Linux

I am really beginning to wonder about Bill Gates. After watching "Triumph of the Nerds" II, I have my questions about what kinds of person he is. His competitiveness almost scares me. I don't care much for Microsoft, I have had too many greedy experiences with them. The greed being on their end. I feel they should be more helpful to schools and their software should be free to any and all educational institutions. If they are worth over one billion dollars, they certainly can afford it. No, they want to charge and keep on charging us for any and all help. Now Apple on the other hand lends out all kinds of free help to schools. Thank goodness I work in a Mac world at my school. I always receive lots of free information from the generous tech support at Apple and I always get a real human within minutes of dialing.

The information in the videos was interesting but disturbing for all the reasons mentioned above. I learned about the origins of the operating systems and software and how IBM made the largest mistake of the company's existence and beyond, but found all a bit overwhelming. It is funny to see the little man rise above the corporate gods. Bill does seem to take an interest, or at least he did at the time of those videos, in his employees, however, it still erks me the way his company treats the public.

I agree with the philosophy of Linux. So far my experience with the freeware OS on my mac has been OK. I am so afraid I am going to screw something up by using it though. But the free word is great and I am really going to make an effort to start using it as Word works like $%^& on my Mac! Must look into using more freeware with the kids at school. That may make for an interesting unit with my Jr. high students!