On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 at 12:48:29PM +0000, Alan Pope wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 18:10 +0000, Adam Trickett wrote:
> > I now feel guilty for not helping, he didn't want to install anything else -
> > which I would have offered to help with. He feels that he must use Microsoft
> > Outlook as it came with that from Dell and as everyone uses it, it must be
> > the best? He trusts me enough to ask for my advice but not enough to actually
> > follow through.
> >
>
> "Friends don't help friends with Windows" :)
I know. Actually "Friends don't help friends use FrontPage" is what I've said
many times before...
> I have blogged [0] previously on what I do when people ask for help with
> Windows. At the moment there's really only 3 people I help with their
> Windows computers and they are all family members. I can't convert two
> of them because of the amount of dependence they have on Windows
> software, the other is the mother in law. She is coming around, and when
> they next buy a computer I will suggest they run Ubuntu on their old
> one.
Thankfully my partner and my step father are happily running Debian. I've got
various open source apps on other family Window systems, and I've basically
withdrawn support for Windows but made it clear than Linux support is free
and available.
> > I'd happily give him The OpenCD but I know that wouldn't help either... By not
> > helping I've driven him deeper into the Microsoft tar pit, but he really
> > doesn't want to be helped out, which I feel bad about as he is a nice chap.
> >
>
> Keep plugging away. There is a guy in my office who has consistently
> said he loves Microsoft and their products. I suspect part of this is
> due to him being very good friends with someone senior in Microsoft UK -
> but that's by the by. He recently told me that when he gets a new PC he
> will install Vista on it and install Ubuntu on his old PC. This is a
> real breakthrough for me because when I first started he was very
> anti-non-Microsoft products.
I'll keep going, softly softly catchee monkey. I'm hoping to get two
Windows admins from work to a LUG meeting. One I know runs Linux at
home, the other has never touched it, but is curious from a long term
job perspective.
> This isn't the first person who has been very pro-Windows and after a
> number of conversations has relented slightly. It just takes a bit of
> patience I think. Obviously I don't know your friend or your
> relationship with him, just voicing from my own experience.
I know it's hard. Microsoft has filled the industry with so many lies
and mistruths that it is hard getting a sensible message through.
> Good luck!
I'll need it.
--
Adam Trickett
Overton, HANTS, UK
Linux users hate mixed case names, yet Linux supports it.
Windows users love mixed case names, but Windows doesn't support it.
-- Andrew Tridgell
