One of those snazzy Plays-for-Sure DAPs. I hear they're the Next Big Thing -- a real iPod killer.

Forgiveness

I would send him a microsoft tee-shirt with Bill Gates' police record photo.

But of course it wouldn't fit right unless i also gave him the microsoft pants and a pair of microsoft shoes and i don't have that kind of money.

Disclaimer: Microsoft shoes may produce unpleasant odour unless worn with Microsoft Socks 2008 Black Half-Height Business Edition. Microsoft pants may chafe excessively when used with non-standard Microsoft boxer shorts. Consult the MCCL (Microsoft Clothing Compatibility List) or your Microsoft Certified Softwear Professional for outfit advice.

A Vista laptop pre-SP1.

He Joe, for "9. Battlestar Galactica" you could also give him Zune Points, and buy it right in the Zune software. Far better :)

A chair for his office, "I'm going to f!@#ing kill Google" tastefully embroidered on the back, and a nice table, replacing the one hit by the flying chair, would surely be appreciated.

I really and truly wanted to follow your suggestions, Joe. Not knowing his home address, I decided against a gift that would have to be physically delivered to him personally.

So I tried #4 on your list. But the following list came up:

Select your operating system:

* Windows XP
* Windows XP 64-bit
* Windows Vista
* Windows Vista 64-bit
* Windows Server 2003
* Windows Server 2003 64-bit
* Windows Server 2008
* Windows Server 2008 64-bit

And to my dismay, I don't see x86_64 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on the list, even though it will remain in formal support longer than Windows XP.

Hey, I tried!

And since he doesn't use Apple products and forbids his kids to use Google, then, as I'm not a Microsoft employee, I won't even remotely consider using Microsoft products. Why should I act superior to Steve Ballmer? That wouldn't be polite. And politeness is the only gift I can offer him on his 53rd birthday.

A Pink Slip. The perfect gift from M$ shareholders everywhere.

One way ticket on the very last plane to Ostrov Samuila (77° 24' 33 N, 106° 44' 21 E)

One way ticket on the very last plane to Ostrov Samuila (77° 24' 33 N, 106° 44' 21 E)

I'd like to give him a good kick in the ass.LOL

My congratulations and may you have 100 years as MS's CEO!!
He is doing it perfectly!...despite what the shareholders could say.

Philosopher, the last time I checked, x86_64 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS was not Released to Manufacturing (RTM) in August of 2001. How can you compare the two? By the way, Windows XP will continue to get extended support up to 2014 along with free security updates. Is Apple supporting Mac OS 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 or even 10.3? Is Redhat supporting Redhat 7.2 or 8.0? Get your facts right please.

"Joe wrote"
10 Things to Give Steve Ballmer for His Birthday
--------------------------------------------------

1.Ubuntu 8.10
2.Linux Mint 6
3.Knoppix
4.Open Suse
5.Debian Lenny
6.Slackware 12
7.PCLOS Gnome
8.Mandriva 2009
9.Absolute Linux
10.Free BSD

Bonus Gift a free subscription to the Linux Journal.

Andre stated:

"By the way, Windows XP will continue to get extended support up to 2014 along with free security updates"

Hell Andre, Dell, HP and others are still offering XP 'downgrades' TODAY because they know a lot of people still won't buy a piece of crap like Vista.

Andre Da Costa, OK, I guess I didn't pay close attention to Microsoft's sliding out the XP support window all the way to 2014. Based on your snide tone, I am assuming that I am completely unaware that I can make as many copies of XP installation disks as I need so that I can keep installing XP on as many machines as I'd like to when the formal support ends?

And you ought to learn to count. That's only ONE fact I didn't get straight, not multiple facts.

By the way, I wasn't comparing the past, but rather the future. My desktop started with Fedora Core 3, then a full reformat and installation of Fedora Core 5, then a full format and installation of Ubuntu 7.10. Since then, I've performed an upgrade-in-place (with NO data loss or application configuration loss at all and no restore from backup required at all!) to my current Ubuntu 8.

Oh, and I ran Fedora Core 5 for a year-and-a-half and ran it for ONE FULL YEAR 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 52 weeks/year without a power-down, without a reboot, without a single crash. And that's after taming a memory leak in Gnome, and with NO UPDATES enabled. And it was a heavily used office desktop AND program development machine. I only migrated to Ubuntu for its superior package and update management (since fixed in Fedora land) and more up-to-date applications (Firefox and OOo, in particular). But that year with FC5 is a reliability standard that few systems meet, and even fewer office desktop systems.

Like I said, if Ballmer won't use software that his company doesn't produce, then I shouldn't use software that Microsoft produces. It's only fair, you know. Out of respect for Ballmer.

Philosopher, did you just read what you typed? Reinstall, format, memory leak, Linux, Gnome? All in one paragraph. I had Windows XP installation on my computer a Dell Dimension I bought in March of 2004, it came with XP Home, I formatted it once and it was to install XP Pro because I needed Domain Join and Remote Desktop along with Group Policy and Encryption. I ran that installation of XP from August 2004 to November 2006. Never did I have to reformat or reinstall, upgrade or migrate during that period. I have upgraded that installation of XP Pro to Vista Business and its been just as solid since, "(with NO data loss or application configuration loss at all and no restore from backup required at all!)"

Hi Chips, Philosopher and all.
Been away on a Windows forum and have neglected the MS watch site for a few weeks.
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Quote Andre "I had Windows XP installation on my computer a Dell Dimension I bought in March of 2004"
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Are you sure you bought it? Are you sure this isnt another "gift" youre failing to mention? I hope this isnt going to be a repeat of the Vista laptop scandal ;)
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Quote Andre "Philosopher, did you just read what you typed? Reinstall, format, memory leak, Linux, Gnome? All in one paragraph."
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Yes Andre Im sure he did read what he typed. Its a thing called honesty in posting and not blatant advertising like the cut and paste comments we see from you.
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@Everyone
For all the users of XP, who are looking at an even faster system, you should keep an eye on ReactOS. A Windows XP comp OS, that even in its current build (which is not stable in some areas) completely blows the performance of XP out the water.
http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
An interesting project to keep check on.

Regarding XP, Micro Center sells many different types of XP computers including new and refurbished. XP is alive and well and popular as ever and still here in 2009 well after MSFT declared it dead. So much for Vista being a worthy successsor....it never was.

I tried React OS, while it is a worthy project..it isn't ready for prime time by any means. One day it will.

Ubuntu has been a pretty good replacement for Windows computers, especially when used with wine. Ubuntu use has grown dramatically across the globe, including here in the U.S.

It is not so much Linux that will affect MSFT...rather it will be open source replacements like Open Office that will affect MSFT in the long run.

This economy is Open Source's best friend, and many companies are finding worthy alternatives for high priced proprietary software.

Andre Da Costa asked,
"Philosopher, did you just read what you typed?"

@Andre Da Costa,
Is an elephant heavy?

Re: "Reinstall, format, memory leak, Linux, Gnome? All in one paragraph."

Not quite. YOU said "reinstall". I did NOT say "reinstall".

Your reading comprehension challenges aide, your question implies that you require more details. Well, let's start with Fedora Core 5. I chose it based on several recommendations, and having a long experience with Unix I was ready to face the challenge.

So I formatted the disk to completely remove Fedora Core 3 and installed Fedora Core 5. Not a reinstall. A full non-migration installation in anticipation of successful instantiation.

After running for several weeks without rebooting, I noticed that the system's performance was becoming rather sluggish. It finally seemed to freeze the Gnome user interface. I was about ready to reboot, but on a chance decided to Google from another system. Lo and behold, I discovered that the gam_server was the likely culprit. This deamon runs around checking the filesystem and reflects any changes in the Nautilus (file browser GUI; analogous to Windows Explorer) windows. So for example, when a file is ftp'd to the system or created during a build, a file browser GUI window will automatically reflect the new or changed file.

From that Google search, I also discovered that once the gam_server is killed, it automatically restarts. Cool.

I telnet'd to my sluggish desktop and killed the gam_server. Now the new gam_server process took hardly any memory at all, and my desktop Gnome UI suddenly became snappy and responsive again.

So I created a script to kill the gam_server (called "break-a-leg"; if you don't get it I can explain it to you) and set up a cron job to run it once a day. And from that day onward, my system and its Gnome UI never lost its snappy responsive performance. Never.

Since Fedora Core 5's update repositories were full of dependency issues, I simply went without applying updates. The system was only an office desktop and local software development desktop, while the prime development environment was commercial Unix. (I since apply all Ubuntu updates as soon as they appear. But its updater and package dependencies are MUCH better than those older Fedora distributions.)

And during that entire year, I noticed a few things:

1. I never, never, ever had to reboot the system. Never. Not once. Not at all. This is remarkable for two reasons:

1a. The power in our building never dropped for longer than the battery life in my UPS. I don't think our building's power has been as reliable before or since.

1b. Fedora Core 5 without updates was going strong after a year of reboots, while my Windows 2000 desktop (no longer running Windows, but it did back then) would need to be rebooted every 2 weeks or else it would crawl due to myriad resource leaks.

2. I did have to kill and restart Thunderbird about once per month. It had a slow memory leak that gradually slowed its performance. But the kernel and the Gnome UI kept running that entire year without interruption.

3. I never ran any disk defragmentation. Never. Not even ONCE. And I never ran any on the Windows 2000 machine either. But I noticed that the disk performance on Windows 2000 got steadily worse until it became almost unbearable. While the disk performance on Fedora Core 5 was a fast as the day it was freshly installed.

4. And I never suffered from a single virus, trojan, adware, or spyware. Yeah, it could have been due in part to the fact that hardly anyone ran Linux as a desktop back then. But hey, survival is survival, and I'll take it however I can get it.

Now I will admit that the average bear doesn't have the ability to set up a cron job to work around a memory leak in a running system without the need for rebooting. But hey, I was born with a functioning brain, was introduced early on to the elegant simplicity of the design of Unix, and did NOT have the patience to wait for 20 years for Microsoft to be born and then figure out how to build a real operating system.

But then again, our IT support person's computer maintenance time is tied up 100% on the Windows machines and near 0% on the Unix and Linux machines. I don't know how to interpret those statistics, though. Do they mean that Linux and Unix are easier to maintain? Do they mean that only idiots and morons use Windows and that's why their users need all the help? I don't think either is fully true. But I just don't know the real reason. But it's a fact that Windows sops up his time way out of proportion to its install base.

So that must be the "rich Windows experience". If you are an IT person, keeping Windows from blowing itself up on a regular basis will help make you richer. And in creating a pile of bugs with a near-monopoly, Bill Gates has indeed helped the fortunes of IT support people everywhere.