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Subject: Re: TWL: Computer OS's & Stability
From: Arild Jensen (elnav@XXX.XXX)
Date: Mon Dec 31 2001 - 15:35:02 EST
At 11:59 AM 12/31/2001 -0800, T Moses wrote:
>I purchased a PC for use on the boat and at home. For the last 3 months I
have been trying to learn to use Windows
>ME and find it rather frustrating . . .
> I am concerned about the stability of the OS during actual use while
underway.
>Have heard good things about 98Lite which allows you to remove all the
stuff from the OS
>(there seems to be lots) that one doesn't really need and seems to greatly
>improve the stability of the system.
REPLY
Must be the season. A debate is raging on the CPS mail lsit about M$oft
and the latest offerings.
Yesterday while visiting some liveaboard friends we got to discussing the
very same topic.
I recommended a program called FUGAWI because it cost a lot less than
Nobeltec's VNS and has all the key features needed for electronic chart
use.
When you get right down to details how many people actually use every
single featuer of these high end programs?
The majority of users simply plug a bunch of waypoint s into a route and
save it.
Underway use amounts to monitoring the extent to which the vessel
position deviated from the rhumb line.
Well even the most basic program can do that. Oftern with a very basic
O/S ; not the latest and greatest version.
The real threat is the marketing people who continue to invent ways to
force people to buy upgrades.
The latest wrinkle is NDI trying to force people to "rent" the
elecrtonic charts one year at a time.
If you don't upgrade and pay a fee the software will no longer run.
Sheeesh .
Since NDI and Maptech together control the licencing for all raster charts
of North Americn waters this is indeed an ominous move.
M$oft seems to have a stranglehold on the consumer computer market.
For better or worse the bulk of users seem intent on playing ever more
sophisticated games which in turn requires ever more expensive and
complex computers + software.
Many real world applications do not require such sophistication, but
when the software company abandons support for the older versions and
older computers what is one to do when something goes wrong and you
have to ask for help.
Being told to shell out more $$$ and "upgrade" is not a satisfactory
answer.
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