What do you guys think of this....

[Tsuroerusu]

OK, here's the deal, my sister is a stuborn idiot, and she was using OpenOffice Draw to do some homework, but since we don't have a printer we couldn't print it out so we needed to send it to one of her friends, but the problem is, Microsoft Office doesn't have the equivilant of OpenOffice Draw, and I said to her "Well, you need to use the right program, use OpenOffice Impress", and all hell broke loose and she whined "But that's not PowerPoint....."..... Bottom line is, she went out, spent 180 bucks on Microsoft Office 2003 Home, and I simply said "Fine, that's your decision but I'm not going to support you in any way with Microsoft software" (She uses Windows and that is Microsoft software, but you can't really avoid that these days, and went I set her laptop up, she did pay me to do it).

What do you guys think of my decision on this? I did it for both technical reasons, and ethical reasons. The technical reasons is that you can put a virus into a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, and I think it's irresponsible for anyone to use Microsoft Office in the first place, because they open themselves up to attack! And the ethical reasons are somewhat similar to those you know from RMS and the free software movement, I don't agree with RMS on all of his opinions, but almost all of what he says about software, which is why I don't want to install Microsoft Office 2003 on my sister's laptop, because I don't like the idea of not being able to freely give that software away if I run into someone who could find use of it, and you know.

[Patrick]

All I have to say is what a waste of money! I've told my family and friends that I will not support them using windows. I won't take their money. I'll help as much as they'd like if they want to try out linux. One of my brother in laws started saying his Dell box running Windows is becoming very slow even though it has a 3.2 ghz processor, 1 gig of ram and a SATA hard drive. He has 3 kids who are constantly downloading 'crap' off the internet. I pitched the idea of running a dual boot and he responded favorably to it. I have a feeling I'll be installing linux on his machine the next time we visit.

[Tsuroerusu]

All I have to say is what a waste of money!

Yeah I told her that too, I said "Come on, if you need to print, BUY A PRINTER, it's cheaper than Microsoft Office!!".

[Judland]

My question is, why didn't she just click the "PDF" button and send her friend a PDF of the drawing to print for her?

[Judland]

Yeah I told her that too, I said "Come on, if you need to print, BUY A PRINTER, it's cheaper than Microsoft Office!!".

I never thought of that! But, yeah, a printer would have been cheaper and she would have gotten more out of it than MS Office!

[Tsuroerusu]

My question is, why didn't she just click the "PDF" button and send her friend a PDF of the drawing to print for her?

You know how women are, once they have their mind set on something they want it that way, even though my sister doesn't claisify as a "woman" just yet, she certainly goes in the stuborn class

[Judland]

Well, I guess I'd have to agree that I'd say the same thing... in fact, I sort of did with my kids a couple years ago.

I finally had enough of fixing their MS-Windows PC and told them that I was not going to do it anymore. I put Linux on it and that was that. If my son wanted to play specific MS-Windows games, he'd have to save up and get his own PC - as well as maintain it himself.

My daughter didn't seem to care too much. She had her IM and that was the important part.

Since then... no issues, other than helping them find Linux alternatives to what they wanted to do with the computer. Besides the games, we've found solutions to everything.

[Wally Balljacker]

I have a feeling I'll be installing linux on his machine the next time we visit.

Good work my friend!

[jsusanka]

Since then... no issues, other than helping them find Linux alternatives to what they wanted to do with the computer. Besides the games, we've found solutions to everything.

I did the same thing when windows 95/98 support died. haven't looked back since.

my daughter is always saying make the penguin come up on the computer - it's cute.

I thought once or twice about getting xp to run in a virtual machine for some games but I thought I would rather spend the 200 dollars on hardware.

linux is the way to go at home - no problems and I actually spend my time learning new stuff instead of defragmenting, virus scan, spyware scan etc etc.

I too told family and friends I will not help with windows problems anymore - but I will help convert them over to linux.

I am just sick of windows and I really just don't want it in my life anymore. don't need it and never will.

[CptnObvious999]

I too told family and friends I will not help with windows problems anymore - but I will help convert them over to linux.

Yeah when I get asked how to fix Windows problems I just say "I don't do windows". The sad thing is I set them up with Virus and Spyware protection and showed them how to update it and scan but they never do it even when that periodical "Scan this system now" dialog comes up they hit cancel. After being a victim of identity theft my mom asked me if they could have gotten the information from spyware on my computer, I told her no spyware isn't for linux but they could have it on theirs. She still hasn't scanned the system.....