Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

[Detonate]

I found this interesting.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/71800.html

[darkduck]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

me too.

[blobfish]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

That was a good read. I think the problem comes from people who have had a singular platform exposure. This, of course, applies to linux and mac users as well as windows users. Once a person has learned their second OS, they usually aren't so zealous and easily frustrated. It took a year of linux to make me really understand what microsoft does and doesn't do correctly.

[Detonate]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

If Linux and Microsoft had been developed at the same time, which would be the dominant OS today?

[Snowhog]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

Microsoft (Bill Gates specifically) has always had the vision where Microsoft is the only OS - period. That vision is what propelled Microsoft into the giant it is today. And part of that vision was to indoctrinate the consumer into believing that Microsoft was not just a better OS, but the only OS that would solve all your software needs and desires. Of course, Mac users knew better.

Microsoft is a legally organized, SEC registered drug dealer. Try it. You'll like it. Everyone's using it. You want to be part of the party, don't you? :-X

[dibl]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

It's a good read --- thanks, Detonate. Upon reflection, I'm not sure whether it says more about Microsoft or about human nature.

In the 25 years since I first installed MS DOS 2.x, Microsoft has been both wonderful and awful, IMHO. It certainly was MS operating systems, together with IBM releasing the x86 PC platform architecture, that greased the explosion of personal computer availability and development in the 1980s and 1990s and beyond. You can't take Microsoft out of the history of personal computing and imagine anything resembling the consumer technology that we have today. So, "evil empire" that it may have been, and/or still be, it has absolutely been the single most important generator of consumer-grade computing capability in these couple of decades.

On the other hand, I really liked OS/2, and because it was technically equal to or better than the best GUI that MS had to offer in those days, I thought it was a very bad omen that "the crowd" went for the goofy Windows marketing ploys of the time. IBM truly were outmarketed by Microsoft in those days -- Win 95 didn't show up for a couple of years after OS/2 Warp was running beautifully on my 486-33 PC, and I had my first web browsing experience on OS/2 through a dial-up serial modem -- what a revelation that was!

So, I think Bill Gates was not really paranoid -- there actually were excellent potential competitors lurking around. But, their little antic breaking Windows on DR-DOS, and their more famous antic tying Internet Explorer to the OS were pretty ugly displays of coloring outside the lines. They deserved to be sued, and to lose, for that stuff.

Today we live in a world where, in some specialized areas, the world-class software choice is necessarily a Windows package. I'm stuck with one of those -- the best genealogy software, by far, is a Windows application. I'm just glad I can run it on a VM, on a Linux OS, and that for most general purposes there is a plethora of GNU/Linux software with which to take care of business.

[Detonate]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

You are right. It was the Microsoft marketing techniques that made them what they are today. OS2 and Apple could not compete, even though both were superior to Microsoft in my opinion. Even in the early days of Windows, there were viable competitors for the GUI desktop that ran on MS-dos. Remember Quarterdeck? But they fell by the wayside. So, most people today do not even realize that there are alternatives, and are thoroughly infected with MTBS. And for most, present company excepted, there is no cure.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

The pattern of the article looked VERY familiar -- a bunch of quotes from various "experts" strung together in artful ways. But, when I saw this phrase: "said Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack" I immediately scrolled up to see who wrote the article. Sure enough, it was Katherine Noyes, writing for LinuxInsider.

I commented on her style two years ago on Linux Today, which was a comment on an article by Noyes linked to by LT here.

I see from the article linked to in this thread that my comment then is still valid today. This article begins with the MTBS, but ends countering that "syndrome" with the "Linux Delusion Syndrome", and follows that up with the 'It's Only Worth What You Paid for It" syndrome. A one-two counter punch against Linux.

Hudson's suggestion is ridiculous because Linux is not setting on any major retail store shelves. It used to. Around 2001 I purchased SuSE 6.4 from BestBuy. When Walmart started selling boxes with Linux preinstalled they sold out like hot-cakes. In fact, three years ago several retail stores started selling Linux and before that OLPC was using Linux. But, none offer Linux now, even though OLPC refocused on using Linux it's laptop isn't making the inroads Napoliano hoped for. Jane Silber, Canonical's CEO, had a "retail Ubuntu" strategy for 2010, but I haven't seen anything of it. Like BestBuy, retailers offer only Windows and Mac OSs. BestBuy's staff is given a Microsoft anit-Linux training course which goes beyond FUD and lies repeatedly about Linux in order to talk people who come in asking about Linux out of any notion of buying it. Microsoft made sure Walmart, Sears, BestBuy and other retailers "understood" what would happen to their per-unit costs if they continued to stock machines on their shelves with Linux preinstalled. Even DELL appears to have made it more difficult for the average shopper to browse their website and actually find a machine being offered with Linux pre-installed. Putting "linux" in the search bar on their home page brings up only one PC with Linux pre-installed, the mini-1012, and that one uses Ubuntu 8.04. They've taken any reference to Linux off of their home page and I was not able to find any reference to Linux on any subpages. Pick a machine to customize and you'll find that the only OS choice you have is between versions of Win7. This is a step backward from 2008 or 2010. Noyes, and writers like her, have done a lot to bring this about.

[ardvark71]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

I found this interesting.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/71800.html

From the article mentioned above...

"Do not attempt to force preconceived notions and knowledge from a totally different computing paradigm onto Linux," Gene advised the unfortunate ones. "Ignore your previous knowledge from your Microsoft Trained Brain and start over with Linux as if you are a child getting a first exposure to computing systems. I guarantee this will help you in the long term."

To a point, yes. However, this should not mean that inefficient and technically difficult methods of using the OS should be considered acceptable. Please see my thread here. Most users expect ease of use and won't tolerate many of the methods and difficulties that I see Linux beset with.

Regards...

[Ole Juul]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

I didn't get anything out of that article. People like the familiar, what else is new?

What GreyGeek explained above is more informative to me.

Occasionally I look at an MS-Windows machine because somebody thinks I know something about computers. I don't find the basic OS to be all that different really. What I find different is the fundamental ideology.

I ran up against this yesterday when a fellow asked me to get his sound and e-mail working. I had previously sent him to a friend of mine who does this sort of stuff professionally and charges $150 for a complete virus removal and OS rebuild. That seems reasonable to me, but when the machine came back the owner could not operate it to his satisfaction.

The sound problem was nothing really and I dealt with that, however the e-mail was beyond me because when he clicked on his program icon a wizard came up and wanted information which was in a format that was not computer language but closer to a mortgage brokers praddle. I was completely lost although the ISP is the same as mine and I know all the relevant technical details like the back of my hand. My temporary solution was to show him how to do webmail.

There was one more outstanding problem which left me in a cultural void. How to use bookmarks. When clicking on bookmarks, there is a Yahoo signup page asking for god knows what. They want you to open an account in order to use the bookmarks feature in your own browser on your own machine. This is just pure religion to my way of thinking. I was completely lost - not because I don't understand Windows, but because I don't understand the associated ideology.

If Linux and Microsoft had been developed at the same time, which would be the dominant OS today?

At first I thought that made sense, but then I thought about it. It seems to me that they did start at the same time. Perhaps it looks that way to me because I'm a DOS user and dabble in the history thereof. The way I see it Windows evolved right along from DOS. I'm certainly familiar with Win3.x installation and know that whole time line despite not using the stuff. Also DOS, when moving from version 1.1 to version 2.0 was rewritten to work like UNIX. We all know Linux as a Unix like, and inspired system. If you use one you can use the other. IOW, both MS-Windows and Linux evolved from the basic UNIX philosophy. I'll leave CP/M out of it for clarity's sake. Although DOS and Linux branched in different directions I think they did start at the same time.

. . . However, this should not mean that inefficient and technically difficult methods of using the OS should be considered acceptable. Please see my thread here. Most users expect ease of use and won't tolerate many of the methods and difficulties that I see Linux beset with.

As I mentioned above, I see this as an ideological disparity. Contemporary Microsoft OSs are difficult for me to understand an manipulate because there is so much involved which is not about computers but about marketing. I guess that people who watch TV and indulge in commercial culture will not have such a hard time with this, but to someone like me it creates a difficult "technical" barrier.

Yes, most users do expect an ease of use and they get it with MS-Windows. That is because they pay to have the system set up and they have a tolerance for marketing creeping into the IT.

[ScottyK]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

Today we live in a world where, in some specialized areas, the world-class software choice is necessarily a Windows package. I'm stuck with one of those -- the best genealogy software, by far, is a Windows application. I'm just glad I can run it on a VM, on a Linux OS, and that for most general purposes there is a plethora of GNU/Linux software with which to take care of business.

Just curious, which program would that be? Been wanting to start researching the family history.

[Snowhog]

Re: Microsoft Trained Brain Syndrome

Unless he's changed, the software he uses, and runs in Windows in a VM, is "The Master Genealogist."