Today I somehow ended up at my local library (which I rarely visit nowadays). As I wandered the computer book aisles, a certain book caught my eye: "Why you should stay away from Microsoft", or something along those lines. I was interested to see what it would say, and I started flipping through the book. After 10 or 15 minutes, I was so disgusted with the way the author wrote the book, I had to put it back on the shelf.
Now, I don't know about you, but I am just getting plain sick of this "Microsoft-bashing" thing. It's bad enough when we have to see it out on the Internet, where it can be excused by ignorance or just flaming because they feel like it. But what really makes my stomach sick is when I see people writing entire books about how much they hate Microsoft. That's when I think it's gone too far. Because instead of simply saying their opinion, they are making a living out of it. And these people call themselves "book authors".
Firstly, I'm not saying it's a crime to have an opinion. That is perfectly alright, and it's a very good thing to have one. But I feel that using your opinion to continually bash the same party, whether or not the facts have changed, is just stupid. Fact: not everything that Microsoft has made is perfect. Another fact: not everything they have made is not perfect. So say positive things about good products, and negative things about bad products. Just forget the company that created it for the time being!
Another thing that I dislike about books having a biased opinion is that they tend to make things look real. They use factual evidence to back up the points that they make. The problem is that the books pick and choose the facts, and by doing this you can make certain parts of a story completely stick out, while hiding others which may be important to get the bigger picture. Just because the facts are true doesn't mean the point that the author is trying to make is also true.
This Microsoft hating is such a cliche by now. Yet another reason why I hate that book. The content that came from the book seemed to come straight out of the can; a completely unoriginal opinion. I didn't read the entire book, but the facts that I did read from that book I was already aware of. Even if the opinion isn't original, at least try and find some new facts! Another funny thing was that the author seemed completely Mac-oriented, and although he did try to do a good job of showing *nix as an alternative, it came out as rather an after-thought.
Finally, what are you going to do with that book after you've inhaled all the crap it contains inside its cover? Frame it? I can't imagine why you would want to read it multiple times, I mean, if it did convince you to stay away from Microsoft, you wouldn't need the book anymore, would you? Hmm... unless they were hoping you would lend it out to your friends. Too bad.
