Bill Gates is a monocle and a Persian cat away from being the villain in a James Bond movie.
-- Dennis Miller
Did you know that if you play a Windows XP CD backwards, you will hear the voice of Satan?
That's nothing! If you play it forward, it'll install Windows XP.
How could this be a problem in a country where we have Intel and Microsoft?
-- Al Gore (on the Y2K problem)
If rebooting to solve software problems had been unacceptable to the Windows using community, Microsoft would not exist today.
-- Carol Spears
If the designers of X-Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that.
-- Marus J. Ranum
If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming, and Windows.
-- Dave Barry
I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that fish follow migrating caribou.
-- Paul Tomblin
I may have invented it, but Bill (Gates) made it famous.
-- David Bradley (inventor of the CtrlAltDel keystroke combination)
In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. Then how come people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished?
-- Hasse Skrifvars
I note that Bill Gates of Microsoft has paid an extraordinarily large sum for Leonardo da Vinci's Codex.
The rumour is he intends to sue for the basic patents on the siege engine and then create a new kind of war which will run twice as slowly as the original, cost four times as much, stop for no readily apparent reason at regular intervals and need to be re-started from scratch twice a day but will nevertheless become industry standard.
-- csugq@csv.warwick.ac.uk
In the years since the start of what was first called the Microsoft Network, Mr. Gates has tried dozens of different business models, from Internet access to Web sites to monthly software subscriptions. They all had one thing in common: they lost money.
-- Saul Hansell
It seems the only aspect of Microsoft NT which scales well is the price.
-- Need To Know
I was going to compile a list of innovations that could be attributed to Microsoft. Once I realized that Ctrl-Alt-Del was handled in the BIOS, I found that there aren't any.
-- Richard B. Johnson
My other computer is your Windows box.
-- Nils Vogels
Now if Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed.... Oh. He does.
Our technology, at this point, is way better in terms of how few defects we have. Compare, say, with Linux -- how many defects we have, how quickly we fix those defects, how our system is for getting the updates out for those defects. Take those objective criteria and we are better.
-- Bill Gates
So it is that Microsoft, by refusing to secure almost half of its installed desktop base, is trying to force ... customers to upgrade to XP. I guess since Microsoft can no longer offer the carrot of Longhorn, it's now using the whip of poor security.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
That's what I love about GUIs: They make simple tasks easier, and complex tasks impossible.
-- John William Chambless
The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
-- Bill Gates
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armor to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.
-- Douglas Adams
The nice thing about Windows is -- It does not just crash, it displays a dialog box and lets you press 'OK' first.
-- Arno Schaefer
The only thing Microsoft has done for society is make people believe that computers are inherently unreliable.
-- Bradford L. Barrett
The only thing that I'd rather own than Windows is English, because then I could charge you two hundred and forty-nine dollars for the right to speak it.
-- Scott McNealy
The ordinary person is like an ordinary eighteenth-century piece of farm equipment -- say, a wheelbarrow. He operates without much self-awareness. He will know he is in need of repair when his wheel falls off. But the hypochondriac is like a wheelbarrow designed by Microsoft. He has constant two-way communication between his body and himself. He is trying to perform ordinary tasks, such as lumbering up a hill with a load of fertilizer, when suddenly an icon flashes to tell him that rust has been detected on the starboard cotter pin.
-- Gene Weingarten
There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features.
-- James Coates
The WWW is exciting because Microsoft doesn't own it, and therefore, there's a tremendous amount of innovation happening.
-- Steve Jobs
This summer Microsoft is going to introduce the first portable toilet with Internet access. You know why it's the first? Because nobody wants a toilet with Internet access. What is that? Is that really the future? Remember, we thought it would be flying cars, now it's an outhouse you can plug in.
-- Jay Leno
Too many "innovators", especially in the U.S., are resting on their laurels collecting government monopoly profits. At least Microsoft got their monopolies with good old-fashioned misleading marketing, channel strong-arm tactics, and predatory pricing. They worked for it!
-- Geoff Parker
Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).
-- Matt Welsh
We're obviously going to spend a lot in marketing because we think the product sells itself.
-- Jim Allchin, Microsoft executive
We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software.
-- Steve Ballmer
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".
-- Linus Torvalds
Windows 98 (n): 32-bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written by a 2-bit company that can't stand for 1 bit of competition.
-- Stan Brown
Windows supports general-purpose non-Microsoft applications in the same way that a rope can be said to support someone who will be soon hanged.
-- Jeff Holtzman
A big reason that UNIX administration is challenging is that every UNIX vendor believes standards are for weak-minded fools.
-- Ray
A UNIX signature isn't a return address, it's the ASCII equivalent of a black velvet clown painting. It's a rectangle of carets surrounding a quote from a literary giant of weeniedom like Heinlein or Dr. Who.
Even if you have carefully followed the configuration procedures outlined in this guide, there is still no guarantee that your Solaris installation will proceed smoothly.
-- Solaris (UNIX) 2.5 configuration guide
If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a UNIX user to show you how it's done.
-- Scott Adams
Let's face facts: J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" books are responsible for more loser circle jerks than Playboy, "Baywatch" and Linux combined. As most people know, the series was the inspiration for the game Dungeons and Dragons, which inspired misfits worldwide to walk around with little felt bags of twenty-sided dice, discussing their imaginary lives as ax-wielding dwarves to anybody who would listen.
-- Mr. Cranky
Linux? You can get a less powerful system, but it will cost you more.
Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
-- System V.2 administrator's guide
Our technology, at this point, is way better in terms of how few defects we have. Compare, say, with Linux -- how many defects we have, how quickly we fix those defects, how our system is for getting the updates out for those defects. Take those objective criteria and we are better.
-- Bill Gates
Sigh. I like to think it's just the Linux people who want to be on the "leading edge" so bad they walk right off the precipice.
-- Craig E. Groeschel
The irony is that Perl itself is a subset of UNIX features condensed into a quick-and-dirty scripting language. In a literary light, if UNIX is the Great Novel, Perl is the Cliffs Notes.
-- Thomas Scoville
The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected.
-- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
-- Jeremy S. Anderson
Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer
UNIX gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure.
-- Eric Allman
UNIX is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time.
-- Larry Wall
UNIX is like sex: If you don't know it, you don't miss is. But if you know it, you'll need it.
-- Lars Eilebrecht
UNIX is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who its friends are.
UNIX: It's not just 'User-Unfriendly', it's 'Proactively User-Hostile'!
Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows (also known as the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).
-- Matt Welsh
We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmer's Manual.
-- Andrew Hume
We know Linux is the best, it can do infinite loops in five seconds.
-- Linus Torvalds
Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence
Jane went to the store to buy bread
should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!)