowing 80% of the world is currently using this tool to connect to the World Wide Web makes me throw up in my mouth just a little each and every day.

Jill
February 1, 2008 / 14:10

Take a deep cleansing breath Mike and tell us how you really feel :) Sorry I couldn't resist. You definately have strong feelings about this subject.

Toronto Mike
February 1, 2008 / 17:00

Here's a good analysis of the impending deal: http://daringfireball.net/2008/02/microsoft_yahoo

Toronto Mike
February 1, 2008 / 17:01

The only Yahoo! service I passionately care about these days is Flickr. Here's hoping Microsoft sells it off to someone who cares.

Toronto Mike
February 1, 2008 / 17:43

Here's that DaringFireball.net analysis I mentioned above.

My guess: Sold. That’s a big premium over Yahoo’s current share price, and I don’t see Yahoo getting there on their own any time soon.

Engineering-wise, it’s interesting. Yahoo’s stuff is almost all written in PHP, and runs on FreeBSD and Red Hat Linux servers. I don’t think Microsoft has ever bought — and maintained — a significant software product that wasn’t written against Microsoft technology. E.g., when they bought Hotmail, the migration from FreeBSD/Apache to Windows 2000 was painful and difficult. Hotmail was just one product (albeit a popular one). Yahoo has hundreds of properties, several of them, I’m guessing, more popular than Hotmail was back in 2000.

So there’s a paradox: Technically, I can’t see how Microsoft would migrate all of Yahoo to Windows servers and software. But culturally, it just isn’t in Microsoft’s DNA to accept and maintain all of these PHP/FreeBSD/Linux products. My gut feeling is that Microsoft’s culture is the driving force here. I don’t think they care about any of Yahoo’s technology, with the possible exception of Yahoo Search. What Microsoft sees in Yahoo isn’t software but pageviews and advertisers. So rather than, say, rewriting Yahoo Mail using Windows technology, I expect them to just force Yahoo Mail users over to Windows Live Hotmail.

If Microsoft does mandate conversions of Yahoo products to Windows technology, the other side of the equation is worth pondering as well: How many Yahoo developers would rather quit than re-implement their products using some flavor of Dot Net?

I’m not sure, though, what Microsoft would do with Yahoo’s boutique products like Flickr, Delicious, and Upcoming. Upcoming is just a blip — the web cognoscenti crowd uses and loves it, but in the grand scheme of Yahoo’s overall traffic, it probably doesn’t even register. Flickr and Delicious are bigger, for sure, but probably irrelevant to Microsoft. I could see Microsoft selling properties like these — Flickr in particular could probably fetch a very nice price.

In short, while I expect Yahoo to accept the offer, I think it’s the end of Yahoo as we know it. Andy Baio’s analogy seems perfectly apt: “It’s like tying the Titanic to the iceberg. It’d keep you from sinking just long enough to freeze to death.”

Jason | GetYourOJ.com
February 2, 2008 / 12:29

Mike,

I liked FF but at the end of the day, on my lap top, due to housecleaning, I made the choice to use only keep one browser on my comp. I could keep FF and all it's ad-ons (started reminding me of Face-Book) or use IE.

FF isn't always compatible with everything, although perhaps superior. One reason I didn't go out and get a Mac. I want to be compatible with simple applications & etc

Maybe in my on-line life, for now, I've copped out, but IE, at the end of the day, has actually saved me from having to download all those ad ons to FF that IE already has.

Maybe one day this won't be the case. I started to really like FF but when I needed to make space I quickly chose IE.

Call me crazy.

Oh, and I used to use DreamWeaver MX, I loved it. I swore I would NEVER use a geeric blogging program. Then, once again, I had a revelation.

Most bloggers are in the Blogger community. Why do I want to make it harder for them to access me and enter their comments?

In the real world, I've got a rebellious streak a mile long. In the techy world, just keep it simple. Assimilate me into Blogger. I don't really care. I'm more concerened with content than style; I would never again dream of focusing on layout vs content. I've learned a lot from the blogging pioneers on and off since about 2002 (travelling in between, blogging not-so-much during that time)

It's really a lot easier IMHO.

You seem to make a lot of very good points in your two rants above but many of us don't even know all those programs or fully grasp what you're telling us. At least I don't

So if you weren't a techy whiz, would your opinion change?

Just food for thought, nothing more.

Jason | GetYourOJ.com
February 2, 2008 / 12:36

Few more things.. we use Outlook at work I don't think it's that bad.. I don;t have any real isses with MSN messenger or the Meebo browser version of MSN and as much as hotmail sucks more and more, I don't really think all that highly of the gmail layout either.

Maybe I am missing out. Maybe I could use a few changes.. It would be nice to understand in layman's terms why one thing is so superior to another.

Toronto Mike
February 2, 2008 / 15:51

"IE, at the end of the day, has actually saved me from having to download all those ad ons to FF that IE already has."

State the instance! Other than the add on to use the IE rendering engine in a new tab, I can't think of any FF add on that IE has in its native state.

In layman's terms, Gmail kills Hotmail because:
- You don't sort messages, you label them
- Back and forth exchanges are a single conversation instead of several different email messages
- The searchability of Gmail is 1000% better than the searchability in any other email client I've tried
- Filtering, contact management and all that jazz is just easier to manage
- Gtalk integration!

p.s. I'm a big Meebo fan, as you might have guessed by the Meebo widget on my Contact page. I myself have an MSN login I use with Meebo, it's the MSN client I won't touch.

And I'm not a techy wiz... I'm an English and History major with a passion for web technologies. My preference for FF, Gmail, etc. is strictly based on usability.