It’s a New World Order. Choose your platform. Choose wisely.

(Click photo to enlarge)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a joint press conference in St. Peter’s Square this morning, Microsoft Corporation and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of Microsoft common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion.

With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company’s new Religious Software Division, while Microsoft senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Read the rest of this entry »

Three Microsoft software engineers and three IBM software engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three IBM software engineers each buy tickets and watch as the three Microsoft software engineers buy only a single ticket.

“How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks one of the IBM programmers.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answers the Microsoft programmer.

They all board the train. The IBM software engineers take their respective seats but all three Microsoft software engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them.

Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The IBM software engineers witness all this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the IBMers decide to copy the Microsofties on the return trip and save some money.

When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Microsoft programmers don’t buy a ticket at all.
“How are you going to travel without a ticket?” asks one of the perplexed IBM employees.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answers one of the Microsoft programmers.
When they board the train the three IBM programmers cram into the first restroom they can. The three Microsoft programmers pile into another one nearby. Shortly thereafter, the train leaves the station.

After a brief interval, one of the Microsoft software engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the IBM programmers are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please…”

Today, Microsoft founder Bill Gates is entering retirement, signaling the end of an era for the corporation that brought us the Windows operating system. Through the years, Gates has been a veritable icon for the technology industry as his company helped usher the personal computer into a new, graphical-interfaced world.

It was in 1975 that Gates launched the company that would become the biggest name in computer software. His exit today has many wondering what the 52-year-old billionaire will do with his time.

The computer impresario, who revolutionized how the world uses PCs, says he’s looking forward to put his time into his real love, board games. He has wasted no time in his transition from Microsoft CEO to board game hawker with the introduction of Microsoft Monopoly. Watch the following infomercial as Mr. Gates introduced his new, innovative game:

Nashville, TN – The 2008 Annual Meeting and Exposition of the COMMON user group took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The opening session began at 3:30 pm on Sunday and what a session that was! First the audience was welcomed by COMMON president Randy Dufault where he outlined the highlights of the coming week. Then he dropped the bombshell when he announced the keynote speaker would be none other than Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation. This was a shock and surprise to most attendees.

Dufault explained that Mr. Gates was invited to speak to help bring the IBM Midrange world closer to the mainstream software industry by following the Microsoft software development model. His speech was entitled: Software Quality through Perception, Not Reality. His company of course produces a number of software products and is very experienced in the above topic. Some of the concepts covered were:

• Marketing your software before it’s completed (or ever started for that matter).
• Convincing users a software bug is a feature.
• Crushing the competition and still being able to sleep at night.
• Putting a pretty face on old, out-dated code and reselling it as a new product. (see Windows Vista)
• How to sell a software fix as an upgrade.

The speech was very enlightening. Of course the concepts presented will require a very different mindset among IBM i developers but at least they will all be perceived as better information systems developers because of it.

We don’t know which is more fun – to poke fun of Microsoft or IBM. What’s best is when they both are talked about in the same article. This was on the front page of the November 2000 issue of Midrange Technology Showcase. Enjoy.

Cupertino, Cal. (AP) — Symantec issued an apology to Microsoft yesterday after the security software maker’s AntiVirus Research Center issued an alert for a “widespread and lethal virus known to cause system crashes and data loss” that turned out to be the Windows Vista operating system. Symantec CEO John Thompson called it a “regrettable but understandable” mistake.

We can’t help but poke fun of Microsoft and Bill Gates once in a while. Here is a video you will enjoy.

(Note: This entry origianlly appeared in the blog Confessions of an iSeries Priest found at http://iseriespriest.blogspot.com/2006/03/microsoft-uses-iseries-to-run-its.html. Used by permission.)

Rumors have abounded for years that the false religion of Microsoft, who touts that large parishes can be run using Windows servers, actually runs their organization using more than a few iSeries systems. The heathens have always officially denied it, but the rumors don’t go away. The story also goes that some time in the 1990’s they tried to replace their iSeries systems with 1,200 Windows servers in a year-long project that was eventually scrapped because A) they couldn’t process the data as fast as the iSeries and B) they had problems keeping so many servers operational.

If you have Windows XP then click this link (or cut and past it into an open browser window):
file:///C:/WINDOWS/Help/Tours/htmlTour/best_secure.htm
It’s a web page that exists on every Windows XP machine as part of the Windows introductory tour. Read the rest of this entry »

In a press conference early this morning, the former CEO of Novell, Robert Frankenberg revealed that Novell and Microsoft had been working together for years to increase Microsoft’s dominance of the computer industry. In a secret partnership with Microsoft, Novell has been strategically acquiring Microsoft’s major competitors in the software industry and ruining them.

The relationship goes back a number of years, according to Frankenberg. “[Digital Research's] DR-DOS 5.0 was ten times the operating system that MS-DOS 4.01 was. Microsoft couldn’t even steal technology fast enough to compete. That was when they first contacted Novell.” Under direction from Microsoft, Novell then purchased Digital Research, a small California company best known for its CP/M operating system. Read the rest of this entry »

One of Microsoft’s finest techs was drafted and sent to boot camp. At the rifle range, he was given some instruction, a rifle and bullets. He fired several shots at the target. The report came from the target area that all attempts had completely missed the target. The tech looked at his rifle, and then at the target. He looked at the rifle again, and then at the target again. He put his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand. The end of his finger was blown off, whereupon he yelled toward the target area: “It’s leaving here just fine, the trouble must be at your end!”