Please allow me to share with you a few choice entries from my random sig file:

When the grammar checker identifies an error, it suggests a correction and
can even makes some changes for you.
-Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 User's Guide
---
The application finished with the following error: The operation was
completed succesfully. -actual Microsoft Exchange message
---
One question might be, and I'll be as direct as I can be about this,
what is .Net? Unlike Windows, where you could say it's a product,
it sits in one place, it's got a nice little box. In some senses,
it's a very good question. -Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
---
If the Start Windows Restart when Windows starts check box is checked
Windows Restart will start automatically every time Windows is started.
-Actual excerpt from Microsoft Windows help file
---
I feel like jumping up and cheering, Go! Go! Go you money-grubbing
market-manipulating garbage-software-producing piece-of-shit scumbags!
Go! - Patti Beadles, on Microsoft suing 15 spammers
---
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time Microsoft Windows crashed ...
oh, wait a minute -- he already does.
---
Every operating system out there is about equal ... We all suck.
-Senior Microsoft VP Brian Valentine
---
>> consider moving away from FrontPage ...
> To what? Any suggestions?
Naked bungee-jumping. It's less humiliating
-Matt Probert in alt.www.webmaster

Add to that, not an hour goes by when my server doesn't register a hack attempt designed at infiltrating Microsoft IIS (which thankfully I am not running).

Not to mention, my server stays up for YEARS at a time, serving happily. When was the last time you saw a Windows box that could stay up that long with out a hang or a necessary reboot?

OK, ask me _again_ how I feel about using a Microsoft product for any serious application?

-- Loy

--
FREE REVIEWS of your website ... by folks who've created some of the best RPG sites available. All you need to do is run over to the Reviews Forum and ask.

And remember your Nomex undies.

The MuD I play had a server die. It happens. Admin went to restore, it laughed at him. Seems his daughter had managed to pick up a virus and since the machines were networked, the backup was viral as well. So he got a brand new box, a clean drive, and started installing. The MUD itself runs on *NIX but he has a test enviroment in Windoze. All went on fine and clean. He checks the system several times, has not yet put it on the LAN. He mutters and starts to download the service packs and hot fixes. halfway through the virus checker goes off, sure enough it really is one. Guess where it came back to? Microsoft update site. One of the hot fixes was viral. It turns out is where his daughter picked up the virus.

I always knew windows was a virus, it eats up drive space and Ram like one.

So my take on using ANY MS site is - only if you wish new and exciting adventures in virus removal, backdoor hacks, and GOK what else.

I am guessing my moving Shadowrun Survival Guide to the Office live hosting site wasn't my best decision...

Digital Doom

the creators may die, but the game lives on.

http://groups.msn.com/shadowrunonline/welcome.msnw
http://shadowrunsurvivalguide.com

Windoze is so prevalent in the home computing world (where most people get their start) that folks tend to think of Microsoft first when considering software. There are those who can't even wrap their head around the idea of going Microsoft-free. It's scary.

But the truth is, Windoze was designed around a single-user to single-computer model and expanded to allow for things like web servers. *nix was designed around the multi-user per computer model to begin with. That makes a huge difference in how the systems handle crashes, problems, downtimes, etc.

Many folks do host on Microsoft solutions, but I recommend against it. And here's some other nifty ideas for you:

Ubuntu Linux: http://www.ubuntu.com/ runs on most home PCs beautifully and accepts a wide range of peripherals (printers, mp3 players, etc). It's a lot of installing to switch over, but a smooth ride once you do. We have this on one of our laptops at home.

Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/ I use this professionally as an alternative to Microsoft Office - it's a memory hog, but other than that a great set of tools at a very reasonable price. And it does pdf files and a few other open-source things that Microsoft doesn't. All you college students out there - you don't have to suffer with Microsoft Works or whatever cheesy software comes on your laptop. You can download this and have, essentially, Microsoft Office 98, for free.

Then theres http://www.livingwithoutmicrosoft.org/ which will point you to those resources and more. Fun stuff.

BTW, your survival guide - is that a static site, a database-backed site, what? How much do you pay for hosting monthly? I run a webserver, you know Normal rate is $19.95/month but I offer a $9.95/month for certified non-profits. And I just picked up a shiny new server (as you can tell from other threads) which is currently waaaay under-loaded. If you're interested.

-- Loy

--
FREE REVIEWS of your website ... by folks who've created some of the best RPG sites available. All you need to do is run over to the Reviews Forum and ask.

And remember your Nomex undies.

I signed up for their free service. It was to see how it worked, and to eliminate the adds that I had on Geocities. I went with Microsoft mostly because of it being free, I have four kids and can't afford to pay for my site right now.

I do like some of their tools, but they aren't as easy to use as some of the other hosting sites I have used. They won't even let me use their product (frontpage) to create my site on their free service.

I am hoping to get things rolling so I can purchase site hosting in the near future, it just depends on a few things.

Thanks for the advice and offer.

Digital Doom

the creators may die, but the game lives on.

http://groups.msn.com/shadowrunonline/welcome.msnw
http://shadowrunsurvivalguide.com

I found the switch to Ubuntu was a cakewalk. Maybe I had overly-prepared myself for the worst, but it really was a cinch to make that leap. The latest version is even better, and designed with converting from Windows in mind to help the migration process easier.

It also comes with Open Office, Firefox, and everything else you need on a computer. The only thing I've added is a LAMP stack for the server; the laptop runs as-is without anything else.

~~~
Lost-Souls.co.nr
Home of the Lost Souls Pack
And the Midian Dark Fantasy Role-playing Game
The Official Game of the Internet

So many times I tell people to switch to Ubuntu and get this 'its too hard' sad story. How people continue to spend money for an OS and software (office) that suck, when great free software is available ... sheep.

-- Loy

--
FREE REVIEWS of your website ... by folks who've created some of the best RPG sites available. All you need to do is run over to the Reviews Forum and ask.

And remember your Nomex undies.

So to answer Digital Doom's original question, no, I have not used it. With Firefox on Ubuntu I'm not even allowed to look at Office Live's pages.

~~~
Lost-Souls.co.nr
Home of the Lost Souls Pack
And the Midian Dark Fantasy Role-playing Game
The Official Game of the Internet

Those quotes are gold effie.

I too must express agreement with the position that microsoft products, with the exception of windoze XP, are among the worst pieces of junk around, mostly designed to take advantage of people who don't know any better.

I do think XP is a great operating system. Despite who made it and everything else. I've tried linux and will stick with this OS (let us suppose that money was not an issue here ) until I'm forced onto vista, at which point I will consider moving to linux again.

- - - - - - - - Do not use dotted lines - - - - - - - - -

Advertise your online RPG - http://www.pbem2.com

Actually I went from 98 to Vista and so far I am happy with Vista (On a standalone machine for family use) I have had exactly 2 blue screens of death in almost a year. Both were severe ram overload on my part and I hate to say it, but from a pure user perspective Windoze may have finally almost gotten it right.

Now that having been said. I still prefer Unix for me.