Oh surely, you could have come up with some smart-alecky answer to get back at him.
It wasn't worth it. There were other things too, such as:
* His insisting that any and all Windows installations must, I repeat MUST, be formatted and reinstalled frequently so as to not get "bogged down". FUD! I haven't formatted this drive since the system was built in December of 2004. What *will* slow it down is fragmentation and all the stinking hooks that software from various sources wants to force you to load into memory at startup and then you start running low on stack / heap resources and / or physical memory.
* His insisting that all upgrade packages were poo and that they guaranteed doom and disaster. This was obviously built on the FUD of the format and reinstall thing. When I pointed out that I upgraded from Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to Windows 95a, to Windows 98, all without formatting and / or using the full install, he told me that I was "lucky". Keep in mind that this was all in front of everyone in the class. I then mentioned that I picked my own hardware and built the computer myself, he then said that I was "extremely lucky then". I was getting irritated already, but that sent me over the edge. I replied "...or skilled". He started to chuckle and almost said something, but then he realized he was about to denegrate me in front of the class, and so he moved on to his next topic (I mostly tuned him out from then on).
* Chiding me and implying that I was cheating when I asked the girl sitting next to me if there was more than one page to the quiz he just passed out. There were two pages the prior week and the guy at the end of the row only passed the first page. I literally had just gotten the page handed to me less than 15 seconds earlier. I even asked him and he barked back "NO TALKING". Then he had the NERVE to offer opinions on people's answers as they turned the quiz in, talking in a LOUD voice while others were still taking the quiz, and even starting to talk about what games he liked on the Wii.
I dropped the class too late to get my money back and with a low A. I just simply wasn't in the mood to deal with it. From what I heard, he took ages to grade things. Documentation was often incorrect due to it being old (from Edgy or RHEL 4 and not Feisty or RHEL 5). He even had a notice that he would not be in class the following week, but that was for the previous semester. He clearly was just throwing this stuff together as he went along.
Yes, I'm tempted to ask for my money back anyway. I'll see how some of the other people who stayed the whole semester felt and decide what to do...
This guy sounds like a real winner. I probably would have dropped that class, as well.
As for your first point. . .
Several years ago, I knew a hard-core Windows zealot who said that he often had to reformat and reinstall his copy of Windows 95. I've never had to do that with any of my Windows installations--which have included Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP--so, I still haven't figured out where this belief got started.
This guy sounds like a real winner. I probably would have dropped that class, as well.
As for your first point. . .
Several years ago, I knew a hard-core Windows zealot who said that he often had to reformat and reinstall his copy of Windows 95. I've never had to do that with any of my Windows installations--which have included Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP--so, I still haven't figured out where this belief got started.
LOL...
Yep, you just have to love some of the characters you run into in academia (and the commercial world for that matter)! ;-)
Sheesh.
As far as frequent clean installs of Windows goes, I think the origins of that lie in the fact that unless you are willing to become as expert in Windows as you have to become to be able to really have adequate control over any Linux flavor, the easiest way to get around most of the points Brian made for degraded performance in Windows is to simply start from scratch again and leave out the old crapola you don't need or use anymore. Most ordinary users don't have the time or patience to do hand to hand combat with Windows. Even though 2K and higher is far better than any previous versions were in this regard, they still tend to get a little flaky the older the installation is, even if you're careful and methodical in your system maintenance.
OTOH, if they really were 'robust' (gee, I've learned to hate that word over the last 10 years or so) and self healing, that would take all the sport of computing (as well as put a lot of people out of work). ;-)
BTW, I see Mike is back from his 'sabbatical'. Welcome back! :-D
As far as frequent clean installs of Windows goes, I think the origins of that lie in the fact that unless you are willing to become as expert in Windows as you have to become to be able to really have adequate control over any Linux flavor, the easiest way to get around most of the points Brian made for degraded performance in Windows is to simply start from scratch again and leave out the old crapola you don't need or use anymore.
MSCONFIG and just knowing how to go through the Services will do wonders. With all my trials and tribulations with Ubuntu, sure enough they have a guide to do the exact same thing in Ubuntu (to reduce the number of services that start on boot).
From my perspective, you have a bunch of people (the Linux-ites) complaining how horrific Microsoft is and making up a whole lot of FUD to go along with it. Every indication I've seen says that Linux itself is much more complex for "Mom and Dad" ("casual") users than Windows. As such, casual users are never going to accept Linux in mass numbers. This does not mean that Microsoft is EEEEEEEEVIIILLLLLL, but that the people developing Linux haven't figured out that, essentially, they need to "dumb it down" so that casual users can install programs without having to feel like they're doing the "Hokey Pokey", complete with "shaking it all about"...
Quote:
Most ordinary users don't have the time or patience to do hand to hand combat with Windows. Even though 2K and higher is far better than any previous versions were in this regard, they still tend to get a little flaky the older the installation is, even if you're careful and methodical in your system maintenance.
Most "ordinary" casual users (Windows, Mac, or Linux) simply see "ooh, shiny cool object" (software that they think they'd like) and install it. The problem is the attempt by that software to shove itself to the forefront by making startup folder changes, registry changes (insertion into the "run" key), installation of services that are set to Automatic, etc, etc, etc...
No doubt this is part of the issue Bernd is running into with things crashing when the system runs out of stack / heap resources...
Quote:
OTOH, if they really were 'robust' (gee, I've learned to hate that word over the last 10 years or so) and self healing
Robust is kind, gentle, and even polite. "Self-healing" is EVIL. That wonderful term became such a buzz phrase with QA / PI folks...
RE: RE: Oh surely, you
)
This guy sounds like a real winner. I probably would have dropped that class, as well.
As for your first point. . .
Several years ago, I knew a hard-core Windows zealot who said that he often had to reformat and reinstall his copy of Windows 95. I've never had to do that with any of my Windows installations--which have included Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP--so, I still haven't figured out where this belief got started.
RE: This guy sounds like a
)
LOL...
Yep, you just have to love some of the characters you run into in academia (and the commercial world for that matter)! ;-)
Sheesh.
As far as frequent clean installs of Windows goes, I think the origins of that lie in the fact that unless you are willing to become as expert in Windows as you have to become to be able to really have adequate control over any Linux flavor, the easiest way to get around most of the points Brian made for degraded performance in Windows is to simply start from scratch again and leave out the old crapola you don't need or use anymore. Most ordinary users don't have the time or patience to do hand to hand combat with Windows. Even though 2K and higher is far better than any previous versions were in this regard, they still tend to get a little flaky the older the installation is, even if you're careful and methodical in your system maintenance.
OTOH, if they really were 'robust' (gee, I've learned to hate that word over the last 10 years or so) and self healing, that would take all the sport of computing (as well as put a lot of people out of work). ;-)
BTW, I see Mike is back from his 'sabbatical'. Welcome back! :-D
Alinator
RE: As far as frequent
)
MSCONFIG and just knowing how to go through the Services will do wonders. With all my trials and tribulations with Ubuntu, sure enough they have a guide to do the exact same thing in Ubuntu (to reduce the number of services that start on boot).
From my perspective, you have a bunch of people (the Linux-ites) complaining how horrific Microsoft is and making up a whole lot of FUD to go along with it. Every indication I've seen says that Linux itself is much more complex for "Mom and Dad" ("casual") users than Windows. As such, casual users are never going to accept Linux in mass numbers. This does not mean that Microsoft is EEEEEEEEVIIILLLLLL, but that the people developing Linux haven't figured out that, essentially, they need to "dumb it down" so that casual users can install programs without having to feel like they're doing the "Hokey Pokey", complete with "shaking it all about"...
Most "ordinary" casual users (Windows, Mac, or Linux) simply see "ooh, shiny cool object" (software that they think they'd like) and install it. The problem is the attempt by that software to shove itself to the forefront by making startup folder changes, registry changes (insertion into the "run" key), installation of services that are set to Automatic, etc, etc, etc...
No doubt this is part of the issue Bernd is running into with things crashing when the system runs out of stack / heap resources...
Robust is kind, gentle, and even polite. "Self-healing" is EVIL. That wonderful term became such a buzz phrase with QA / PI folks...