Ha, ha, ha, ha...ROFLMA...oh my gosh, the unbridled inanity of that is just too funny!! It's always hilarious to hear brainwashed, uninformed hyperbole from the eUNIc contingent. Have you been smoking rolled up Linux World magazines again?
"Hmm, isn't there a bunch of speculation in the tech sector about the upcoming upgrade needs of the business community?" Interesting point... With the capacity overhang and lack of consumer demand issues, the ugrade cycle is definitely in question. The Powers keep talking, "... we need the consumer to keep hanging in there [spending] until the capex cycle kicks in..." That's just more stupid- talk. Business will replace and upgrade obsolete, but that's small. If there's not a consumer spending wave lurking (and there is not, because of huge debt), business has no need to "carry the economy" with big capex. The Gubmint and Talking Heads are just lying out loud, as usual.
The sadder piece for me is that this is being equated to a slow business economy. Nothing could be further from the truth for most of my clients. They are finally starting, starting mind you, to truly use all that computing capacity. Four secretaries are now effieiently doing the work of six so no new hires are needed. Rather than hire two new guys out in the warehouse, they are computerizing the inventory and coordinating it with hardware that scans. Inventory is really being ordered as needed based on demand rather than having it on hand as in the past. But this is not being factored in properly on the street, IMHO. Upgrades? There is so much out there now that I don't honestly see the need for newer products. There are many operations out there still using Win95 and pentiums. Happily! Successfully! There are plenty of places where Win98 and PII's will handle everything they could ever want to do. And they ain't upgrading. And to them I would say, "Good decision!" Somehow the talking heads see this as "not a good thing" and they're waiting for this spending surge. I don't view it that way. And that doesn't make the economy bad either. Spend for spending sake? Intell and AMD have a new chip that needs cost recovery through public purchases. Well, I don't see the real need and I advise most of my clients against it. I say the business community and cycle is fine, just growing to fit what it already has. And I don't think that there's no buying because of huge debt. I say it's because of the lack of the need to. Something that we're taught not to believe. You see, we always need to buy something according to some genius somewhere. We just have to so as to prove things are fine. If we're buying, then we're growing. That is the only recognized evidence of a smooth economy for econimists. Last quarter MUST be better than the quarter before or we're in trouble. Well the model is flawed and I say, bull! I'm a tech for Christ's sake. I love new stuff. But buy it just because? I just can't justify it. I say we're doing pretty good right now. No I am not declaring clear times ahead, just saying there's entirely too much panic afoot.
"I'm a tech for Christ's sake. I love new stuff. But buy it just because? I just can't justify it. I say we're doing pretty good right now. No I am not declaring clear times ahead, just saying there's entirely too much panic afoot." ___________________________________________________ Example: A year ago I upgraded from PII350, W98... to P4, W2K. Frankly, I don't see any difference in gathering data over the net or in speed of trade execution. Probably wouldn't have had to do the upgrade except for W98 resources issues. (And for your earlier post about MSFT milking us poor consumers... you're right. They really dragged-out the upgrade crap.) It's good for you is that your clients are more fully utilizing some of that capacity overhang... but that's also the reason there's little need for another round of capex any time soon. It's also the reason for higher unemployment. You say "too much panic...". I say, not enough and not in the right venues. I hope the ETers appreciate guys like you spreading a little useful technical knowledge... I know I do.
There are many tech's who would disagree with you about me not pushing the new stuff. Right along with the folks designing the new stuff. But I don't fault the companies for no new hiring. Yes, it does shift the employment rolls towards the negative. But you can't fault the companies for expanding from within, using their existing resources better. I too would say not enough concern (not really ready or need to panic anywhere) in the right venues. But that is a debate for another day and another thread. Lastly, most folks here at Elite are happy to get info when they can. And I am happy to help if I can. Thanks for the acknowledgement, it is appreciated.
No seriously, the best MS products ever made were Win2K, Word and Excel, end of story. The rest is complete crap, especially WinME If you're happy with what you have, stick with it. I've been running Win2K for over 2 years and sometimes it's been on for two months straight (day and night) and it has never crashed. Frankly, I've never had a system crash. I've had the occasional MSN Messenger crash which annoys me, but at least the system remains stable. In 98 that would not necessarily be the case. Good Luck trading.
Actually, the best products they made were in the arena of MsDos. That's why it continued to be the underlying setup for Windows. Having both Win2000 and WinXp Pro running together and side-by-side, I can say that there is not much difference in reliability to denote a "Champion" in the OS race. They have their differences, but crashing is not a substanitive issue. In the three months that this setup has been running, I have had only two crashes at the OS level. Both in the Win2000 systems. But nothing significant as far as claiming one as the best over the other. However, both do beat Win98 in that stat.
I've been running it in my trading computer for about a year. I've had 2 system crashes... both within 10 minutes of installing Opera 7 beta 2. Uninstalled it, no crashes since. (Currently running Opera 7 beta 1. The browser crashes almost every day, but doesn't take the OS with it.)
I have 3 monitors, several programs open at once (no, not 13, but that also depends on what you mean by a program, there are smaller ones running in the background, and at least 5-6 bigger ones) don't always keep them open because don't need it. I have 300 MB of RAM, before 64, but only after I optimized it, it started working like a charm. Before the puter would humm a lot, now is incredibly quiet.