Alternative Fax

[Brettster]

I was amused to see a fax number listed on a company's website, thinking
that fax technology was laughably outdated. Then I saw another one. Then
another one. I guess the joke is on me. Do most companies still use fax
machines? I went to the Best Buy website and learned that many printers
double as fax machines. I assume you still have to have a dedicated phone
number to send to...or am I wrong about that too? Is the fax here to stay?
Just the fax, please.

[Les Albert]

Yes, you are wrong about needing a dedicated line for a fax machine.
And here is where you can learn why companies still use fax machines:
https://faxauthority.com/why-is-faxing-still-used/

Les

[Tim Wright]

Yes, the fax is alive and well. There are even fax apps for your smart
phone. Take a photo of a document then fax it where ever you want.

--
Mother Nature
"You cannot fit all of the seasons into one week."
Texas
"Hold my beer."



Tim W

[Howard .]

I recently had to send in a document related to a 401K, and was given
the option of mailing or faxing, which I also thought was crazy. I
looked it up and found an article (URL now forgotten) which said law
firms and people doing stuff where lawyers are involved often favor
faxes. They tend to believe that faxes are more secure than email,
evidently based on the most favorable point of view toward fax machines
and the most suspicious point of view toward email possible. Reality
doesn't really matter here. I suspect it's really due to a culture
where a number of older lawyers still only use legal pads.

Also, there's a perspective that it's possible to "prove" that a fax was
sent in a way that it's not possible to prove that an email was sent.
Nevermind that faxes and logs are easily faked (wasn't that a plot point
in Fargo?).

Medical offices still use faxes a lot, although the mandate to switch to
electronic records is shrinking it. I think there's still an opinion
among medical offices that privacy laws favor faxes over email and other
forms of internet-based communication, although again it's hard to
consider that point of view reality-based.

I think it's fair to question whether email is a secure way to send
sensitive documents -- there are certainly things to worry about. But
anyone who has worked in an office can tell you that faxes aren't secure
either, not by a long shot.

[Brettster]

On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 12:56:20 PM UTC-8, Les wrote:

> Yes, you are wrong about needing a dedicated line for a fax machine.
> And here is where you can learn why companies still use fax machines:
> https://faxauthority.com/why-is-faxing-still-used/

Fascinating. Thank you!

[danny burstein]

In <XnsA705A6A1D777...@46.165.242.75> "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com> writes:


>Medical offices still use faxes a lot, although the mandate to switch to
>electronic records is shrinking it. I think there's still an opinion
>among medical offices that privacy laws favor faxes over email and other
>forms of internet-based communication, although again it's hard to
>consider that point of view reality-based.

>I think it's fair to question whether email is a secure way to send
>sensitive documents -- there are certainly things to worry about. But
>anyone who has worked in an office can tell you that faxes aren't secure
>either, not by a long shot.

Faxes are (until/unless scanned into a record) stand alone
pieces of paper. Yes, in theory someone can patch into
the phone line and dupe it out, but that's highly unlikely.

Electronic records are stored and retrievable forever
and ever. So e-mails will be on that server in
the bathroom for someone to hack into at
three dark thirty...

Now as to the reality of Risks? That's another story

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[John Mc.]

Certain types of prescriptions cannot be done electronically and have to
be faxed.

John Mc.

[Whiskers]

Around here, fast food places still take orders by fax. Surprisingly
many people still have no internet access - and even no mobile phone.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[bill van]

In article
<1944392945.506816129.3...@news.eternal-september.org
>,

Doctors' offices and pharmacies use faxes a lot. Here in Canada, at
least, if a patient can't get to their doctor to get a prescription
before they run out of meds, they can ask the pharmacy to fax a request
to the doctor on the patient's behalf. The doctor will then fax the
prescription to the pharmacy, using a fax machine that's programmed to
reproduce his signature. My wife and I have both used this method
several times.
--
bill

[Opus the Penguin]

"Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

> Nevermind that faxes and logs are easily faked (wasn't that a plot point
> in Fargo?).

Not in the way you're thinking. The William H. Macy character deliberately
fuzzied up some vehicle identification VIN numbers so they were illegible.
He then faxed them to... whoever that was. He was buying time by making the
person think the numbers were available and the only problem was crappy
scanning on the sender's end or crappy printing on the receiver's end. Fax
printouts being pretty low quality at the time, this was quite believable.

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet

[Howard .]

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote :

"Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com> writes:
>
>>Medical offices still use faxes a lot, although the mandate to switch
>>to electronic records is shrinking it. I think there's still an
>>opinion among medical offices that privacy laws favor faxes over email
>>and other forms of internet-based communication, although again it's
>>hard to consider that point of view reality-based.
>
>>I think it's fair to question whether email is a secure way to send
>>sensitive documents -- there are certainly things to worry about. But
>>anyone who has worked in an office can tell you that faxes aren't
>>secure either, not by a long shot.
>
> Faxes are (until/unless scanned into a record) stand alone
> pieces of paper. Yes, in theory someone can patch into
> the phone line and dupe it out, but that's highly unlikely.

That's true, but there's no connection between what the sender claims went
in (or didn't send at all), and what the receiver has in their hands. It's
trivial to forge or delete faxes and fax logs, fake an outgoing fax number,
or for that matter just introduce errors due to poor toner cartridges,
pages being misaligned, etc.

That doesn't mean that regular old email is safer, just that any claim that
faxes are somehow a better way to send amendments to granny's will are
garbage.

I had to get the document I recently faxed notarized before I sent it.
That's insane, since the office I sent it to never wanted to receive the
actual notarized document.

> Electronic records are stored and retrievable forever
> and ever. So e-mails will be on that server in
> the bathroom for someone to hack into at
> three dark thirty...

Sure, although encryption, backup servers, and confirmations help provide
some protections. Again, I'm not claiming any special value for email over
faxes, just saying that faxes are also really lame and if law firms,
medical offices and the like don't want email, fax shouldn't be thought of
as a good alternative.

> Now as to the reality of Risks? That's another story

Yeah, that's at the heart of my complaint. The big breakdown in both fax
and email is in the human handling of the documents and the surrounding
electronics.

[Howard .]

They're still often pretty dicey. My home combo printer-fax-scanner does a
pretty easy to mess up job if you set pick a too low dpi, put the document
on the glass and get it misaligned by static electricity, whatever. I'd
hope things are better on the receiving end, but I've seen how casually the
fax machine gets treated in medical offices, and they're potentially at
risk of huge HIPAA problems if they get caught.

[Rick B.]

Brettster <brett...@gmail.com> wrote in news:ad29db26-8c57-46ca-b719-
c977bb...@googlegroups.com:

At the office we can copy, fax and scan on the same machine. For my money,
faxing is quicker and simpler than scanning and emailing. Part of this is
because I have to enter a user name and password to get the scan to land on
my network drive. I also have to enter a file name, unless I want to settle
for -Type Name Here-.pdf. If I don't need a scan of the document for some
other reason, I'd just as soon write out or type a cover sheet and dial the
number to send it.

[Snidely]

Howard . explained :

Medical email between doctor and patient (or clinic and patient) is
often handled by a dedicated portal, rather than blasted through the
pipeline of millions of SMTP servers. (But the number of hops an
ordinary email takes is certainly a small number these days, and it is
probably non-trivial to try to intercept a message between Gmail and
Yahoo mail ... much easier just to get the mark to respond to your
phishing and give you the keys to the kingdom.)

/dps

--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean

[Greg Goss]

I work for a small company owned by a larger company a thousand miles
away. Cash at the two companies is often balanced by buy or sell
orders of stock either owned or stored in our basement.

Depending on who is organizing the order, it can go by fax, scanned
and emailed, or print-to-PDF and emailed.

I hate trying to deal with the faxxed orders. The resolution sucks
and the PO/Invoices from our head office use a fairly fine font.

In our office, we have two faxxers, one print/scan/email, and three
print-to-PDF/email people.

The fax machine is on a dedicated line.

When I started there, the fax was plugged into a fax processing box.
From what I could find on the web, it was a service that would
intercept a fax call, run it throug their own data network, and turn
it back into a fax on the other end. In practice, it just added
twenty seconds of "ringing" (but not really) before it really rang the
other fax machine. I assume it was trying to phone the local number
of the service that had been in service in 1996.

Nobody could remember why the box was there, but since the fax worked,
they didn't want to mess with it. Eventually I talked them into
bypassing the box for a few days and see what changed. Nothing
changed except for saving a half minute waiting for carrier on every
outgoing fax call.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[danny burstein]

In <eelshk...@mid.individual.net> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:

>When I started there, the fax was plugged into a fax processing box.
>From what I could find on the web, it was a service that would
>intercept a fax call, run it throug their own data network, and turn
>it back into a fax on the other end.

>Nobody could remember why the box was there, but since the fax worked,
>they didn't want to mess with it.

Two reasong:

a: cheaper long distance phone rates. Remember the early
days of bypassing the default long distance carrier? You'd
call the local access number for, say, MCI, get a second
dial tone, punch in your PIN code, then the ten digits
for the destination.

There were magic boxen you could place on your phone
line - both voice and fax - which would kind of handle
this automatically. In other words, you'd simply
pick up your handset, punch in the destination number,
and it would intercept the call and do all that
additional redialing itself.

b: cheaper "data" lines. This was an artificial, so to
speak, tariff arrangement where these circuits (which,
99 percent of the time, or maybe 99.9 pct of the
time, were the exact same as the voice ones) were
charged less than the ones used for speaking.

(As opposed to the "real" data lines which were
cleaned up and "higher quality" [sometimes] than
the run of th emill ones)

And yes, you could talk over these data lines.

(Not to be confused with ISDN or T-1s or any of
that other real stuff)

[hymie!]

In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,

Brettster <brett...@gmail.com>, who said:
> Do most companies still use fax
> machines?

Fax machines are built on the tried-and-true telephone network, which has
been around for about a hundred years, and is built on the expectation
that the end-to-end connection is direct and private and well-regulated.

Email is based on magic boxes that nobody understands how they work,
running over a network that nobody in particular owns, that we've spent
years telling them to be careful because scammers will steal their
information.

Which do you think companies are going to use?

--hymie! http://lactose.homelinux.net/~hymie hy...@lactose.homelinux.net

[Richard Hershberger]

Working in a law office, I use faxes daily. I see from time to time bemused reactions to the fax's continued existence. I find them adorably parochial.

As for why anyone would still use such equipment, I can add to the list. Law firms typically, and depending on the specialty, still work partially in paper. Why? Partly inertia, but there also are good reasons. Many courts still work in paper, so that dictates what lawyers do. But also, it can be very very important to be sure what was done with this case two years ago.

Did that very important letter go out? That letter was drafted on the computer, of course, and it would routinely be saved in the appropriate file, assuming that the user didn't close out the program at the end of the day forgetting to save it first. But this doesn't tell you that the letter went out. It merely tells you it was drafted. A photocopy of the signed letter, pronged and placed in the appropriate part of the (paper) file is very reassuring. But perhaps the signed letter slipped down behind the desk and was never mailed. If it was faxed, a confirmation sheet stapled to the letter is as reassuring as anything is in this vale of tears. I'm not talking about proving to someone else that you sent it, but proving to yourself.

Then there is human nature. Emails are easy to ignore. It pops up in your in box, but you can't respond to it right away. The next time you open the in box, it is down below a few newer emails. Before you know it, it is below the edge of the screen, at which point ignoring takes no effort at all. A fax, on the other hand, is a physical object. There it is, sitting on your desk calling for attention. Yes, you can bury it under other papers, but at some point you will go through the papers on your desk, and there it is.

[Richard Hershberger]

On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 4:22:50 PM UTC-5, Howard . wrote:

> Brettster <brett...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I suspect it's really due to a culture
> where a number of older lawyers still only use legal pads.

That day has pretty much passed. Fifteen or twenty years ago you still saw senior lawyers who didn't have computers on their desks, but they were approaching retirement age. I'm sure a few of them still linger on, but they are anachronisms. And even fifteen years ago they were dictating to their secretaries, who typed up the dictation on computers.

On the other hand, legal pads are great for taking handwritten notes. I like them much better than the notebooks we used in college. And handwritten note-taking is often a better technique than typing into a laptop.

Richard R. Hershberger

R

[Howard .]

Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 4:22:50 PM UTC-5, Howard:

>>
>> I suspect it's really due to a culture
>> where a number of older lawyers still only use legal pads.
>
> That day has pretty much passed. Fifteen or twenty years ago you
> still saw senior lawyers who didn't have computers on their desks, but
> they were approaching retirement age. I'm sure a few of them still
> linger on, but they are anachronisms. And even fifteen years ago they
> were dictating to their secretaries, who typed up the dictation on
> computers.

There's a pretty common trope of the lawyer who has his secretary print
out all of his emails and hand writes responses for her to put into a
reply email (use of his and her here is intentional). Google shows a
bunch of mentions of references from around 10-15 years ago, although I
don't know if they're just citing legends. It does appear that
references have slowed down a lot in recent years.

I think it's fair to say that older lawyers are often behind the curve
on technological issues, at least. They're the ones who decide the
budgets of firms, and it is probably tough to convince a lot of them why
they should invest in a form of electronic communication more secure and
reliable than a fax machine.

> On the other hand, legal pads are great for taking handwritten notes.
> I like them much better than the notebooks we used in college. And
> handwritten note-taking is often a better technique than typing into a
> laptop.

It's also a lot easier to doodle on paper in boring meetings. I
disagree about legal paper, though -- too much folding, harder to fit in
a bag or file. 8.5 x 11 all the way.

[Howard .]

Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Working in a law office, I use faxes daily. I see from time to time
> bemused reactions to the fax's continued existence. I find them
> adorably parochial.
>
> As for why anyone would still use such equipment, I can add to the
> list. Law firms typically, and depending on the specialty, still work
> partially in paper. Why? Partly inertia, but there also are good
> reasons. Many courts still work in paper, so that dictates what
> lawyers do. But also, it can be very very important to be sure what
> was done with this case two years ago.

I get the sense that a lot of what happens in the legal world is dictated
by methods and practices that were old even in the days of Bartleby.

Medicine is often the same way, and I've read objections to electronic
record keeping by doctors which boil down to nothing more than nostalgia.
There are some real issues with electronic records, of course, but
typically the problems raised by (mostly older) doctors seem like they just
don't want to learn a new way of doing things.

[Richard Hershberger]

On Monday, January 23, 2017 at 4:11:21 PM UTC-5, Howard . wrote:
> Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 4:22:50 PM UTC-5, Howard:
> >>
> >> I suspect it's really due to a culture
> >> where a number of older lawyers still only use legal pads.
> >
> > That day has pretty much passed. Fifteen or twenty years ago you
> > still saw senior lawyers who didn't have computers on their desks, but
> > they were approaching retirement age. I'm sure a few of them still
> > linger on, but they are anachronisms. And even fifteen years ago they
> > were dictating to their secretaries, who typed up the dictation on
> > computers.
>
> There's a pretty common trope of the lawyer who has his secretary print
> out all of his emails and hand writes responses for her to put into a
> reply email (use of his and her here is intentional). Google shows a
> bunch of mentions of references from around 10-15 years ago, although I
> don't know if they're just citing legends. It does appear that
> references have slowed down a lot in recent years.
>
> I think it's fair to say that older lawyers are often behind the curve
> on technological issues, at least. They're the ones who decide the
> budgets of firms, and it is probably tough to convince a lot of them why
> they should invest in a form of electronic communication more secure and
> reliable than a fax machine.

"Firms" covers a multitude of sins. If we are talking about the big downtown lawfirms, they all have extensive IT departments. They also do a lot of "E-discovery." "Discovery" is jargon for information exchanged between the two (or more) sides in litigation long before any trial. Back in the day, when this mean bankers' boxes full of paper, this was limited by practical considerations. Nowadays, when it can all be done electronically, the problem is sifting through the endless gigabytes of junk looking for anything useful.

From there we can work our way down the ladder to a guy who works out of Starbucks. He is there for the free WiFi. One would hope he would have some sort of security for all those confidential documents, but one might well be disappointed. That guy didn't get to where he is--sitting in Starbucks, that is--by being the best and the brightest.

I work for a solo practitioner, but one with a real office in a real office building. He contracts for our IT support. They do a good job. We mostly do personal injury. Discovery for this is relatively straightforward. If we have more paper than will fit in a Priority Mail envelope, I scan them and burn a disk. I would use a flash drive if I had too much for a disk, but I never do. This is the extent of "E-discovery," for which I am grateful.

Richard R. Hershberger

[Richard Hershberger]

Oh, absolutely! It is a fascinating amalgam of stuff that goes back to the Middle Ages, with centuries of accretion laid atop it. So you can get a subpoena, backed by the majesty of centuries of law, taking the form of a form that has been through far too many generations of photocopying, with blanks filled in (badly) on a typewriter. Nowadays the courts are discovering fillable PDF forms. It still isn't all that majestic, but it is easier to produce and looks cleaner.

On the other hand, some years ago I had to get a document transferring a file from a state court in one state to another state, attesting to the authenticity of the file. This isn't done very often, so the procedures had never been updated. I had to track down the one clerk in the office who knew how to do it, and she produced ribbons and seals. It was gorgeous. I was deeply impressed. The old ways don't scale up well, but they sure were pretty!

Then there is the indexing used in the old law libraries. This has been largely killed off by searchable databases. The new system is much better, but the old system as a fascinating solution to large-scale data management, with lots and lots of cross-referencing, using 19th century technology.

Richard R. Hershberger

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 14:29:15 +0000 (UTC), danny burstein
<dan...@panix.com> wrote:

>ISDN


in "Bell-speak": I Smell Dollars Now.

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 15:57:23 GMT, hymie!
<hy...@lactose.homelinux.net> wrote:

>
>Which do you think companies are going to use?

The "Cloud"?

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 11:25:54 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
<rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> I suspect it's really due to a culture
>> where a number of older lawyers still only use legal pads.

In the 80s, some jurisdictions in Nebr declared that they would
henceforth not accept filings on paper which was 14" long, making
"Legal Pads" illegal.

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:11:18 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ."
<howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

>
>It's also a lot easier to doodle on paper in boring meetings. I
>disagree about legal paper, though -- too much folding, harder to fit in
>a bag or file. 8.5 x 11 all the way.

see my (above(below))

[Tim Wright]

In GTE/Verizon speak, It Still Does Nothing

[Lee Ayrton]

On 1/22/2017 4:31 PM, danny burstein wrote:

> Electronic records are stored and retrievable forever
> and ever. So e-mails will be on that server in
> the bathroom for someone to hack into at
> three dark thirty...

Well, yes and no. The problem is that electronic records require
constant maintenance and migration. We can still reproduce and project
Edison's movies that were stored on paper (!) for copyright purposes,
but try to find a working 2" Quadruplex reel to reel video deck today,
or even a Umatic cassette deck.

Someplace in a box I've still got programs on 5 1/4" 1.2 MB floppies.
I'm not sure that I've got a machine in the pile that has an OS that can
run them.

Does NASA still have punched paper tape records from early flights that
can't be read?

[Lee Ayrton]

I remember coming in at the tail end of bang paths. And exhortations to
download files from a site physically close to you.



http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/bang-path.html

[Lee Ayrton]

On 1/22/2017 5:49 PM, Whiskers wrote:
> On 2017-01-22, John Mc <Jo...@tdcogre.com> wrote:
>> Brettster <brett...@gmail.com> wrote:


>>> I was amused to see a fax number listed on a company's website, thinking
>>> that fax technology was laughably outdated. Then I saw another one. Then
>>> another one. I guess the joke is on me. Do most companies still use fax
>>> machines? I went to the Best Buy website and learned that many printers
>>> double as fax machines. I assume you still have to have a dedicated phone
>>> number to send to...or am I wrong about that too? Is the fax here to stay?
>>> Just the fax, please.
>>
>> Certain types of prescriptions cannot be done electronically and have to
>> be faxed.
>

> Around here, fast food places still take orders by fax. Surprisingly
> many people still have no internet access - and even no mobile phone.
>

I've been binge-watching HBO's The Newsroom. I was astonished to see
fax machines still in use.

[Greg Goss]

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:

>In <eelshk...@mid.individual.net> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> writes:
>
>>When I started there, the fax was plugged into a fax processing box.
>>From what I could find on the web, it was a service that would
>>intercept a fax call, run it throug their own data network, and turn
>>it back into a fax on the other end.
>
>>Nobody could remember why the box was there, but since the fax worked,
>>they didn't want to mess with it.
>
>Two reasong:

>There were magic boxen you could place on your phone
>line - both voice and fax - which would kind of handle
>this automatically. In other words, you'd simply
>pick up your handset, punch in the destination number,
>and it would intercept the call and do all that
>additional redialing itself.
>

This was one of those magic boxes. But the point was that it was
still intercepting (and delaying) phone calls in 2016, while a google
search for the brand name only found news items from 1996.

That's a long time to be adding half-minutes to calls.

[Greg Goss]

I was taught (in mid nineties) "It still does nothing."

Eventually I got high speed internet through my telco, using Any Darn
Set of Letters.

[Greg Goss]

Lee Ayrton <layrt...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Well, yes and no. The problem is that electronic records require
>constant maintenance and migration. We can still reproduce and project
>Edison's movies that were stored on paper (!) for copyright purposes,
>but try to find a working 2" Quadruplex reel to reel video deck today,
>or even a Umatic cassette deck.

I remember an interview on the "end of an era countdown" at CBC TV.
They interviewed the last engineer who knew how to maintain the VTR
that lots of early programs were still stored on. Most of the
interview was on how a team of something like five people was trying
to prioritize which fragile tapes would be transcribed to digital
storage before his mandatory retirement age came up.

[Greg Goss]

"Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

>There's a pretty common trope of the lawyer who has his secretary print
>out all of his emails and hand writes responses for her to put into a
>reply email (use of his and her here is intentional). Google shows a
>bunch of mentions of references from around 10-15 years ago, although I
>don't know if they're just citing legends. It does appear that
>references have slowed down a lot in recent years.

I'm the bookkeper and FINTRAC compliance officer for a small business.
If the A/R guy (who normally handles email) is away, I print off any
non-spam emails for the manager who handwrites the answer and tells me
to email 'em back.

The appraiser is over seventy and doesn't want to work with the
emails. The inventory person is young enough that she should know
email, but doesn't do it.

Actually, it's no longer so bad. The GM is gradually retiring, and
the Assistant Manager that they hired in December can handle email.
But I found it ludicrous that the bookkeeper should be printing emails
for someone else to quote prices or terms on.

(The other four people know the pricing and stock levels of stuff and
deal with customers regularly. The policies rulebook prohibits the
Compliance Officer from dealing with customers (Can't bribe him if you
can't talk to him), so there's no point in me learning that part of
their job.)

[Questor]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:18:04 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com>
wrote:

>I get the sense that a lot of what happens in the legal world is dictated
>by methods and practices that were old even in the days of Bartleby.
>
>Medicine is often the same way, and I've read objections to electronic
>record keeping by doctors which boil down to nothing more than nostalgia.
>There are some real issues with electronic records, of course, but
>typically the problems raised by (mostly older) doctors seem like they just
>don't want to learn a new way of doing things.

While working in IT during the mid- to late '90s I encountered legal departments
that were still using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, because the billing system that
tracked how long lawyers spent working on documents for a client was built
around that program.

[Questor]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:14:02 -0500, Lee Ayrton <layrt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 1/22/2017 4:31 PM, danny burstein wrote:
>
>> Electronic records are stored and retrievable forever
>> and ever. So e-mails will be on that server in
>> the bathroom for someone to hack into at
>> three dark thirty...
>
>Well, yes and no. The problem is that electronic records require
>constant maintenance and migration. We can still reproduce and project
>Edison's movies that were stored on paper (!) for copyright purposes,
>but try to find a working 2" Quadruplex reel to reel video deck today,
>or even a Umatic cassette deck.
>
>Someplace in a box I've still got programs on 5 1/4" 1.2 MB floppies.
>I'm not sure that I've got a machine in the pile that has an OS that can
>run them.

I'm reasonably certain that support for floppies remained in Windows through XP,
if not beyond. If your computer's motherboard has a FDD connector (even if it
didn't include a drive), then it should be able to read them if you add the
hardware.

>Does NASA still have punched paper tape records from early flights that
>can't be read?

There are still paper tape readers; the question is do they still know how the
data is formatted?

[Lesmond]

It wasn't just that. It was also because *everyone* used it. Believe me, I
know and I never worked for a law office that had a "billing system" outside
of me keeping a log book.

It sucked.

Oh, Matt didn't use it. He preferred WordStar. But of course, his "billing
system" involved me typing the info on adhesive strips, peeling them off and
gluing them in another log book. I never got a good explanation for why it
was a good idea.


--
She may contain the urge to run away
But hold her down with soggy clothes and breeze blocks

[Howard .]

Lee Ayrton <layrt...@gmail.com> wrote in news:o66nqq$4mf$1
@reader1.panix.com:

There's a cottage industry of experts who take old media and figure out
ways to read the data when the original players are gone. As computing
power has increased and scanning technology has gotten more
sophisticated, the job has gotten a lot easier, but it still sounds like
horribly painstaking work.

[Lee Ayrton]

On 1/24/2017 4:03 AM, Questor wrote:
>
>> Does NASA still have punched paper tape records from early flights that
>> can't be read?

> There are still paper tape readers; the question is do they still know how the
> data is formatted?
>

Yep, that was part of the sense that I was going for.

Those that use old photographs as primary sources recognize that the
next generation will have a serious lack of material to work with,
because those files will be lost either literally or figuratively.
There will be no shoeboxes of 1s and 0s in attics.

[Les Albert]

>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:14:02 -0500, Lee Ayrton <layrt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On 1/22/2017 4:31 PM, danny burstein wrote:

>>> Electronic records are stored and retrievable forever
>>> and ever. So e-mails will be on that server in
>>> the bathroom for someone to hack into at
>>> three dark thirty...

>>Well, yes and no. The problem is that electronic records require
>>constant maintenance and migration. We can still reproduce and project
>>Edison's movies that were stored on paper (!) for copyright purposes,
>>but try to find a working 2" Quadruplex reel to reel video deck today,
>>or even a Umatic cassette deck.

Here's a whole bunch of U matic cassette players:
http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/prod_search_results.cfm?category_search=454
And possibly one of these places has a 2" Quadruplex reel to reel
video deck: http://www.labguysworld.com/VTR_Links.htm

Les

[Les Albert]

I thought this guy could help:
http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/formats/

But he says, "Punched paper tape is represented by files. If the tape
is punched in a manner conforming to the conventions of ASCII usage,
the files will be readable as conventional text files. If the tape is
punched with binary information, the files may still appear to be text
files, but opening them for editing will generally produce nonsense.
This usage exactly mirrors the effects users expected with paper tape
and Teletypes -- any paper tape could be mounted on a teletype and
listed, in local mode, but if you tried to list a binary file, you got
nonsense.".

Les

[Richard Hershberger]

On Tuesday, January 24, 2017 at 10:40:06 AM UTC-5, Lesmond wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:02:45 GMT, Questor wrote:
>
> >On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:18:04 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com>
> >wrote:
> >>I get the sense that a lot of what happens in the legal world is dictated
> >>by methods and practices that were old even in the days of Bartleby.
> >>
> >>Medicine is often the same way, and I've read objections to electronic
> >>record keeping by doctors which boil down to nothing more than nostalgia.
> >>There are some real issues with electronic records, of course, but
> >>typically the problems raised by (mostly older) doctors seem like they just
> >>don't want to learn a new way of doing things.
> >
> >While working in IT during the mid- to late '90s I encountered legal departments
> >that were still using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, because the billing system that
> >tracked how long lawyers spent working on documents for a client was built
> >around that program.
>
> It wasn't just that. It was also because *everyone* used it. Believe me, I
> know and I never worked for a law office that had a "billing system" outside
> of me keeping a log book.
>
> It sucked.

Modern law offices have time management software. You put in a matter number and a code for what task you are performing, click a button when you start, and click it again when you stop. This often is part of a broader case management software package.

Back when I was working insurance defense and had to track my billable hours, the way it worked in practice was we submitted our time to the insurance company that actually paid the bills. The insurance company then ruled on how long it thought each task should have taken, and paid out on that. So the result was de facto flat fee billing, but with everyone wasting time on the pretense of billing by the hour.

Since then I moved to the plaintiff's side, which has the profound advantage of charging a contingency fee rather than by the hour. Life is much better.

Richard R. Hershberger

[Questor]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 10:39:13 -0500 (EST), "Lesmond" <les...@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:02:45 GMT, Questor wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:18:04 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>>I get the sense that a lot of what happens in the legal world is dictated
>>>by methods and practices that were old even in the days of Bartleby.
>>>
>>>Medicine is often the same way, and I've read objections to electronic
>>>record keeping by doctors which boil down to nothing more than nostalgia.
>>>There are some real issues with electronic records, of course, but
>>>typically the problems raised by (mostly older) doctors seem like they just
>>>don't want to learn a new way of doing things.
>>
>>While working in IT during the mid- to late '90s I encountered legal departments
>>that were still using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, because the billing system that
>>tracked how long lawyers spent working on documents for a client was built
>>around that program.
>
>It wasn't just that. It was also because *everyone* used it. Believe me, I
>know and I never worked for a law office that had a "billing system" outside
>of me keeping a log book.

At these corporations, "everyone" was using the latest version of Microsoft Word
for Windows. Only the legal department used WP 5.1, years after its heyday and
the wide-spread adoption of Windows. I don't know if the tracking system was
implemented in WordPerfect macros or as a separate program.

>Oh, Matt didn't use it. He preferred WordStar.

"Matt" didn't get a choice in these companies.

[Richard Hershberger]

WordPerfect, in the early years, was heavily favored in the legal industry. The story I have heard is that the father of the guy who wrote it was a lawyer, and they talked about what lawyers would want, e.g. line numbering. My office still works in WordPerfect, with its clearly superior "reveal codes" function. We are something of an anachronism at this point, but one of the advantages of being a very small office is that we can have these charming idiosyncrasies. I have talked to more than a few lawyers here and there who are (a) surprised that WordPerfect still exists, and (b) insanely jealous of us for getting to still use it. At this point the institutional inertia of any medium or large office keeps Word solidly entrenched.

Richard R. Hershberger

[Opus the Penguin]

Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> My office still works in WordPerfect, with its clearly superior
> "reveal codes" function.

Is this the most recent version or do you have to use an older version to
get that? I seem to recall WordPerfect going off the rails a bit with
version 6. They broke the macro function, but I can't recall the
specifics. It may come back to me the next time I think of some
repetitive task I want to do in Word that would've been a piece of cake
in WordPerfect 5.1.

I remember a temp assignment I had in 1990 or '91. They show me to a
desk, opened a directory on the PC and said, "We want you to go through
the documents in this directory and change everything that's in italics
to all caps."

I sat down, created a macro to do that, and ran it on each document. (The
macro was easy to write because of the wonderful Reveal Codes function.
Just search for [ital on], highlight all the way to [ital off], change to
all caps and delete the italics markers.) Half an hour later I said ok,
I'm done. What's next? "Uh. That was it. That was the job." I'd clevered
myself out of a day's pay.

One of the most important features of WordPerfect to me was the Outline
function. I imagine that was a big hit with the legal set as well. Word
has NEVER managed to get this right. If you spend some time, you can get
Word set up the way you want it--i.e. to do the kind of outline with the
kinds of numbers, letters, and indents that are just bog standard for
people who do outlines. And then you can save that as a blank document
(or maybe a style would work too). Once you do that, you have something
that's ALMOST as good as what WP 5.1 did right out of the box.

--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet

[Howard .]

Opus the Penguin <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote

> I remember a temp assignment I had in 1990 or '91. They show me to a
> desk, opened a directory on the PC and said, "We want you to go
> through the documents in this directory and change everything that's
> in italics to all caps."
>
> I sat down, created a macro to do that, and ran it on each document.
> (The macro was easy to write because of the wonderful Reveal Codes
> function. Just search for [ital on], highlight all the way to [ital
> off], change to all caps and delete the italics markers.) Half an hour
> later I said ok, I'm done. What's next? "Uh. That was it. That was the
> job." I'd clevered myself out of a day's pay.

I did a little temp work right out of college and I learned that you never
want to be more efficient than 99% of the people out there. If you do,
stuff like that happens and you lose a bunch of hours, and the regular
employees will probably hate you for making them look like the burned out
employees that they most likely are. You need to be just good enough that
they'll give you a positive referral back to the agency, but no more.

[Lesmond]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 19:24:47 GMT, Questor wrote:

>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 10:39:13 -0500 (EST), "Lesmond" <les...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>On Tue, 24 Jan 2017 09:02:45 GMT, Questor wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 23 Jan 2017 21:18:04 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>>I get the sense that a lot of what happens in the legal world is dictated
>>>>by methods and practices that were old even in the days of Bartleby.
>>>>
>>>>Medicine is often the same way, and I've read objections to electronic
>>>>record keeping by doctors which boil down to nothing more than nostalgia.
>>>>There are some real issues with electronic records, of course, but
>>>>typically the problems raised by (mostly older) doctors seem like they just
>>>>don't want to learn a new way of doing things.
>>>
>>>While working in IT during the mid- to late '90s I encountered legal departments
>>>that were still using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, because the billing system that
>>>tracked how long lawyers spent working on documents for a client was built
>>>around that program.
>>
>>It wasn't just that. It was also because *everyone* used it. Believe me, I
>>know and I never worked for a law office that had a "billing system" outside
>>of me keeping a log book.
>
>At these corporations, "everyone" was using the latest version of Microsoft Word
>for Windows.

By *everyone*, I meant law offices.

Only the legal department used WP 5.1, years after its heyday and
>the wide-spread adoption of Windows. I don't know if the tracking system was
>implemented in WordPerfect macros or as a separate program.
>
>
>>Oh, Matt didn't use it. He preferred WordStar.
>
>"Matt" didn't get a choice in these companies.

Matt was his own boss. Single attorney office.

[Kerr Mudd-John]

I had to check the NG; I though for a while I was in
alt.folklore.computers!
--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug

[Richard Hershberger]

On Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 5:41:36 PM UTC-5, Opus the Penguin wrote:
> Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My office still works in WordPerfect, with its clearly superior
> > "reveal codes" function.
>
> Is this the most recent version or do you have to use an older version to
> get that? I seem to recall WordPerfect going off the rails a bit with
> version 6. They broke the macro function, but I can't recall the
> specifics. It may come back to me the next time I think of some
> repetitive task I want to do in Word that would've been a piece of cake
> in WordPerfect 5.1.

Let me go look.... "WordPerfect X3" According to Wikipedia this was released in 2006, and they are up to X6 now, which I take to be what you called "version 6."

>
> I remember a temp assignment I had in 1990 or '91. They show me to a
> desk, opened a directory on the PC and said, "We want you to go through
> the documents in this directory and change everything that's in italics
> to all caps."
>
> I sat down, created a macro to do that, and ran it on each document. (The
> macro was easy to write because of the wonderful Reveal Codes function.
> Just search for [ital on], highlight all the way to [ital off], change to
> all caps and delete the italics markers.) Half an hour later I said ok,
> I'm done. What's next? "Uh. That was it. That was the job." I'd clevered
> myself out of a day's pay.
>
> One of the most important features of WordPerfect to me was the Outline
> function. I imagine that was a big hit with the legal set as well. Word
> has NEVER managed to get this right. If you spend some time, you can get
> Word set up the way you want it--i.e. to do the kind of outline with the
> kinds of numbers, letters, and indents that are just bog standard for
> people who do outlines. And then you can save that as a blank document
> (or maybe a style would work too). Once you do that, you have something
> that's ALMOST as good as what WP 5.1 did right out of the box.

My gripe about modern software in general is that the developers get an idea in their head of what I want my computer to do, and write software that does that. That is fine if it is a special purpose piece of software: if it doesn't in fact do what I want to do, I simply won't use it. But this principle extends to broad categories such as "word processors" or even "operating system" Windows 10 is a great example: I hates it, I does. I don't want a crappy "personal assistant" popping up when I am trying to do something, and while I can use the settings to stop that, I also don't want it sucking up potentially useful memory or CPU capacity, and I can't stop it from doing that.

In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.

WordPerfect is not flawless in this regard, but it isn't terrible, especially with the Reveal Codes function available to help me strip out the formatting crap. When I am forced to work in Word I often find myself struggling with the software to get it to let me do my own formatting. It is entirely likely that people who use it all the time get better at this. My point is that there should not be a steep learning curve to figure out how to get my software from actively fucking me over just because the developer thought he knew what I wanted.

Richard R. Hershberger

[Les Albert]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
<rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:


> ...

>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.

You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
computers that I have.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While its utility for larger organizations is limited by its use of
proprietary native .WKS (spreadsheet), .WDB (database) and .WPS (word
processor) file formats, the simplicity and ease of integrating
database/spreadsheet data into word processor documents (e.g., mail
merge) allow it to remain an option for some small and home-based
business owners. Version 4.5a is particularly noted in this respect.
The database management system, while a "flat file", i.e.
non-relational, allows the novice user to perform complex
transformations through formulas (which use standard algebraic syntax
and can be self-referential) and user-defined reports which can be
copied as text to the clipboard. A 'Works Portfolio' utility offers
Microsoft Binder-like functionality. -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's still available for download if you're interested.

Les

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
<rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>My point is that there should not be a steep learning curve to figure out how to get my software from actively fucking me over just because the developer thought he knew what I wanted.

LeRoy

[Opus the Penguin]

Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Opus the Penguin wrote:
>> Richard Hershberger <rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > My office still works in WordPerfect, with its clearly superior
>> > "reveal codes" function.
>>
>> Is this the most recent version or do you have to use an older
>> version to get that? I seem to recall WordPerfect going off the rails
>> a bit with version 6.
>

> Let me go look.... "WordPerfect X3" According to Wikipedia this was
> released in 2006, and they are up to X6 now, which I take to be what
> you called "version 6."

No, no. Version 6.0 came out in the mid-nineties. WordPerfect got up to
version 12 before I stopped paying attention. Looks like they're on a
whole new numbering system now. Good to know Reveal Codes is still there.

> WordPerfect is not flawless in this regard, but it isn't terrible,
> especially with the Reveal Codes function available to help me strip
> out the formatting crap. When I am forced to work in Word I often
> find myself struggling with the software to get it to let me do my own
> formatting. It is entirely likely that people who use it all the time
> get better at this.

Only to an extent, I think. More than once I've received a totally borked
Word document from someone else. Often it'll print just fine the way it
is, but they're telling me to make changes and send it back. Well, when I
try to make changes, weird unpredictable things happen. Numbering gets
screwed up. Columns get out of whack. Whatever. It's clear that the doc
creator has just kludged everything together with the tab and the
spacebar and hidden crud code that Microsoft thinks I'll never need to
look at.

I'm a competent software user. And I'm the kind of guy that will spend 30
minutes figuring out how to fix something rather than 10 minutes just
redoing it. "Sunk cost" isn't a fallacy for me; it's a way of life. If I
can't chase down a problem, I suspect it's a very rare user who can. With
Word, those 30 diagnostic minutes are often wasted and I have to spend 10
minutes recreating the document anyway. Word won't let me look under the
hood. All I can do is guess what problems might be causing the effects
I'm seeing, and then I have to try fixing them blind.

[Opus the Penguin]

Last!

(I just got the subject line.)

[Les Albert]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 20:44:03 -0000 (UTC), Opus the Penguin
<opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Last!
>(I just got the subject line.)

There are no flies on you!

Les

[bill van]

In article <k7ok8ct8o4ulai0j6...@4ax.com>,

They got bored and left?
--
bill

[Questor]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
<rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>My gripe about modern software in general is that the developers get an idea
>in their head of what I want my computer to do, and write software that does
>that. That is fine if it is a special purpose piece of software: if it
>doesn't in fact do what I want to do, I simply won't use it. But this
>principle extends to broad categories such as "word processors" or even
>"operating system" Windows 10 is a great example: I hates it, I does. I don't
> want a crappy "personal assistant" popping up when I am trying to do something,
>and while I can use the settings to stop that, I also don't want it
>sucking up potentially useful memory or CPU capacity, and I can't stop it from
>doing that.

Presumably there's a way to prevent that process from ever starting, but it's
certainly not something the average user would know anything about, and it
doesn't surprise me there's no UI to do so.

>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter
>mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program
>doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore
>helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might
>want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't
>begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes-

>perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able
> to turn them off.

There are many, many, many reasons to hate Word. While I know its initial
settings for formatting and spell-checking can be quite aggressive, there is
usually somewhere buried in the options to turn all those things off. PITA, I
know. Or just use notepad, then cut&paste into your document.

>WordPerfect is not flawless in this regard, but it isn't terrible, especially

>with the Reveal Codes function available to help me strip out the formating

>crap. When I am forced to work in Word I often find myself struggling
>with the software to get it to let me do my own formatting. It is entirely
>likely that people who use it all the time get better at this. My point
>is that there should not be a steep learning curve to figure out how to get
> my software from actively fucking me over just because the developer thought
>he knew what I wanted.

I don't know exactly what your doing, but it shouldn't be that hard. Rather
than "stripping out" the existing format, I think you should just be imposing
your own (simpler) format. Styles is probably the feature to use for this.

While it's not the same as WP's "show codes," you can display the non-printing
characters. I am not familiar with the most recent versions of Word, but it
used to be that some of the formatting was actually carried in the hard returns,
and you could change it by cutting & pasting those returns. Dunno if this still
works. I can empathize with wanting the "show codes" function -- you want to
look under the hood. Most users don't want to and don't care, and that's part
of why Word doesn't offer that feature.

I don't think the basis of your complaint is that the developer thought he knew
what you wanted; these decisions are made (particularly at big companies like
Microsoft) at lot higher up the food chain. I could expound at length about
software development, but I am trying to get a life. One of the things that has
been subtly shifting over the past twenty years or so is software is no longer
being designed solely for the benefit of the end user -- now many design
decisions are influenced by their benefit to the software company, particularly
with regard to the enabling of "value extraction" beyond the initial purchase.

It's not necessarily in Microsoft's best interest (particularly given their
monopoly) that their software is easy to use, or stable and consistent from
version to version. As just one example, there a large ancillary industry for
books, tutorials, training, certifications, etc.

[Questor]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 09:25:20 -0800, Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
><rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.
>
>You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
>computers that I have.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> While its utility for larger organizations is limited by its use of
>proprietary native .WKS (spreadsheet), .WDB (database) and .WPS (word
>processor) file formats, the simplicity and ease of integrating
>database/spreadsheet data into word processor documents (e.g., mail
>merge) allow it to remain an option for some small and home-based
>business owners.

Microsoft Office also uses proprietary, native file formats. It's just that
Office users are a much larger market than Works users, so it's worth it for
third-party developers to buy the tools that let them produce add-ons for
Office. The utility of Works for larger organizations is limited not by file
formats, but by the fact that it is quite basic and lacks needed features.

[Questor]

On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:04:30 -0000, "Kerr Mudd-John" <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>I had to check the NG; I though for a while I was in
>alt.folklore.computers!

As you undoubtly know, the signal/noise ratio in alt.folklore.computers is very
low; they sometimes spend way more time yakking about social issues than
computer history. One could almost think these two newsgroups were reversed,
were there a lot more discussion of computer folklore here. Most of the tech
discussion here is in regard to contemporary issues.

[Les Albert]

He said he already has a program that has the needed features, but
that he wants, "... is for there to be a 'typewriter mode' where what

I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't
decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore
helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that
I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so
on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want

them.". And his statement, included again" is what I was responding
to with the suggestion of using Works.

Les

[Questor]

I was responding to the mis-information from the Wikipedia article. My
suggestions for Mr. Hershberger are in another post.

I've never had the problems with Word that he alludes to, and my experience is
that the various annoying automatic interventions can be turned off.

[Greg Goss]

Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
><rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> ...
>>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.
>
>
>
>You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
>computers that I have.

Which generations of Windows came with Works? Are you sure that
you're not thinking of WordPad?

I'm not aware of any free windows spreadsheet prior to Open / Libre.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Les Albert]

The MS-DOS desktop computer (made by some company in Texas) that I
bought in 1989 came with Works. The Windows 98 Toshiba laptop that my
wife bought in the 1980s came with Works. The replacement Windows
desktp computer (don't remember the brand) that I bought in 1998 came
with Works. The Gateway Windows laptop computer (400VTX) bought in
2001 came with Works. The Gateway Winows laptop computer that I
bought in 2007 (MA3) came with Works. They all had the free
spreadsheet as part of the Works Suite.

The Gateway MA3 is still performing without a hitch. I put a new disk
drive in the Gateway 400VTX and installed a better version of XP in
it, and use it as my "game" machine for old programs that don't run
well on the newer computers (Combat Flight Simulator, SimEarth). And
I have a new Acer C720 Chromebook that I use for cord-cutting to watch
movies occasionally.

I keep stuff that works a long time. I still use InfoSelect (1990),
the best database/note-taker ever!

Les

[Kerr Mudd-John]

Hope I didn't come over as being negative, I was just vaguely hoping to
get some good folk here posting in afc.

[Greg Goss]

Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 20:45:59 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:

>>>You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>>>Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
>>>computers that I have.
>
>>Which generations of Windows came with Works? Are you sure that
>>you're not thinking of WordPad?
>>I'm not aware of any free windows spreadsheet prior to Open / Libre.
>
>
>The MS-DOS desktop computer (made by some company in Texas) that I
>bought in 1989 came with Works. The Windows 98 Toshiba laptop that my
>wife bought in the 1980s came with Works. The replacement Windows
>desktp computer (don't remember the brand) that I bought in 1998 came
>with Works. The Gateway Windows laptop computer (400VTX) bought in
>2001 came with Works. The Gateway Winows laptop computer that I
>bought in 2007 (MA3) came with Works. They all had the free
>spreadsheet as part of the Works Suite.

The computer I bought in 1991 came with MSDOS and no application
software at all. When I bought Windows 3.1 for it, there was no
office appliction included. Later I picked up Windows 3.0 that I
installed onto a bunch of older MSDOS machines had no office
application included.

I installed that 3.1 copy onto several computers until 95 came out.
When I bought Windows 95 on the day of release, there was no office
application included.

My mother-in-law's computer came with Windows 98. No Works on it.

In 2001, my Compaq came with Milennium. No Works. I later bought two
copies of XP to install on it and my desktop unit. No works.

Three Dells I bought in the twokays came with XP and no Works. My
current computer came with something that had auto-updated to ten, and
no Works.

So your various suppliers tried to include something cheap that
allowed you to actually USE the computer. But it wasn't part of
Windows.

>I keep stuff that works a long time. I still use InfoSelect (1990),
>the best database/note-taker ever!

I still use Agent 1.x for Usenet. I was using Agent until they
screwed up how they responded to Win95 (where it didn't work) - adding
the mail function rather than fixing their problem with the new OS. I
returned to Agent when they got it working on Win95, and still use
that version. The last update to this version was to let it read
base64 (?) binaries in something like 2001. I was throroughly used to
the version, so didn't change to newer releases.

I used office 97 for a very long time until my install CD failed to
read on a computer in 2008 or so, and it wasn't where I expected it to
be on a hard drive of all my installation stuff. I used 2003 with the
plug-in to read the new 2007 file formats until 2013 or so. I'm still
using version 2007. The three second load time of Excel 97 compared
to thirty-some when I tried 2007 on that old laptop.

So yeah. If it works, don't dump it.

[Les Albert]

Strange computer merchandising in Canada.

>>I keep stuff that works a long time. I still use InfoSelect (1990),
>>the best database/note-taker ever!

>I still use Agent 1.x for Usenet. I was using Agent until they
>screwed up how they responded to Win95 (where it didn't work) - adding
>the mail function rather than fixing their problem with the new OS. I
>returned to Agent when they got it working on Win95, and still use
>that version. The last update to this version was to let it read
>base64 (?) binaries in something like 2001. I was throroughly used to
>the version, so didn't change to newer releases.

You should try Agent 3.3 build 846. I have been using it for many
years; it is rock-steady and never fails.

Les

[Questor]

I took your comment as humorous. I have posted in a.f.c. on occasion.

[Questor]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 10:10:06 -0800, Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 20:45:59 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
>>><rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.
>
>>>You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>>>Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
>>>computers that I have.
>
>>Which generations of Windows came with Works? Are you sure that
>>you're not thinking of WordPad?
>>I'm not aware of any free windows spreadsheet prior to Open / Libre.
>
>The MS-DOS desktop computer (made by some company in Texas) that I
>bought in 1989 came with Works. The Windows 98 Toshiba laptop that my
>wife bought in the 1980s came with Works. The replacement Windows
>desktp computer (don't remember the brand) that I bought in 1998 came
>with Works. The Gateway Windows laptop computer (400VTX) bought in
>2001 came with Works. The Gateway Winows laptop computer that I
>bought in 2007 (MA3) came with Works. They all had the free
>spreadsheet as part of the Works Suite.

Ah. Works was included (bundled) with your *computer*. It is not included with
Windows.

Works gives computer sellers an inexpensive way to offer a PC that customers can
use "right out of the box." There was probably an option (at more expense) to
buy most of those machines with Office pre-installed instead of Works.

[Questor]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 08:54:27 -0800, Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 08:51:11 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>So your various suppliers tried to include something cheap that
>>allowed you to actually USE the computer. But it wasn't part of
>>Windows.
>
>Strange computer merchandising in Canada.

Bundling is quite common not only among computer manufacturers, but also by
retailers.

[Les Albert]

Yes, that's why I commented that it was strange merchandising in
Canada, where Greg is located, for the seller not to include Works. It
seemed to be pre-loaded, out of the box, with every Windows computer
during the time period that I mentioned above., which was good
marketing on the part of the computer manufacturer.

Les

[Les Albert]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 22:08:58 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote:
>On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 10:10:06 -0800, Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>On Fri, 27 Jan 2017 20:45:59 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>On Thu, 26 Jan 2017 05:54:36 -0800 (PST), Richard Hershberger
>>>><rrh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>> ...
>>>>>In the case of word processors, want I want is for there to be a "typewriter mode" where what I type in is what appears on the screen--where the program doesn't decide that I am trying to do numbered paragraphs and therefore helpfully insert the numbers, and where the program doesn't guess that I might want some indentation scheme added to what I do myself, and so on. I don't begrudge them having those features for those who want them. Sometimes--perhaps even most of the time--I want them myself, but I want to be able to turn them off.

>>>>You are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>>>>Windows computer for many years. I still use it on the two older
>>>>computers that I have.

>>>Which generations of Windows came with Works? Are you sure that
>>>you're not thinking of WordPad?
>>>I'm not aware of any free windows spreadsheet prior to Open / Libre.

>>The MS-DOS desktop computer (made by some company in Texas) that I
>>bought in 1989 came with Works. The Windows 98 Toshiba laptop that my
>>wife bought in the 1980s came with Works. The replacement Windows
>>desktp computer (don't remember the brand) that I bought in 1998 came
>>with Works. The Gateway Windows laptop computer (400VTX) bought in
>>2001 came with Works. The Gateway Winows laptop computer that I
>>bought in 2007 (MA3) came with Works. They all had the free
>>spreadsheet as part of the Works Suite.

>Ah. Works was included (bundled) with your *computer*. It is not included with
>Windows.

You are right! Instead of my referring to Windows computers in
general, it was an egregious error for me to have not written, "You

are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every

Windows computer *that I bought* for many years.".

>Works gives computer sellers an inexpensive way to offer a PC that customers can
>use "right out of the box." There was probably an option (at more expense) to
>buy most of those machines with Office pre-installed instead of Works.

Les

[Questor]

I see nothing strange about it, and it speaks only to the choices Greg made in
purchasing computers, and nothing about all the offerings that might have been
available to him. In the U.S., it was and is possible to buy a machine
pre-installed with Windows, Office, and lots of other software, all the way down
to purchasing just the "bare metal." (Although it is difficult if not
impossible to do the latter with most of the big name suppliers.) I seriously
doubt it is any different in Canada.

[Questor]

On Sun, 29 Jan 2017 15:47:32 -0800, Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:
>You are right! Instead of my referring to Windows computers in
>general, it was an egregious error for me to have not written, "You
>are describing "Works", the word processor that came with every
>Windows computer *that I bought* for many years.".

No need to get your knickers in a twist. You were the one who suggested
Works, presumably because since it "came with every Windows computer,"
Mr. Hershberger would readily find it. My initial reaction was similar to
Greg's -- slight confusion, since I could not recall Works ever being included
with Windows, but I wasn't 100% certain of my recollection. This being AFCA,
I wanted to correct the record. Mr. Hershberger may well find that Works is the
answer to his problems with Word, but he will probably have to either find a
free download or buy it.

[Les Albert]

We will have to wait and see what Greg says about the offerings that
were available to him.

Les

[Les Albert]

You are too kind; I insist that it was an egregious error on my part
for causing you to have slight confusion.

Les

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:14:32 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor)
wrote:

The "Windows tax"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows

[Greg Goss]

Les Albert <lalb...@aol.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:14:32 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote:

>>>>>Strange computer merchandising in Canada.
>>>
>>>>Bundling is quite common not only among computer manufacturers, but also by
>>>>retailers.

>We will have to wait and see what Greg says about the offerings that
>were available to him.

I had my own copy of Office 4.2. I had my own copy of Win 3.1. I
bought Win 95 upgrade to install on my own. Later I bought two copies
of XP upgrade.

The compaq came with millenium and some flakey bits. It stabilized on
XP. By that time I had my own copy of Office 97. My later Dells
through the twokays didn't come with works, but I had my own copy of
office to install on them.

I buy pretty close to the bare metal. I was challenging the idea that
Windows comes with Works. I have no objection to a claim that windows
COMPUTERS usually come with works or better, at least in the era
before they could give you Libre instead.

[Questor]

Yes, that's part of it. The margin on the base hardware can be pretty slim.
Computer sellers get a lot of revenue from the add-ons. The additional cost to
ship a computer with Office pre-installed versus one without it is essentially
zero; the vendor's portion of the fee is all gravy. Someone wishing to a
purchase just the hardware or h/w+OS would probably have to find an independent
store or a small local chain.

[Howard .]

>On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:14:32 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor)

>> On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 17:32:32 -0800, BillT...@BillTurlock.com

>>The "Windows tax"
>>
>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows
>
> Yes, that's part of it. The margin on the base hardware can be pretty
> slim. Computer sellers get a lot of revenue from the add-ons. The
> additional cost to ship a computer with Office pre-installed versus
> one without it is essentially zero; the vendor's portion of the fee is
> all gravy. Someone wishing to a purchase just the hardware or h/w+OS
> would probably have to find an independent store or a small local
> chain.

On the subject of Windows and bundling, one of things I've wondered
about is why Microsoft was so slow to incorporate antivirus/malware in
their various flavors of Windows.

I've read that Win 10 has good, though not great, protections baked in,
for instance here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/225385/what%E2%80%99s-the-best-antivirus-for-
windows-10-is-windows-defender-good-enough/

http://tinyurl.com/q6hjovm

This represents a gradual improvement in Windows antivirus protections,
with Win8 also being pretty good, and optional addons for Win7 etc. also
being decent enough, though not included by default.

I would assume a large percentage of their customer service work is
virus/malware related, so there would be a significant cost avoidance to
integrating protections right away. I'd also assume MS has a big
advantage due to their in house knowledge of the workings of the OS.
And leaving antivirus to outsiders also presented a big risk, in that a
particularly virulent virus could shake customer faith in Windows and
encourage switching to other systems.

I've read that there are some antitrust complaints about current
automatic Windows antivirus protections, but I don't think there have
been any serious legal challenges, and it would seem like security has a
strong case for being well integrated into an OS.

I'm sure there was some kind of cost-benefit analysis which led them to
cede so much of the market to McAfee and Kaspersky and the rest, but it
still seems a little hard for me to understand why they didn't include
antivirus protections much earlier, similar to the way they do today.

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

"Leave it for the acolytes to fix. That will swell their ranks,
and bind them closer to the mother ship."

HUGE paraphrase of Robert X Cringley, from a conversation I had
with him.

[Boron Elgar]

On Wed, 1 Feb 2017 03:33:37 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ."
<howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

>On the subject of Windows and bundling, one of things I've wondered
>about is why Microsoft was so slow to incorporate antivirus/malware in
>their various flavors of Windows.
>

You mention antitrust in terms of antivirus, but if you recall, MS
faced a lot of puchback at one point about bundling its Explorer
browser in with the OS. Adding an AV at that point would have just
poured more fuel on that fire. By then, they had the OS, a browser and
a highly competitive suite of office utilities.

I also think that very early on, when net access was not 24/7, the
market really wasn't there among consumers and early business users
were often not on MS systems at all.

The nature of it all has changed so greatly since the late 80s...

[Harvey]

On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:45:24 -0500, Boron Elgar
<boron...@hootmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Feb 2017 03:33:37 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ."
> <howr...@htmail.com> wrote:




> >On the subject of Windows and bundling, one of things I've
wondered
> >about is why Microsoft was so slow to incorporate
antivirus/malware in
> >their various flavors of Windows.
> >


> You mention antitrust in terms of antivirus, but if you recall, MS
> faced a lot of puchback at one point about bundling its Explorer
> browser in with the OS. Adding an AV at that point would have just
> poured more fuel on that fire. By then, they had the OS, a browser
and
> a highly competitive suite of office utilities.

Very true.

Even in the late 90s, MS was big on giving away "good enough" stuff
for free, to wipe out the competition on browsers and email. Doing a
torpedo job on Norton and such-like at that stage wasn't worth the
aggro - much smarter to keep their powder dry and target the
AV/security market at a later date.

--
Cheers, Harvey
CanE (30 years) & BrE (34 years), indiscriminately mixed

[Questor]

On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:07:03 +0000, Harvey <use...@whhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:45:24 -0500, Boron Elgar
><boron...@hootmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Feb 2017 03:33:37 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ."
>> <howr...@htmail.com> wrote:
>> >On the subject of Windows and bundling, one of things I've
>wondered
>> >about is why Microsoft was so slow to incorporate
>antivirus/malware in
>> >their various flavors of Windows.
>> >
>> You mention antitrust in terms of antivirus, but if you recall, MS
>> faced a lot of puchback at one point about bundling its Explorer
>> browser in with the OS. Adding an AV at that point would have just
>> poured more fuel on that fire. By then, they had the OS, a browser
>and
>> a highly competitive suite of office utilities.
>
>Very true.
>
>Even in the late 90s, MS was big on giving away "good enough" stuff
>for free, to wipe out the competition on browsers and email.

If by "good enough," you mean "responsible for the large majority of virus
incidents on the Internet for over ten years starting in the late '90s," then
yeah, there's that. Otherwise, despite the elimination of Netscape as a
corporate entity, there's been reasonably robust competition with browsers.

[Questor]

On Wed, 1 Feb 2017 03:33:37 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ." <howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

Microsoft is the creator and sole owner of the Windows' source code. I'd say
that "a big advantage due to their in-house knowledge" is an understatement.
They have total control of how Windows works.

>And leaving antivirus to outsiders also presented a big risk, in that a
>particularly virulent virus could shake customer faith in Windows and
>encourage switching to other systems.

That's already happened to a limited extent, particularly with browsers, but
obviously the inertia of the huge installed base is nearly impossible to
overcome to switch to a different platform. If Microsoft fails to gain new
markets as the PC fades in importance, then its computer industry dominance will
also fade.

>I've read that there are some antitrust complaints about current
>automatic Windows antivirus protections, but I don't think there have
>been any serious legal challenges, and it would seem like security has a
>strong case for being well integrated into an OS.

Strong case for integration or not, I don't think that's relevant in anti-trust
matters.

>I'm sure there was some kind of cost-benefit analysis which led them to
>cede so much of the market to McAfee and Kaspersky and the rest, but it
>still seems a little hard for me to understand why they didn't include
>antivirus protections much earlier, similar to the way they do today.

I think part of the reason is as has been mentioned elsewhere -- there is a big
secondary industry for Windows' security add-ons, and Microsoft has chosen to
restrain itself in that market.

But your post begs a couple of other questions:

1) Given Microsoft's "advantage" in being sole owners of the source code for
Windows, why don't they simply secure it from intrusions in the first place?

2) If #1 has not been achieved, given the long-time existence of "patch
Tuesdays," and especially now that online updates are mandatory for consumer
versions of Windows 10, why aren't most Windows systems secured from
vulnerabilities shortly after they're discovered?

In short, why is there any need for A/V products and the like in the first
place, given that Microsoft could/should choke off the avenues of malware
propagation literally at the source?


I do not hew to all of the received orthodoxy in the affairs of computer
security. My views are based on many years of professional experience in either
software development or IT environments.

As I mentioned elsewhere, my observation is that starting somewhere in the late
'90s, Windows, and more specifically Outlook Express and Internet Explorer
(i.e., Lookout and Internet Exploder), were responsible for spreading the large
majority of virii and other malware. That situation persisted for more than ten
years, and only recently has began to subside. IE has consistantly ranked far
behind other popular browsers in both the number and the delay in patching known
vulnerabilities.

So in my opinion, expecting Microsoft to be able to provide more effective A/V
software is like putting the local arsonist in charge of the fire department.
Either Microsoft is revealed to be willfully ignoring security problems with
Windows, or it is demonstrated to be incompetent in designing and implementing
secure software. So far, Microsoft has been able to deflect attention by
blaming the creators of malware and sysadmins and users who don't follow "best
security practices." Also implicit in their position is the notion that "gee,
computer security shure is complicated," which relies on ignorance that many of
these problems were solved decades ago in the era of shared mainframes and
minicomputers, and persist through design flaws because of Windows' legacy as a
single-user system.

[Howard .]

use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote

> So in my opinion, expecting Microsoft to be able to provide more
> effective A/V software is like putting the local arsonist in charge of
> the fire department. Either Microsoft is revealed to be willfully
> ignoring security problems with Windows, or it is demonstrated to be
> incompetent in designing and implementing secure software. So far,
> Microsoft has been able to deflect attention by blaming the creators
> of malware and sysadmins and users who don't follow "best security
> practices." Also implicit in their position is the notion that "gee,
> computer security shure is complicated," which relies on ignorance
> that many of these problems were solved decades ago in the era of
> shared mainframes and minicomputers, and persist through design flaws
> because of Windows' legacy as a single-user system.

My understanding, limited as it is, is that a big issue with
vulnerabilities arises because Microsoft has a pretty cutthroat internal
culture, with huge amounts of infighting with weak central
administration, as shown by their long love affair with stack ranking
for personnel.

As a result, there's a lot of value in pushing your own projects even if
it means that the product as a whole suffers due to bugs, security
flaws, poor coordination, etc.

People make enemies if they complain about security flaws in the
projects of other groups, and there is a strong incentive to undercut
efforts by others to improve security because you want them to fail.
Senior management tends to struggle to set priorities, so they end up
with long running security issues.

[Howard .]

use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote

> If by "good enough," you mean "responsible for the large majority of
> virus incidents on the Internet for over ten years starting in the
> late '90s," then yeah, there's that. Otherwise, despite the
> elimination of Netscape as a corporate entity, there's been reasonably
> robust competition with browsers.
>
>>Doing a
>>torpedo job on Norton and such-like at that stage wasn't worth the
>>aggro - much smarter to keep their powder dry and target the
>>AV/security market at a later date.

One of the ironies is that Microsoft never got full control of browsers and
are now fading from the market, and they never came close to their grander
dream of knitting together their OS and the internet. On the other hand,
their share of antivirus software is growing as they've integrated it in
Win8 and 10.

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 19:21:23 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor)
wrote:

>
>1) Given Microsoft's "advantage" in being sole owners of the source code for
>Windows, why don't they simply secure it from intrusions in the first place?
>
>2) If #1 has not been achieved, given the long-time existence of "patch
>Tuesdays," and especially now that online updates are mandatory for consumer
>versions of Windows 10, why aren't most Windows systems secured from
>vulnerabilities shortly after they're discovered?
>
>In short, why is there any need for A/V products and the like in the first
>place, given that Microsoft could/should choke off the avenues of malware
>propagation literally at the source?

Choir: "A-men!"

[BillT...@billturlock.com]

On Thu, 2 Feb 2017 21:58:36 +0000 (UTC), "Howard ."
<howr...@htmail.com> wrote:

>
>My understanding, limited as it is, is that a big issue with
>vulnerabilities arises because Microsoft has a pretty cutthroat internal
>culture, with huge amounts of infighting with weak central
>administration, as shown by their long love affair with stack ranking
>for personnel.
>
>As a result, there's a lot of value in pushing your own projects even if
>it means that the product as a whole suffers due to bugs, security
>flaws, poor coordination, etc.
>
>People make enemies if they complain about security flaws in the
>projects of other groups, and there is a strong incentive to undercut
>efforts by others to improve security because you want them to fail.
>Senior management tends to struggle to set priorities, so they end up
>with long running security issues.

Oh. The infamous "Government Model".

[Questor]

It seems to be a pattern with many large bureaucracies that they naturally
develop some dysfunctional behaviors. Some control the tendency more than
others, but at some point internal concerns eclipse the external realities. At
Microsoft it's stack ranking, at another company it's TPS Reports, but in any
case corporate "culture" will guide what is considered important and how it will
be measured, which in turn shapes employee actions. Of course, squabbling over
resources and what are considered "cool" projects and what aren't is found
nearly everwhere. Again, it's a question of if and how management can keep all
the horses pulling in the right direction. It's interesting to note that both
the original IBM PC and the first Apple Macintosh were created by small teams
that were intentionally kept isolated from their parent companies.