Bill Gates on The Daily Show

Did anyone else tune in to see Bill Gates on The Daily Show? How do you think he did? Do you plan to take Vista for a spin in the next few months?

And does Jon Stewart really not know what a beta program is? For shame, sir. For shame. πŸ™‚

107 Responses to Bill Gates on The Daily Show (Leave a comment)

  1. I think Gates sounds geekier and geekier everytime he talks and I think it’s awesome!! Although I won’t be taking vista for a spin (since I am an Apple boy now!)…I think he did a good job keeping up with the mighty Jon Stewart.

    I especially loved when Jon Stewart asked about Bill’s childhood pet for his password…lol!!!

  2. Matt

    Sometimes you forget that we are on the holy land of Matt Cutts “International” blog πŸ™‚

    How can I tune in to see Bill Gate on that Daily Show? and who is Jon Stewart, btw? a SEO specialist, maybe? πŸ™‚

    Have a great day.

  3. Speaking of beta, by keeping Gmail a beta after a couple of years, do I have any guarantee for stability? And if I do, why is it a beta?

  4. I’ll only start using Vista if I buy a new computer and it’s already preinstalled. If the software and games that I like were available for ‘Nix, I’d switch in a heartbeat.

  5. I started using Win XP a few years after it came out. So I should upgrade to Vista just in few years! lol

  6. Was this last night (Monday)’s show? I shall have to watch it on More4 tonight in the UK.

    Henry

  7. I thought Gates was excellent.

    Although, he did get up at the end and just walked off…I guess he doesn’t watch the Daily Show much?

  8. Sure did.. it was funny. My favorite part was when Bill Gates told John to “call him” in response to John asking what if he didn’t know how to use Windows Vista. I blogged about it as well…. very funny.

  9. Didn’t see the program, although we get the business version for work, so I’ve already tried Vista, both beta and first release. Although it’s really really pretty, it uses up so much of the resources of the computer that for a business machine, it’s not viable for the computers we have already. We’ll need to do some mega upgrading here. But, for a home machine where I don’t do tons of work, just bits and bobs it’s ok.

    I’m hoping that the next few updates sorts some of the issues with some graphics cards and such. I’ve found that my wireless connections more reliable and stronger. In fact, I tried the beta on a laptop I had, it managed to sort out a problem that XP had with the internal wireless card – I’d thought I burned it out or something, although unfortunately the graphics card wasn’t compatible, so it looked rubbish. I bought a new graphics card for my home desktop machine to be compatible, although I’m a bit miffed that I’ve had to store away a perfectly good graphics card that works fine with XP for a rainy day – I only built that machine about 3 months ago. Grrr.

    I seem to remember that XP had issues when it first came out, they got sorted after a few updates. Hopefully this’ll be the same case. It’s not like we all have to rush out and get Vista right now since updates for XP are expected to be avaliable till 2011 according to the BBC.

    I’m going to keep one machine at home with XP and the rest in Vista. I’ll see how it progresses.

  10. No grudges for bill gates or vista.. but i love my linux…

  11. I think bill was quite funny, and charismatic, certainly compared to way before. His social skills have way improved.

  12. I am better ok with my XP, and waiting for google to release its OS. πŸ˜‰

  13. i find it rather ironic that first computers (since 1995 up to ~2003) had “Compatible with Windows 95/98/Me/2K/XP”. And now they have “Windows Vista Capable”…

    But yeah, i think i’ll try out Vista on my lappy .)

  14. I will give Vista a chance on my business PC (it will be pre-installed so it is not THAT risk) and will wait until prices drop for packaged home versions.

    Most interesting will be the highly promoted search functionality across applications, the web, files etc. etc. – I am not a fan of desktop indexing tools because of the felt slow down of other applications.

    If Vista does this job well I will switch.

    Matt: will we get an offline version of the Google Tools soon ? We have it from Salesforce.com for several years and it is THE experience.

  15. I don’t think I’ll be upgrading until I’m forced to. (by way of no longer having an XP cd, or needing vista for some work critical application.)

    Did you read the (wired or slashdot) article about the EULA saying they can remove software off of your computer without your consent? Or how it does 30checks/second to make sure you’re not circumingventing DRM on certian media types? Talk about wasted processor time.

    I have 2 xp boxes and an ubuntu box now (and a dual boot laptop)… but I think when it’s time for another, it’ll be a mac.

  16. I have been waiting for awhile to upgrade my wife’s computer. Her computer has been limping along for a year now, so I might as well get Vista with it.

  17. We’re waiting for our OEM Reseller Action Pack to arrive; I bought a 320gb SATA drive and I’ll install Vista on that, and just do the dual boot thing – I don’t want to actually have to WORK on it till I get the kinks worked out. I will be installing Office 2007 though; I’ve had the beta of that for a while and have gotten to quite like it better. There were a few glitches in Outlook 2007 (doesn’t seem to be able to space out multiple connections to a server, and I have something like 25 IMAP accounts that would confuse and disorient the program) but otherwise I think it’s an improvement.

    From the various hints he’s dropped throughout the years, I get the impression that Jon Stewart is or has been a serious gamer (and Colbert as well) – I’m sure he knows what a beta program is.

  18. It is apparent to me that the majority of users here have never heard of Halo 2 for PC and that it requires Vista.

    Oh the shame you must feel….

  19. I’m still using Windows 2000, but I will jump over to Vista quickly. I built a new PC, so it’s got the horsepower to run it.

    I’m also buying a second hard drive for the install this way I can test it pretty thoroughly before making a hard switch over. Besides, my WD 10,000 RPM drive is only 36G and that’s not large enough for Vista.

    Matt – by the way, did you ever buy a new computer?

  20. After reading all of this comments, and thinking about my laptop, I asume that Microsoft wants us to buy new computers every time they launch a new OS.

    I won’t assume any risk on trying an OS that has a Service pack realase for the next six months! So I decided to change to Linux.

    So goodbye Vista, welcome UBUNTU.

  21. I’m running XP 64-bit edition with all the bells and whistles stripped out (it resembles Win2K the way I configged it), so I don’t really have a reason to run Vista.

    For those wondering why I would do that if I have XP64, I’ve got a dual-core Pentium and XP64 is the only one that can maximize its resource potential.

    The biggest problem now and in the near future is driver/software compatibility, as someone pointed out. In particular, AVG won’t work without paying for it (good thing Avast will), Logitech’s webcam drivers won’t work, and eLicense won’t work.

    As far as Jon Stewart goes…he annoys me so I generally don’t watch him.

  22. AVG (free) doesn’t work on Vista? Disgraceful.

    Maybe the world should just go Mac.

    No…that would be chaos.

  23. Gates did fine, but I was surprised that it took Stewart 3 tries to get Gates to understand his joke about password/pet’s name. (Gates’ fault, not Stewart’s)

    Does Gates not have to deal with the same types of things that we do? Maybe that’s their problem over there – they don’t put themselves into the shows of people using their products.

    It’s like George Bush (1st) not knowing the price of a gallon of milk… then along comes Clinton who feels our pain… Bill Gates doesn’t feel our pain!

  24. My next purchase is going to be a mac as well. I am tired of all the spyware, adware, viruses and security issues with Microsoft.

    Plus Mac’s are great for designing flash and photo shows….

  25. Didn’t see it but will watch on YouTube. As for Vista… don’t think I’ll take it for a test drive as I love Tiger and only use PCs for work. I do think PCs and laptops with XP will drop in price so I might look out for some deals or pick up a cheap XP Pro CD. My company probablty own’t move to Vista until 2020 anyway. πŸ˜‰

  26. Steve, I’m gonna prune that comment. Dolidh, interesting. πŸ™‚

  27. Not without buying a new computer and definitely not without a service pack 2.

    Besides I am near 200% on Linux now (yes the other nearly 100% is from work πŸ™‚ )

  28. I’ll need to watch it again today, however, John did say something last night that made me think, “Hey, this guy knows SEO!” I just can’t remember what it was.

    As for Bill rushing off, I think it was on purpose because he is on such a tight schedule this week, one that requires military like precision.

  29. My most frequent use of Windows on my laptop is chatting, wireless access and hosting my colinux. The the rest of my work is either on the colinux, or one my basement machines running linux. My website is hosted on linux, and when I move it from shared hosting, I plan to host it on linux. Its database currently runs in my basement on pgsql8.1 on ubuntu linux. I use openoffice or latex for writing – so don’t need windows for msoffice.

    I will only use vista if I buy a new laptop for me or for my wife, and it comes pre-installed with vista. I’ve been reading articles about vista, and haven’t found a feature that would make me switch.

  30. Hmmm, I wish this interview comes in The Daily Show international edition I watch every weekend — too bad we don’t get to see the real *Daily* Show – I just love watching Jon Stewart!

    And as far as the Vista… I switched to Linux couple of years ago and have never looked back… Wish good luck to all windows users with their upgrade to Vista! I know many will consider Linux now.

  31. Bill Gates sounds geekier every time I see him….especially after seeing Jobs speak a couple months ago..Bill looks terrible compared to Steve..

  32. haha. I loved the Daily Show last night!! Bill Gates was so awkward, it was kinda funny. Although I thought John would have made fun or made references to the fact that the richest man in the world was sitting next to him.. “You sure i can have this Vista Ultimate for free..?. You sure you dont need the money? I can throw you a $10 if your hurtin..” or somethin like that. haha.

    I think its great that he was on, gave great promotion to Vista and Bill Gates – and John Stewart is just great.

  33. I need to see this… I heard jon said Microsoft makes all its money from ringtones.

    Gates – Stay out of my industry!

  34. Harith: you can find most episodes of the tonight show on http://www.newtorrents.info/index.php?all=tv

    I’m just guessing that you will also appreciate them.

    unfortunately this particual episode is still missing….

  35. I saw this too, Bill looked a like nervous and geeky when he first sat down with Jon. It was interesting to see how he reacted when Jon was in the driver seat…since Bill is such a rich and powerful man.

    Lol, yeah I laughed when Jon didn’t know about Beta Testing…what rock has his head been under?

    I need to hear a compeling arguement for switching to Vista before I do.

  36. and, of course, there is always the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4suTsIIBWo&eurl= if that works for you.

  37. Dolidh, Which version are you planning on purchasing?

    http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyimages/915.gif

  38. And does Jon Stewart really not know what a beta program is?

    He is obviously a throwback to the olden days, when “beta” meant “not for public consumption”, instead of “try our kewl new release”. πŸ˜‰

  39. Mmmm, post filed in gadgets/hack category πŸ˜‰

  40. Have had Vista and Office 2007 loaded since about mid December. Vista takes about 700 MB of RAM on my machine by default. I had to upgrade the memory on my 8 month old notebook just to keep up with it. Office?? Well, even though I trained on MS software in a previous life, it will be a serious learning curve to get me to where I was at “skill wise” with Office 2000/ 2003. Everything is different.

    Vista handles multimedia way better than other WIndows OS. However, the first time I saw it…I said it looked like a MAC OS. Microsoft seems to forever be playing catch up with Mac. (I am not a MAC owner, but am leaning towards it in the past few months)

    The search in Vista is WAY faster than previous versions of Windows, but I guess that is what you get when an indexing service is continually running in the background taking resources. πŸ™‚

  41. I have been using Vista since it was first released on beta. There are still definitely some performance issues due to non-vista or rushed out drivers for video cards etc. As my site is pretty much the home computer base I have been busy writing in depth tutorials on how to use all the new features and once you really start digging into this OS, you find how many new and cool features there really are.

    Parental controls, though they can be bypassed somewhat, are pretty encouraging for a concerned parent. Also the ability to tag pictures and then search for the tag is awesome. I have identical twins, so it is easy for my wife and I to be a little unsure of who is who in a picture. By using Vista’s file tagging ability you I can quickly tag pictures with my boy’s names and then with a simply search immediately pull up every picture that matches that tag regardless of where its located. Very nice way to keep your pictures organized.

  42. I saw him.

    I thought he did well.

    But I don’t think I’ll be purchasing Vista for a LONG time…

    I’m thinking of just switching to Ubuntu.

  43. I have vowed to *never* use Vista. Due to it’s ridiculous hardware requirements and user lockdown I wont buy it or use it. I’m advocating Mac and Linux like never before at this point. Do yourself a favor and switch to apple!

  44. I’ve been a Windows user/developer since Day 1, but a guy at work just bought a MacBook and man, I’m jealous every time I walk by his desk. Sweet graphics. He boots in Windows at work and boots in Mac at night. I went on the Apple website and looked at the promo for the next release of OS X, and my Dell just looks pathetic now. It’s amazing how much innovation is built into their software while MS still keeps shipping us the same Outlook Express and other crap software that hasn’t changed in years. Anyway, it’s MacBook for me next time around! Now I need to figure out how to internally justify dropping the cash for it. Vista is just playing catchup to OS X and it is still years behind.

  45. Oh yeah – for anyone complaining that Vista uses too many local resources, check out their ReadyBoost technology. Just plug a flashdrive into the USB slot to speed things up. Very cool. Personally, I’m waiting for a hybrid flash/hard drive. 100GB of platters with a 20GB flash built-in for storing the OS and most used programs.

    Here is a link about ReadyBoost:

    http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2006/12/obsession_indulged_more_on_vistas_readyboost.html

  46. I bought a MAC about 2 months ago after using a PC for 15 years. I will NEVER go back. MS and Bill can keep Vista and all the new problems and bugs that will come with it. When I bought the new MAC Book the sales guy asked if I wanted to get the software that would let you run Windows as well. I told him the point of getting a MAC (for me) is that I wanted to get away from Windows forever. I am away from it and have been loving life ever since!

  47. When XP came out I jumped on the band wagon and got it right away, which ended up being a big mistake and costing me time and money. I think I am going to wait at least a year until upgrading to Vista.

  48. star3night – lol… actually the version that we get is part of the Microsoft Action Pack (UK version which you can see what we get on https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/program/managemembership/actionpack/40013779 ) which is actually a business vista upgrade from XP Business Edition. So really that’s added yet another version onto the already massive list of Vista versions.

    I like Windows although I don’t mind sitting in front of a linux machine… I’m not as fond of macs though. Perhaps it was the macs we had to use in college that have put me off for life. I wouldn’t want to put the money out on one. Plus I like to upgrade and tinker around the innards… I’d miss that if I had a mac. If the side of the case isn’t hanging off my computer… I feel out of place.

  49. I won’t be going to Vista anytime soon, not after reading Canada’s Michael Geist’s editorial on how Vista’s Fine Print Raises Red Flags – http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1640/159/ Some pretty nifty insight there. Give me XP anyday, I guess. (Of course, there’s MAC, but that would be too much of a shift for me I guess – dual boot maybe…

  50. Bill Gates seemed a little bit awkward, but I thought that was endearing actually. A true geek. I’ve been happily (mostly) running Windows from 3.1 to the present XP, and I’m looking forward to Vista.

  51. I noticed it was on again tonight (to air on the west coast in just a couple of minutes). I just saw the very end both times and got a crack out of Bill getting up and walking off after Jon thanked him. The guy’s in super busy mode right now.

    About Vista, I don’t think I’ll be upgrading for a while.

  52. I think it’s funny that the founders of software companies are using the same marketing techniques, movie stars are forced into to promote their movies. Will Vista be just as bad as most of the stuff Hollywood expels?

  53. After all the reviews I have read on Vista I decided it was worth taking for a spin. From a business and multimedia standpoint it looks as though Vista will be useful.

    This site here http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ seem to have the most comprehensive reviews I could find about Vista and after reading them I went ahead and purchased a new Dell computer with Vista installed. Now I just have to wait for it to be shipped out.

  54. Missed the show so can’t comment on it, and about giving it a spin, I’m waiting for the in-transit hard disk from newegg for my laptop so that I can at least have the minimum requirement covered, the moment the hard disk arrives, the powertogether vista installation starts :-).

    By the way I entered 19 for spam protection, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a string concatenation ;-)..sorry I am just a bot, don’t have that much intelligence built in to differentiate between string operations and arithmetic ones πŸ˜›

  55. I am a programmer/DBA and I usually wait a year or so to update since most customers don’t have the newest yet, so my experience is that it’s better to wait πŸ™‚

    Found this site in Google: http://www.dogsforsale.org/
    You might want to check it out πŸ™‚

  56. i think i’m fairly well set for the next 2 years. no upgrades.

  57. I think Gates did ok for the audience watch the show. I will be trying out Vista, question is which one…..

    Jon has to know what beta software is.

  58. Im like everyone else — it takes time to make that switch over. Man i remember i wanted to throw my computer out when i first started using XP a few years back. Learning everything over again, when you already know what you want to do, is more frustrating then nopt knowing what you can do and learning. Ignorance is bliss! I will avoid Vista as long as i can. Jon Stewart and Gates , seriously? That had to of been … comedically worthwhile.

  59. Good morning Matt

    Off-topic, sorry.

    We know that the Data Refreshes might affect sites rankings. But could it be that they affect PageRank too?

    Thanks.

  60. To be honest I really enjoyed watching Bill chat on the show. Whether you like Windows / Microsoft is besides the point. Awesome to see a pioneer following his vision and being excited about it.

    One of the comments on the YouTube stream caught my eye and made me laugh. Something about John owning a mac…?

    I bet he does know what a beta (pronounced ‘Beeeta’ this side of the world as apposed to ‘Bayta’…).

    – Brendan

  61. Pfff Vista, seems really uninteresting to me. Maybe I’m just getting old.

    I mean really:
    – Prettified UI (can do with third party programs in XP)
    – Search (again with the third party programs)
    – Sidebar (again with the third party programs)

    The only really important thing that is in Vista for me is DirectX 10, and that’s just due to games. Only reason I stay on Windows is games tbh. Not releasing DirectX 10 for XP is just a nasty ploy to make people ‘upgrade’ to Vista, all the stuff they say about it being based on the new hardware model is just smoke and mirrors.

    I plan to stick with XP for now for my games, possibly using WINE on Windows to emulate DirectX 10 on XP if it works, at some point in the future and/or just switch to Linux.

  62. Also, pretty much what everyone who codes for other platforms is saying is that Vista is simply a catchup, and is already about two years behind Macs one year behind Linux/OSS platforms.

  63. Bought lately XPS from dell usa, which ‘is said’ to be Vista Capable, but I wonder why should I infest new notebook with something that takes half of my ram, 1/3 of my graphic card so I can see some visual fireworks and not much more (while mostly i play WoW, use Photohop and Macromedia on it and it requires quite lot of resources). Like someone said few posts above, I have installed XP some time ago and next reinstall will be prolly after few years.

    I really don’t see the point to get to Vista, XP is very good for me and working smoothly.

  64. With any new windows release I always let the suckers purchase it first so they can witness and experience all of the bugs. I do not want to be a bug tester do you?

    John stewart is a funny guy. I love watching his show but bills interview was the same on the almost every show he appeared on. Did any one else notice this?

    Cheers

  65. As usual, Jon Stewart was freaking hilarious, and it was FUNNY that Bill Gates didn’t get that he was trying to draw out the password through casual conversation about his first pet’s name right after asking him for his password.
    And seeing that Jon Stewart has talked in the past about how big a shooter gamer he is, he likely knows what a Beta is. I’m pretty sure he was just trying to play ignorant to let Bill talk about their product and feel comfortable talking about it.
    Bill is still a bit awkward, but was pretty fun to see him on there.
    As for Vista, I’m going to wait. I’ve got my XP SP2 running smooth, so I don’t need anything else for the time being, besides, have you seen, the bells and whistles version of Vista is going for $399??? What the heck is that all about??? I’ll wait, let them debug and find all the huge bugs the first year or 2 Microsoft typically finds in their OS, and get it when it’s a better product and cheaper…

  66. Hey Matt, how about Google Toolbar filling in the url, or better yet having it actually work on this site accurately.

    Wont try out Vista for awhile. Im pretty happy with my lappy running xp so no need to get a new one right now and fight through the software bugs that may be present. It does look cool though, maybe in a year or for xmas.

  67. Jon knows what Beta is, I’m sure of it. He always makes jokes with his guest, then will ask good questions.

    Did you see how fast Gates got out of there?

    Yikes!

    Paul

  68. Matt, I enjoy reading your posts about operating systems, especially Linux. What’s your favorite distro? Will Google ever release “Goobuntu”? Are here any cool repositories that non-Googlers might not know about?

  69. I found it interesting that Jon didn’t as Bill G about his charitable donations and such, other than that it was a good interview. Myself, I won’t be buying Vista anytime soon, Leopard is coming.. woohoo πŸ™‚

  70. Caught Bill on Charlie Rose last night although it was an old interview from Nov 2006. Bill really got uncomfortable when Charlie asked him about Open Source. It was so obvious, Bill started shuffling around his chair and tried to explain why MS is now selling Linux for servers while his lump in his throat moved around. He knows Open Source is all about the future, not the past and that MS is starting to walk on fragile grounds.

    No need to go buy Vista and live in the past and continue living with the restrictions of proprietary formats and be dictated to by one company when there are great FREE open source systems out there…

    Viva Italy for formally making Opendocument Format a national standard for Office Suites this week.

  71. Didn’t saw him but I wouldn’t want to change to Vista if Billy himselfe comes to me and offers to install it. Why should I run an OS which kills half my resources?

  72. I need all my time to do business, not Vista.

  73. BTW: I saw a Vista-Demo on TV today…
    I had terrible pain caused by laughter!
    They said “Vista has fluid 3d effects” when the Video showed 3d Style Images getting bigger in spasmodic motion… dunno what they think fluids are like but obviously they have nerver seen smoothly moving or resizing Objects on a computer monitor before… the rest of this painfull presentation of vistas “perfectness” wasn’t much better but this 30 Seconds of “fluid 3d effects” aren’t going out of my head… maybe the one speaking has taken some very special substances before he commented what they showed to us… whatever it was I want some potion of it!
    Matt maybe if you meet s.o. from MS-Search you could ask him, if he can find out what MS ships with their demo tapes?

  74. Matt:

    Bill did a great job and targeted the right audience. When will we see Sergey or Larry on The Daily Show? BTW there is already word on Valleywag that Marrisa may be the next movie star.

    http://valleywag.com/tech/separated-at-birth/pirates-of-silicon-valley-ii-our-candidates-for-the-cast-232614.php

  75. I’d use vista in a couple of months. But how much better could Office get? How much could you change?

  76. I don’t see Vista taking over the word before a while.
    Vista is so incompatible with XP and since it will take a while before all the necessary softwares and drivers get an update, I CAN’T update to Vista even though my computer is powerful enough. It is nice to get a new screen, if I can’t make my softwares work.
    Upgrading Vista as a business is not for tomorrow.

  77. Paul Avery, it’s true that Gates really leapt out of there. To be fair, it was probably a pretty busy night for him. πŸ™‚

    Brendan O’Connell, Sergey is a very funny guy. I think he would make a good guest. Probably Jon Stewart’s staff doesn’t read my blog though. πŸ™‚

  78. Gates is the king of geeks! Jeez… the man can’t talk in public, he’s too shy to be a spokesman for any kind of product. Jobs is outstanding in that aspect, although, in my opinion, both share an horrible fashion sense…

    100 billion dollars and they can’t afford an Armani suit? C’mon!

  79. RE: Probably Jon Stewart’s staff doesn’t read my blog though.
    – I’ll see what I can do.

  80. Gates did a great job, though there is some crazy gesturing in there — I think I saw some gang signs.

  81. I am going to keep away from bill gates in his little electro-bubble-vista application until I am sure it isn’t buggier than an ant hill. Then I will just buy a new laptop with it pre-installed as it will be cheaper than upgrading the hardware on my machine and them buying the upgrade!
    I saw a little clip on the bbc website of the UK launch, he really could do with a ’10 years younger’ make over bless him!

  82. Did you see the next night’s show? They made fun of how quickly he left by replaying the clip, which stopped with a Windows error saying something like, “An unexpected error has occurred and Bill Gates must now leave.” Complete with buttons to report the error to Microsoft or not.

    Funny stuff.

    I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Gates be interviewed before, so if that’s less awkward than he used to be, then, well, wow. You’d think he could just spend a few billion dollars to invent a way for someone else to remote-control his brain during interviews.

  83. win xp is enough for me πŸ™‚

  84. All the apple fan boys can shove it. I had a Mac Powerbook G3 with 10.4.6…I just bought a new vaio, and I love it. I write a ton of code, and the real reason I bought my new computer was because in order to install PHP/GD I had to endlessly “sudo” around, for those of you who know what I’m talking about, it can get extremely painful…

    So Vista is a welcome change

  85. I’ve seen the interview in this weekend’s Daily Show Global Ed.!
    I liked the most when Bill left and Jon left wondering how he can do that… πŸ˜€

    @Fake Rake: I’ve seen the clip you mention, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZfRxbaCNBU
    In case they take the video down, the error dialog box said:

    “Bill Gates has encountered a problem and needs to leave. We are sorry for the inconvenience. If you were in the middle of something…”

    “We have created an error report that you can send to help us improve Bill Gates. We will treat this report as confidential and anonymous.”
    with options below:
    “Debug”, “Send error report to wife” and “Don’t send”

    I just like Jon’s humor!

    BTW, I reckon Jon knows about beta – it was a joke he was trying to pull…

    P.S. Jason, it might be easier for you to try OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) now instead of taking that big learning curve…

  86. The only way I’ll get it, is if it comes pre-installed with a new pc. No way I’m paying $300 for a few new features and ton of new security holes and bugs.

  87. I am waiting for Google’s OS. I am sure that they will bring the new OS with simplicity…as like gmail and Google Talk. LOL

    Advaced with features but loook wise i would be simple and sober.

  88. CNET reviewed Vista and the review was critical because they argued that Vista should really have been packaged as an update for XP! Furthermore, they questioned the utility of promoting “12 new security features” when in reality only six are new and they are not even included in the Home versions. Anyway, if you want to read the article, go to Cnet and search for Vista Review, ie. Vista Buyer Beware.

  89. I made the switch a week ago with my action pack subscription. I was worried about stability and all that but I really am a but of a tweak so I needed to try it out. I am amazed at the lack of issues. It does take some getting used to as it is very different, but I found it quite intuitive. The search feature is awesome. It worked with my dual video cards no problem and an annoying issue with my internet connection going off and on in xp is gone. I also think the wireless network set up is 100 times better. The frustrating things have been other software that hasn’t caught up yet, even though they’ve had a year to be ready. Quickbooks won’t work on it at all, and firefox is having major issues which really bums me out. The new office pack is great too. I guess I’ll remain a windows guy for another 5 or 6 years…

  90. I’m using FreeBSD and have a lot of fun πŸ™‚ And WinXP is only for games

  91. hello,
    ”win xp is enough for me” πŸ˜›

  92. I never buy or use any new Microsoft product. I grew tired a long time ago of being an unofficial tester for buggy MS software. After a few vista service packs maybe I will give it a go.

  93. We are in the midst of converting to Vista, one computer at a time. My husband is really having fun with it and loves all the new (WOW) features. I have not converted yet because I have heard that not all programs run on it. But I am sure it is a matter of time.

  94. It is sad to see Google News so Low on the list…

  95. He sounds like a rich geek…I like him though.

  96. I’ve been taking Vista for a spin. Where’s my XP. I want to go back.

    better yet- OSX. Now that’s a dream!

    (who’d ever imagine that Vista’d take 45 sec to boot up on a 2.0Ghz Core2Duo with 2GB RAM?)

  97. I’d use vista in a couple of months. But how much better could Office get? How much could you change?

  98. hello,
    ”win xp is enough for me”
    πŸ™‚

  99. I’d use vista in a couple of months Vista’d take 45 sec to boot up on a 2.0Ghz Core2Duo I’d use vista πŸ™

  100. aggred, XP is sufficient for the moment. and Gates acts more and more like a sales person.

  101. I am tempted to try vista on my laptop, its a dual core cpu with a gig of ram, but i have been advised by a friend that vista would need 2 gig of ram to be comfy!!!! thats crazy to me… still tempted to give it a go though!

  102. aggred, XP is sufficient for the moment. and Gates acts more and more like a sales person.

  103. Will use Vista if the crack available….LOL

  104. I am sure, to keep on with win xp.

  105. I have tried Vista… It looks and feels great! the problem i have is that it seems to be VERY system resource hungry!

    I got a free upgrade to vista when i bought my new laptop, but i went back to xp media edition as it is LESS hungry for RAM…

    Maybe a slimmed down version of vista for my laptop???

  106. I do recall seeing this Jon Stewart show with Gates…..and after a view bad vista experiences with a brand new toshiba laptop, I have decided to not dare put vista on my main work machine. Maybe in about 3 years vista will stop having problems.

    One big issue I do see, is that IE 7 gets stuck and crashes all tabs and windows….this has happened on all three machines I work with! just another great Microsoft product!

  107. I tried Vista on a friends lapto. They have 2gb ram… and it runns okay. I think it my fall over with only 1gb tho!!!

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