People still use Windows? wow.

What's windows?

The mist-ical clouds of free Wifi are evaporating! The Windows of opportunity for public theft are closing!

"Chicago officials said Tuesday that they will shelve a plan to blanket the city's 228 square miles with wireless broadband Internet because it is too costly and too few residents would use it. The city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink, have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi system would require massive public financing."

I don't understand all the hate that is sent Microsoft's way. Bill Gates has done more philanthropic work and will continue to do more work with his wealth than almost anyone else on the planet. Can you say that about Steve Jobs? Can you honestly say you would do the same if you had that much money? Do you think W is going to spend his retirement in a philanthropic way?

"I don't understand all the hate that is sent Microsoft's way. Bill Gates has done more philanthropic work and will continue to do more work with his wealth than almost anyone else on the planet."

Bill Gates is indeed an impressive philanthropist. But the "hate" that's sent to Microsoft is pretty much unrelated to The Bill these days.

Microsoft is despised by many technical folk for its aggressive business tactics and for its perceived technical mediocrity.

The complaint about aggressive business tactics is pretty fair, I think. There's lots on data on this if you care to look; the antitrust case against them seemed strong right up until the government caved in as the administration changed. The latest scandal is an amusing bit of last-minute voter registration / vote buying in a Swedish standards institute. (Reminiscent of the tactics the rajneeshees used on Antelope.)

The technical mediocrity complaint is a little less fair; Microsoft has done some pretty good stuff over the years. That said, they also seem to have seriously underperformed on their potential - technically speaking - and they've thrown out some astonishingly bad lemons. (Maybe they called it "Windows Millenium Edition because of its apocalyptic effect on usability?)

Combined, these issues lead to the perception that Microsoft is aggressively using its dominant market position to lock in technical mediocrity. I'm not sure it's actually true, but it's certainly an understandable perception.

As for Mr. Jobs, he is equally mocked among techs - google for "reality distortion field" - but he has a couple advantages. His company does not dominate the computer market, and Apple's computer products really are quite good. (Largely due to their insistence on selling integrated systems, instead of just software.)

Does that help?