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Unassisted
01-06-2005, 09:33 PM
As one of RedsZone's token Mac users, this is one of my favorite kinds of stories to pass along. :rotflmao:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6159

Gate's (sic) Computer Crashes at CES

Steve Mallett

Jan. 06, 2005 05:26 AM

URL:*http://www.canada.com/news/story.html?id=7d5a65b1-8260-44c6-8354-ff4a1ef5d3...


Bill Gate's 'puter crashed during a presentaion at CES. While I admit to loving to hate Microsoft this is too rich an irony to pass up passing along.

Despite suffering through an embarrassing computer crash that prompted jokes and guffaws, Bill Gates promised that Microsoft Corp. would help consumers stay plugged into technology, during a keynote speech Wednesday.

...while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates showed how vulnerable all consumers - even the world's richest man - are to hardware and software bugs.

During a demonstration of digital photography with a soon-to-be-released Nikon camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn't respond to Gates' pushing of the remote control.

Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the computer monitor displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death" and warned, "out of system memory."

Chip R
01-06-2005, 09:42 PM
Beautiful. :lol:

Red Heeler
01-06-2005, 10:18 PM
Don't blame Bill. Blame Steve Jobs :dflynn: . It's his fault Microsoft is on the cusp of world domination.

Newport Red
01-06-2005, 10:24 PM
Don't blame Bill. Blame Steve Jobs :dflynn: . It's his fault Microsoft is on the cusp of world domination.

IBM can share the blame with Steve Jobs as well.

KronoRed
01-06-2005, 10:51 PM
Jobs saw IBM as the enemy, now they are partners..ironic ;)

On topic..

I love a good Bill Gates looks bad article :D

Cedric
01-06-2005, 10:54 PM
Linux. Use Linux.

Roy Tucker
01-07-2005, 08:31 AM
I feel for whoever did the support for the demo.

I've had my s/w demo'ed by CEO-level guys before and its no picnic. You pray to Lord God Above that it all goes well because you sure as shootin' don't want the Big Guys to look bad in front of thousands. And you spend weeks going back over things (and back and back) to make sure it all goes well. And when the demo occurs, you hold your breath for 15 minutes.

And yeah, use Linux. It's a more stable platform. Windows (in all of its incarnations) can get pretty goofy.

Red Heeler
01-07-2005, 08:49 AM
And yeah, use Linux. It's a more stable platform. Windows (in all of its incarnations) can get pretty goofy.

That is what I don't get. Microsoft has more resources than any company in the world. Yet, they cannot manage to make their cornerstone product work as well as either of its major competitors' did 15 years ago.

Macintosh was a far more user friendly product than DOS, obviously. However, due to the fact that Jobs stubbornly refused to licensed the OS, DOS retained and built a market in business apps. Had Jobs licensed Mac before Windows ever came out, nobody would have ever heard of Bill Gates. Even if he had waited until Windows came out to grant licenses, he still stood a pretty good chance of beating Microsoft due to the fact that his product was, and still is, far superior.

Ravenlord
01-07-2005, 08:50 AM
just remember, the computers at Microsoft's HQ don't use Windows.

Roy Tucker
01-07-2005, 08:58 AM
just remember, the computers at Microsoft's HQ don't use Windows.
Really? I've been up to Redmond quite a bit and I've never seen anything except Windows boxes abounding. If its not Windows, what do they use?

You have a web pointer to anything on that?

Ravenlord
01-07-2005, 09:03 AM
they might now use Windows, but i remember hearing and reading a few years ago (i think 2000) in CNN and USA Today that most of R&D guys, support group, and engineers used Linux.

Roy Tucker
01-07-2005, 09:08 AM
That is what I don't get. Microsoft has more resources than any company in the world. Yet, they cannot manage to make their cornerstone product work as well as either of its major competitors' did 15 years ago.
Customers vote with their wallets. And people buy Microsoft.

It's always a tradeoff between functionality and stability. It's hard to sell to the big guys "well, our next release will be completely bug fixes". The big guys say "why is that, didn't you do your job right the first time through?". Customers start screaming, sales guys then start screaming, and next thing you know, there is a list a mile long of new features for the next release.

I'm OS-agnostic. I used to be a Unix bigot, but I've adopted the attitude of "whatever the customer wants". And if its MS, Mac, Linux, or OS/390, then that's what we use. I got tired of fighting the wars.

Ravenlord
01-07-2005, 09:09 AM
http://computercops.biz/article2811.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10413

funny...most of the sites that came up in my google search come up as a 404 Error or Forbidden. including the CNN link which i get a big ol' 'Forbidden' on.

Roy Tucker
01-07-2005, 09:35 AM
http://computercops.biz/article2811.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10413

funny...most of the sites that came up in my google search come up as a 404 Error or Forbidden. including the CNN link which i get a big ol' 'Forbidden' on.
Well now, that is very interesting. Thanks for the links.

What is looks like was Linux boxes were being used to serve up content at www.microsoft.com (via a 3rd party). Also, some of MS's lab sites (London in the article) were using Linux for firewall purposes.

Doing a http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.microsoft.com, it looks like they've plugged all those holes. I'm sure that came from on high.

MS *hates* anything Unix and particularly Linux. That's why I was so incredulous MS would use Linux. Looks like it snuck in under the radar by some engineers and IT guys. I'm sure some knuckles got rapped.

Unassisted
01-07-2005, 09:37 AM
I feel for whoever did the support for the demo.

I've had my s/w demo'ed by CEO-level guys before and its no picnic. You pray to Lord God Above that it all goes well because you sure as shootin' don't want the Big Guys to look bad in front of thousands. And you spend weeks going back over things (and back and back) to make sure it all goes well. And when the demo occurs, you hold your breath for 15 minutes.I used to have a boss's boss who kept an overhead projector and transparencies of all of his slides at the ready, every single time he presented. Seems like Mr. Gates and his minions should have been savvy enough to know the odds that a crash would occur and had a second computer backstage ready to hot-swap.

westofyou
01-07-2005, 09:40 AM
Originally Posted by Roy Tucker
I feel for whoever did the support for the demo.

I've had my s/w demo'ed by CEO-level guys before and its no picnic. You pray to Lord God Above that it all goes well because you sure as shootin' don't want the Big Guys to look bad in front of thousands. And you spend weeks going back over things (and back and back) to make sure it all goes well. And when the demo occurs, you hold your breath for 15 minutes.

As someone who has had demos go wrong I feel for Gates, as someone who lived in the Valley from the moment Apple went up and down to back up I laugh that folks think it's only ever happened to Windows users.

REDREAD
01-07-2005, 10:11 AM
. And when the demo occurs, you hold your breath for 15 minutes.
.

Yeah, tell me about it.. You spend 60 hours testing and testing, but you're still nervous the entire time. Even if something minor goes wrong, or something due to their error, you know your entire career with the company will be defined by that mistake..

Spring~Fields
01-07-2005, 10:15 AM
Amazing that he did not do a trial run through before doing the presentation.

Roy Tucker
01-07-2005, 10:31 AM
Amazing that he did not do a trial run through before doing the presentation.
If they are worth their salt, I'm sure they did. But sometimes, unaticipated things happen.

You try to cover all your bases, all the contingencies, but you can't think of everything. And sometimes you're forced to do the demo when things just aren't quite ready.

A ways back when I gave a pitch, I said "hi, my name is ..." and the power in the room blinked. Locked up my laptop solid. Wouldn't boot, wouldn't even power up. Roy said "oh darn". Had to do the talk from a backup (and out of date) set of slides I had emailed to my boss.

Found out later it had fried my laptop battery. I now put the slides on a USB memory fob and put it in my pocket.

And yeah, I've seen Mac demos go south too.

Spring~Fields
01-07-2005, 10:35 AM
Ouch! Murphys Law.

I guess that I am not the only one that sometimes has a black cloud hanging over head in wait to embarrass me.

REDREAD
01-07-2005, 10:49 AM
Amazing that he did not do a trial run through before doing the presentation.

There's always the chance that the presenter does things just a little bit differently than the tester, as well as other things. It's really hard to make something "idiot proof" for upper management :MandJ: