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Here are some other comments that were also deleted:

On MS Webmatrix:

I can’t use this because it is not available for my operating system, but I have to admit, it sounds like a great tool..

To do the same thing, I use a combination of MySQL Workbench/phpMyAdmin, Netbeans with xdebug, Firefox/Firebug and so on…

However, I think if Microsoft really wants to contribute to Web Development, they can do one thing… stop the development of the infamous Internet Explorer. Many Web Designers and Developers all around the world will thank Microsoft all their lives if they do that.

Response to a suggestion to try out MS Webspark:

Unfortunately, I can’t. I don’t want to buy a new OS and set it up so that I can run one program, especially when I need my system and the tools I mentioned to stay in my job. Thanks for your suggestion though.

On IE10:

Yet another thing for my testing department and my senior to swear about. Thank god I don’t have to handle it. If Microsoft really wants to help the Web and Web developers, they should kill IE for good.

To Microsoft hate mongers:

teita, testai freedom chaine bhaye Debian Linux, Gentoo Linux, FreeBSD chalaye bhai halyo ni…

Response to a similar comment about Windows 7:

After 10 years of wandering, I chose Fedora for my desktop and Cent OS for my servers. They work like a charm.

We pick whatever does our job best. I’m sure Windows 7 is great too.

Response to a comment that said everyone needs Microsoft Products:

Well, I for one, don’t.

Response to a Linux vs. Windows post:

Familiar and Easy to use:
I am so confused when I have to occasionally run a Windows machine.. It feels so awkward. My point being it just depends on what you are familiar with. Try a new OS, say Mac OS or FreeBSD or Fedora or Ubuntu.. just about anything for a few years and then try out Windows 8 when it comes out, you’ll see what I mean.

What most customers want:
They don’t have a choice. I am planning to buy a new Laptop and there is barely one with a good config that does not have Windows pre-installed.. I’ll have to spend a day to wipe it off and re-install my OS of choice and the tools I need manually.

Integrates with digital home, Cameras/iPod/Mp3 Players, Printers/Scanners, W-WAN compatibility:
I don’t have a very digital home, but when I buy devices, I’ll make sure that they work with my OS and my computer, much like anyone else would do. For example, you will not buy a device that does not have the drivers for Windows 7 64-bit (or whatever version/arch of OS you use), will you?

Services integration, Software Compatibility:
As a developer, I think it is OUR responsibility to make softwares compatible. For instance, the company I am working with is developing an application that can be run in both WIN32/64 platforms and POSIX (Unix, BSD complaint, Linux, BeOS and more) because we have planned it to work that way. We maintain two different backends to handle just this. This is because we want to give more freedom of choice to our customers.

Other than these, the image makes sense.

In response to a comment saying “Microsoft is better than Linux”:

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is a corporation and Linux is a kernel of an Operating system which is developed by thousands of developers and companies worldwide (including Microsoft..yes Microsoft has contributed code to the Linux kernel: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/jul09/07-20linuxqa.mspx)..

So, I’m not sure what you mean by “microsoft is more better to use than linux”.. but yes, that is what they want you to believe if you want to be an MSP, so I guess that is a good thing for you.

In response to “I HATE LINUX” (The following comment was by Paras Nath Chaudhary):

“Abo naboli basnai sakina …sayad MIC ko group ma yesto lekhda sabai lai risuthala sorry for that hai ma afno bichar rakchu.
Actually ma Microsoft Windows 7 use garchu, + windows server 2003 ra abo windows server 2008 ma sardai chu. Tesai gari ma afaile windows7 lai tweek gari windows 8 ko feel pani leyune kosis gareko chu. besides ma .NET ma programming pani garchu. Ma ahile sixth sem ko student ho ra mero minor project pani C# .NET Windows based application ho. So sabaile bujhisakekohunuparcha ki ma daily life mai Windows use garchu.
But the most important thing is I am a linux geek. i live in linux. Ma windows pani linux bhitra chalauchu. Malai linux kina maan parcha vane. Its open source. Open source vaneko kati lai thaha cha I don’t know hai. But open source is the real freedom. Opensource is from the community by the community and to the community. If microsoft is developed by some 40,000 engineers working at microsofts office and some of its branch office then linux is developed by the people all over the world. That’s why linux has more distros than windows. And linux has every flavour you need. If you are a developper you can have a distro dedicated to developers similarly there are for the designers, administrators, pentesters, and more you just can google it.
Bibek Sharma Chapagain m definitely sure that you are one who has seen only windows system are afraid of using linux for you don’t know the power of linux. You are proud to hate linux but you even don’t know the internet you are using is holded by linux servers. And yeah if you know more about security than you should have known that windows is the most vulnerable system ever made in this planet. Besides you must be the one who is always f**ked up by viruses.For linux you are most likely to be free of those bullshit viruses. Cause nobody in the community is going to harm oneself beside some really bad guys who hate the community they belong to. I just can’t go on writing to fill this whole group’s page. But if you really think community should be the one to be preferred than definitely you want say that you hate linux. Hating linux is hating the community you live.
If you guys Sabi Gaire @Bibek Sharma Chapagaiin Uttam COol Shrestha like windows then that’s good but you must know that you are the part of the community.”

Several other comments from other users which were either neutral or mentioned even the names of other technologies were also deleted. Some comments which expressed hatred towards Linux and other non-Microsoft technologies were kept until some group members pointed this out again and again. Finally, those comments were deleted and wall posts were disabled.

If they are going to ask their new MSP applicants to add everyone they can to the group, they should also be aware of the consequences. This is not a new thing and completely as expected from them. They have continued to remain the hypocrites that they are and still term their poor marketing efforts as innovation and a group of biased hatemongering brain washed individuals a community. I can only hope that some day they will be able to defend what they stand for without silencing the critics and actually grow the decency to build an unbiased and progressive community they proudly claim to have.

Q. Tell me about the usability of .NET framework and the development environment.

Ans: Considering the usability factor .NET framework and development environment is “all right”. Drag and drop makes easy for programmer and less programming is needed. However for a power developers, limited control over modification is provided which makes us difficult to program.

Q. How is the performance of .NET framework in comparison to previous frameworks you used?

Ans: I was frustrated with the performance of the framework. Development tools require a lot of disk space and hog up a lots of CPU degrading the performance of web applications. The performance was not satisfactory even after development. Page loading was slow during first phase of execution and even “Time Out” errors appeared when programs were large.

Q. You are a designer too. How easy was the designing part?

Ans: The design part was the easiest compared to other frameworks I have used. CSS implementation was quite easy. But for new developers I recommend trying other frameworks as the design part maybe quite confusing.

Q. Would you like to share other issues you have faced?

Ans: The major issue I faced was incompatibility. While switching from Professional version of Developement Environment to Express edition I got error messages saying “Unexpected Error”. The error were not helpful and I had to spend 3-4 days figuring out what was wrong with the code.

Even when I moved the program from my development environment to deployment web server, various issues bothered me due to the change in .NET Framework version. .NET is not that mature and in the phase of development the issue of backward compatibility has not been taken care of.

Conclusion

Now to the part I love the most, the conclusion. PHP has been accused of being the most unstable framework across the globe. So are other Open Source frameworks. But with my latest interview with the recently shifted .NET developer, I figured out that .NET is the one which is out of the league considering instability. The incompatibility issues make it the worst among all the web development frameworks. M$’s slogan for Visual Studio was something like “Have a smooth start”, however the experience of the young programmer doesn’t indicate so. He even recommends starters not to start development with Visual Studio Development Environment.

Now the main point of argument, why are companies like Godaddy and many others are moving to M$’s technologies leaving Open Source technologies? The mystery behind it lies in the NDA between those companies and M$ while we in the mist can only speculate one possibility that a huge company like M$ might have threatened them to do so for violating some of its patents that it has preserved in the patent shelves.

Thank you for reading. Hope to write again soon.  Don’t forget to jolt down a comment or few as it is so boring we don’t have anyone to pat or stab on the back. Any of the previously mentioned action in appreciable. We fight for revolution.

Peace mates.

The question about the licensing of the Software distributed as award in the quiz was raised in their developers’ portal[3]. One of the members of organizing committee Ms. Indu Poudel solved the query of the forum user. As you can see in the screenshot, she makes it clear that the licensing is not MSDN-AA (referred by ELMS) and it is awarded with FPP licensing. So, the reply from a member of organizing committee should be regarded as official.

Unlimited Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Nepal[4] represents Microsoft in Nepal. They are the Market Development Partner of Microsoft. Market Development Partner can implement their idea of marketing strategy to overpower their sales. Microsoft Portal Quiz can be regarded as one of the approaches of advertisement. And since, they haven’t mentioned the licensing that comes with the Windows 7 Professional DVD, and by their entity presence in Nepal, it should be clear to layman that they are providing the software for free to the winners which otherwise would have cost hundreds of dollars.

Windows 7 licensing[5] states restrictions such as geographic, academic alliance, or NFR (Not For Resale) applies only when it is explicitly tagged into the packaging of the copy of software provided. The copy of software provided as award is provided in a mere dvd packet without any tags. So that would mean, the license is without restriction. The very uninteresting thing they do is, send out the license keys in the email address without any licensing information as well. A normal winner who cares less about EULA and restrictions imposed legally aren’t aware of it.

Today, I went to Unlimit Building, Khichapokhari to collect the award I won. I asked them if they could provide me with the legal document to prove that I won the retail version of the software or document that will state under which EULA terms I shall be bound to. First, the receptionist asked me to talk to Mr. Ravi Chandra Koirala. When requested, he denied straight to provide me the document. He meant in his word, “Well, you get the serial keys, activate it online, it would activate, why on earth do you need the licensing terms?” I took it seriously. What the heck was this. An answer from a responsible employee of Microsoft? Well, when I started arguing about it, he asked me to wait for sometime to talk to some licensing expert over it.

Waited for about half an hour. And I was called into a meeting room. There I was greeted with wicked smile of 2 other employees namely Mr. Gandip Khaling and other who wasn’t introduced but claimed as being licensing expert of Microsoft. When I put forward the same question about licensing, they admitted the license keys are generated from ELMS server i.e. they are licensed under MSDN-AA[6] license. The so called licensing expert gave me an example of 100 Rupees bill. He said, “If I have 100 Rs. and I give it to you, why is licensing needed in that case, We are Microsoft representative in Nepal and we give you the Windows 7 to use, why do you need license agreement terms anyways.” This did not convince me. I argued that it cannot be applied to softwares and if that would have been the similar case, they must have released the software in public domain. The look on his face was precious and he was speechless.

On the other hand, Mr. Gandip Khaling sort of started a row with me. He stated that he manages the portal quiz and he can distribute anything without letting the user know about the licensing terms. That is ridiculous I would say. I requested them to mention the license restrictions on the quiz page if the softwares were based on MSDN-AA license. But, Mr. Khaling got furious and said, he wouldn’t do that. They were sort of shouting at me against my right to information. Well, If I had won a software, I should have information to the restrictions that applies for I am a responsible digital citizen, and would definitely not like to do anything illegal. Either they are short of information or they are trying to act smart, they are definitely not doing things right. They are giving away ELMS generated license keys to anyone winning the portal quiz whcih is against MSDN-AA license. They are breaking their Headquarters’ policy I should say.

After knowing the truth behind the softwares “awarded”, I chose not to collect the not so legal “award”. I would like everyone to know the truth behind it. Make sure you get acquainted with the EULA that governs the piece of software before you use it. The license key that validates online is not always legal.

[1] http://unlimit.com/Quiz.aspx
[2] https://partner.microsoft.com/40012165
[3] http://msdnnepal.net/forums/t/1655.aspx
[4] http://www.unlimit.com
[5] http://www.scribd.com/doc/23195333/Microsoft-Software-License-Terms-Windows-7-Professional-These-License-Terms
[6] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/academic/bb250622.aspx