Feedback
hed: An eye on Microsoft
dek: plus, more on the challenge of dyslexia.
After almost 20 years of bullying competitors with illegal monopolistic tactics, after being convicted in Federal court of serious and repeated violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, after destroying the market shares of Dr. DOS, Lotus123, WordPerfect, and Netscape Internet browser softwares with illegal bundling, exclusionary contracts and other heavy-handed tactics, the mighty Microsoft Corp. has now condescended to allow PC manufacturers to "delete the Internet Explorer icon from the starting Windows screen." Wow. The mind boggles.
Is the mighty Microsoft actually making a real concession to the concept of free market competition? Sorry. Its just another cheap MS trick to be allowed to continue their illegal and immoral monopolizing and bullying ways.
Microsoft is trying to leverage its Windows PC operating system monopoly into dominating the Internet with its Explorer Browser, its home Web page, microsoft.com and its latest offerings of its new Windows XP operating system. Microsoft should not be allowed to expand into any new areas of technology, be it on the Internet or elsewhere.
To date, Microsoft has shown very little if any understanding of fair play, fair competition, or moral behavior. It is obviously in need of severe discipline. Only the Justice Department and the 19 state Attorneys General have enough legal power to rein the bullying behavior of Microsoft.
James K. Sayre
Thank you for the candid and insightful article in your July 2001 on dyslexia. While I admire John Chambers for his public revelations, I treasure your statements even more. I have admired your clarity of thought and ability to express ideas while balancing the whole (COMPUTER USER is the only local magazine I go out of my way to obtain), and never would have guessed that dyslexia was your mountain to climb. My wife, who holds a Master's degree in History and has taught the subject, still reads "felt" as "left". We laugh it off.
I am a tutor with the Butler County Community College Adult Literacy program and was privileged to hear Dr. Richard Cooper's presentation at BC3's campus last April http://www.learningdifferences.com.
Dr. Cooper is dyslexic, but he has that rare gift for creative graphic display of what the dyslexic "sees" when confronted with the written page. That seminar opened doors for me and revealed pathways to the pot of gold for my own student. My student had no one to diagnose his problem or encourage him to climb the mountain in his youth, but he managed to serve his country with honor, raise a family, and finally retire. He is excited about climbing the mountain now. I am excited too. Not everyone will be able to make it to the top, no matter how hard they try.
J.E.Stevens
I enjoyed "Where's The Music?" But I felt that it was incomplete. I'm concerned that you didn't give your readers enough info about the Gnutella, Bearshare, Limewire clients for downloading music files. (my favorite flavor of the above is http://www.gnotella.com/index.html.
You didn't mention Limewire at all, and only gave passing mention of Gnutella, which is the "grandfather" of all three clients (and many more spawns such as Gnotella). All three clients work with each other, so there is a gigantic amount of music to be found-in my opinion equalling or surpassing Napster. Most versions of these clients are also very simple and intuitive, only lacking a few inconsequential features of Napster such as the "community" chat forums, built in player.
The clients also allow download of all types of files, which Napster didn't. So, basically I appreciate your getting the info about Napster alternatives out there, but I think you short-changed the Gnutella, Limewire, Bearshare networks.
Don Knieriem
