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Until just recently it has been de riguer for a family to share its copies of Windows/Word/Outlook etc, ours being one. But I understand that technically, the practice is a felony
Now Bill is evidently cracking down, as I have been getting solicitations for action, such as the links "Get Genuine" and "Resolve Later", with ominous messages such as "This copy of Windows is not genuine" and "Your system may be at risk"
To further badger us, just in the last couple of days Bill has been blanking out the "Resolve Later" link presumably in the hope that ignoramuses such as I will conclude they no longer have a choice and therefore should click on "Get Genuine"
Now, I don't blame Bill, and I hate to continue being a felon. But there are two kinds of laws: those the Establishment enforces, like murder and bank robbery, and those that it doesn't, like cohabitation and polygamy
I wonder if anyone can provide an authoritative reading on this situation--Thanks all
dalehileman
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No doubt Dostoyevsky would have an interesting take on that. Aramis once saw [not read, but saw] a thick book titled Morals and Dogma. Putting long odds a good answer is somewhere in there. 
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A-some of these pop ups are ads, not features/plagues of windows--they sometimes have nothing to do with bill gates or Microsoft. they are just trying to sell you something.
B-its technically illegal to buy a CD, rip it into mp3 files for your i-pod, and to make a tape copy for your car. rarely do corporations go after individuals who do this, its the wholesale abusers who are procsicuted. but its still illegal all the same. its been this way since long before bill gates came on the scene. Napster is defunct as a file swapping site, but only a few file swappers suffered any legal reprocussions.
c--Window's (and Most MS products) are licence to the hardware.
one copy per peice of hardware, (no matter how many people share the hardware)
some software is licenced to USER (one user, no matter how many piece of hard ware)
Word Perfect, for instance is licenced to USER. a user can have 3 copies, (one on home machine, one on work machine, one on laptop) but only one person is registered user is allowed per licenced copy of the software.
in either case, a family of 2 or 3 users is suppose to own 2 or 3 copies, (one copy per machine OR one copy per user)
you don't have to use MSWord, WP is totally compatable. (and cheaper)and there are other word processing programs out there that are cheaper than both MSword and WP.
blaiming bill gates(or anyone) is just a way to say "i am powerless to do anything." if you chose to be powerless, that is your responsiblitity, and not a problem for me to solve.
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Why, Helen, delightful to hear from you again, and thank you for the rundown
My feeble attempts at humor, a form of persiflage, are misunderstood by some, and to those I apologize most profusely
As far as blaming Bill is concerned, I vaguely recall saying "I don't blame Bill." Indeed if I were he I would join you in not liking my kind at all
dalehileman
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So when I composed a reply to your criticism above, defending Bill Gates, had it in a final state of perfection, and attempted to submit it, I received an error message to the effect that I had omitted something. But when I attempted a return to my followup in order to correct the supposed omission, it had been summarily deleted in its entirety
Thus the Illuminati will recognize that I mean Bill as merely a symbol for everything that’s wrong with the Software World
Actually I admire Bill for his entrepreneurship and charitable works. However, he is by no means innocent in creating a Software World so disposed to the attack of evildoers as to require the average user to subscribe to countermeasures requiring regular updates by a team of experts, at significant cost; invest in hardware using selective signal processing...
...and last but not least, learn a litany of special rules (eg, yes, yes, you’ve done everything you can; but still don’t open email attachments; learn how to selectively reject cookies and be sure to regularly delete worthless temporary files lest they choke off your C:)...
...that the cynic is tempted to conclude that early on Bill must have surreptitiously acquired stock in Norton, Netscape, and other titans of the Antigarbage Industry
dalehileman
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Dale, I do recognize that you intend to use Bill Gates as a symbol for what’s wrong with the software world, but it does get unimaginatively repetitious. From the other posts I’ve seen of yours, you are better than that, so I don’t know how you got into that rut. But it’s your rut, so if you’re comfortable in it [shrugging-shoulder-e] I just skip over those posts and move to the other ones so it doesn't really annoy me. As to the other argument, I’m up for a little debate.  I think the argument doesn’t hold water. When somebody first creates something, the hope is to create the best thing possible using the tools and knowledge at hand. You can’t know the future and what will be invented to screw up your invention. And, if some jerk then goes about making it his life’s mission to ruin the invention, how is that the fault of the creator? It is a sad thing, but there are some people who revel in distruction. Instead of admiring the creation of a tower and helping to elaborate it, they have only the need to make it topple.
Last edited by belMarduk; 06/28/06 11:59 PM.
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It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it
dalehileman
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That's just it though, some people really feel that way, but I don't understand it. I don't understand the need to break things.
I'd understand if they thought there was a better way, and had suggestions on improvements, but breaking something just for the hell of it is beyond my comprehension.
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Dale, here's an article you might find useful... News.com on new WGA
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Myr thank you for that link
dalehileman
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Bel: I'd have no intention of destroying it, only improving it
Typical example: Feeling guilty about my continuing felony, I reluctantly applied for "Genuine" Windows at a cost of $149
Filling in the necessary forms took forever. One of the most frustrating requirements was entering my phone number. Their diabolical algorithm just simply wouldn't accept the last two digits
Billions of people for the past 129 years have written phone no.s trillions of times with the hyphens. But all at once all of us are supposed to realize instantly that the software world is uncomfortable with hyphens and therefore you mustn't use one when you don't have to
Will it take another 25 years for Bill Gates to realize this
He doesn't talk to his customers. It is forbidden for a software engineer to accept suggestions from the outside world; such as "Why don't you include an instruction, "...without hyphens'"
dalehileman
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mus: They may not rot the basket but when you reach in there are so many of them that you are sure to pick the rotten one. Windows/Word, for instance, simply cannot handle quotation marks, often turning them in the wrong direction, a problem so easy to handle you would wonder why, after 22 years of peddling software, Bill hasn't stooped to fix the problem. You would think at least that they would provide a toolbar macro for the purpose of reversal
Last edited by dalehileman; 07/11/06 02:51 PM.
dalehileman
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Dale, you should go read the article Musick links to.
Word for Windows. What's wrong with your quotation marks? I tried getting them in the wrong direction, but couldn't. Mind you I have a French keyboard, so that may be it.
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There is a free program that works very well called "Open Office" from sun microsystems.
It includes:
base, a database package
calc, a spreadsheet program
draw, a graphics package
Impress, to make presentations
Math, a math package (serves the same function as MathType, but it's not wysiwyg)
Writer, similar to work .. you can make newsletters, brochures, etc.
Some of these allow you to read the microsoft equivalents.
Most of these allow you to write to pdf format.
For the life of me I don't understand why they don't push this at K-12 schools instead of MS office.
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Bel: I may have stretched the truth a little for purposes of emphasis. Typically the backward quotes happen during editing, when for one reason or another one deletes a passage containing one, which upon an attempt to replace it, comes out backward. Since Word doesn't include a macro to reverse them, I had to write my own
dalehileman
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Ooo ya, I know what you mean. I've had that happen when I'm editing text.
There is one thing that I've been trying to remove and haven't found the button yet.
When I'm writing a date, the program automatically adds an abbreviated version when I press return.
I want to write: le 12 juillet 2006
When I press return to go to another line the computer modifies it to: le 12 juillet 2006-07-12
I've looked in the automatic corrections and automatic text inserts, but can't find the place to modify this command. It is a tad annoying.
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bel: With my PC and version, the pop-up shows just as yours does, annoying as hell, but fortunately it doesn't transfer to the text
Why does Bill Gates hate us so
dalehileman
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> OpenOffice
FF, we're going to put this or NeoOffice in my new lab of 21 macs....
Bel, look in your prefs for the date thingy.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Quote:
There is one thing that I've been trying to remove and haven't found the button yet.
When I'm writing a date, the program automatically adds an abbreviated version when I press return.
I want to write: le 12 juillet 2006
When I press return to go to another line the computer modifies it to: le 12 juillet 2006-07-12
I've looked in the automatic corrections and automatic text inserts, but can't find the place to modify this command. It is a tad annoying.
That is the single most annoying thing in MS Word. I have to remember to type a space after any date so that it doesn't happen, but half the time I forget.
Bingley
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I might conceivably use one for a formal report, but never for an email or casual note - and most of my notes are casual. The first thing I figure out in any new software is how to turn that bullcrap off.
Tools->Spelling and Grammar
Select the Options button
Uncheck the "Check spelling as you type" box
Uncheck the "Check grammar as you type" box
I haven't had that exact problem with the french date, but this should completely eliminate MS Word's innumerable helpful suggestions. Now, if you help me locate the "stuff this up Bill's backdoor" switch, I'd be very grateful.
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eta, where do I find prefs? I've checked all the buttons and can't find anything like that.
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Bing: Why don't you want to know when you've misspelled
Last edited by dalehileman; 07/13/06 03:25 PM.
dalehileman
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Quote:
eta, where do I find prefs? I've checked all the buttons and can't find anything like that.
oy. let's see. in your main computer preferences. umm, what's it called? look for Date and Time or maybe clock?
hopefully a Windows user will pipe up here...
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YAY! Here's how to do it...
With your WORD program open, click on the "Insert" button on the toolbar.
In the drop-down window, click on "AutoText"
In the new drop-down window that opens, click again on "AutoText". An "Auto Correct" window opens ups.
Click on the "AutoText" tab.
At the top of the sheet that comes to the front, remove the check in the box before "Show AutoComplet suggestions"
and voilà, no more automatic entering of the numbered date after you've written in the year.
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glad you found it, Bel! 
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One can always use spell check post facto to edit. The way I write - and the way many people write - is to get all of their thoughts down first and then go edit it. I don't like seeing a lot of distracting "ink" on the "page" while I'm getting my thoughts down.
OTOH, I seldom use the spell check even afterwards, unless it's a formal document.
I never use the grammar check under any circumstances.
Minor misspellings are almost never important to effective communication. Seeing a few of them reminds me that it's a human at the other end.
Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 07/14/06 12:25 PM.
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Bel thank you for that rundown. I had always wondered how to get there and get rid of that damn date; so I have ensconced your procedure for future ref
Fal: I often do that when I'm writing a complex followup because otherwise Bill sometimes deletes your ebntire composition, but it's a lot more work to jump around from one venue to another
dalehileman
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Quote:
Bing: Why don't you want to know when you've misspelled
I have no objection to knowing when I've misspelled something (though it does try to correct things that aren't wrong and its vocabulary is pitiful), but I do dislike its insertion of the wrong date all the time.
THANK YOU, BEL. PRAISE BE TO THE GREAT GOD MARDUK.
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 My pleasure Bingley. I was extremely happy to have found the solution after a whole lot of "trialing and erroring". You know the type - when you click something off, try to see if it fixed the problem, nope, click it back on and click something else off, see if it fixed the problem...
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