Tag: Windows

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i-i-i

If you use Microsoft Word, you must not use the letter “i” all by itself. No, no, no. Microsoft has decreed that there shall be no “i”‘s by themselves. Microsoft has decided that you are too stupid to be left to your own powers when writing something. The “i” must become an “I”.

This is, admittedly, not a new concern. I just got particularly fed up with this particular facet of the computer world today: software companies designing their products for idiots. And because they don’t want to have to offer multiple products in each class, non-idiots are stuck with the idiot’s version.

It’s not that it’s not possible to disable many of the idiot features in Microsoft Word, for example. You can, under Tools/Options. You can disable the automatic speller and the contemptible grammar modulator, and automatic lists, and other things. But every time you install a new version of Word, you have to spend about 30 minutes to an hour changing all the default settings to make the program somewhat reasonable to use.

That’s all. Microsoft sucks. So does Quicken and so does Hewlett Packard and Adaptec. Every time they make something automatic– which, they will tell you, “consumers” demand– they reduce the control you have over your letters or pictures or music.

Do people think it impresses other people when they receive letters that are formatted and spelled correctly, and written in a the passive voice? Do people think other people find “clip art” charming or delightful?

You want to impress somebody? Write a letter by hand and mail it to them.

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The Computer Keyboard

All right– it’s just a little thing. It’s not like a war or the Olympics or Microsoft or GATT or the environment. But it bugs me a lot and it’s my web page, so I’m cutting lose. The subject of this week’s rant: the computer keyboard.

You see the orange circle? That’s where the left slash symbol is located. This is the symbol that any real computer geek knows is one of the most important keys on the keyboard. Why? Because when you really want to get things done on a system level at the keyboard, you go to the DOS prompt and start pecking away. And one of the things you type the most often is this simple little command:

cd \

Or any of a hundred variations.

Now you see the dark circle? That is pointing to the location where the dang “\” key SHOULD be. I even moved it there in the picture. That’s where it used to be on some IBM keyboards and, I believe, some early Northgate keyboards. But almost every keyboard made since then– even the legendary Northgate (much prized for it’s solid steel construction, it’s tactile response, and substantial weight)– puts the “\” key somewhere else, where you have to take your hand off the home row to reach it.

Now tell me, how often do you need the right slash (“/”) or a “[” or a “]” or a “{” or a “}”? Almost never, right? There’s already the perfectly useful “(” and “)” up there above the “i” and “o”, and those completely useless triangle brackets (“<>”) below the “k” and “l”. Why on earth do they put the most useful non-alphanumeric key in the most bizarre place?

Well, the same knucklehead who decided that directories could be named “program files” but only accessed with:

“cd\progra~1

Good heavens! Not only do you have to reach way beyond the right home row to hit “\” (and try to avoid accidentally hitting the return key) but now you have to leave the left home row as well to try to get the tilde (“~”) way up there beside the “1”. Curly, Larry, and Moe are in charge of “innovations” at Microsoft.

And while I’m at it… have you seen those new idiotic keyboards with the row of blue buttons along the top? These buttons are dedicated to Internet functions. Instead of actually having to move a mouse pointer to a icon on your desktop, now all you have to do is press a button, and there you are: MSN, NBC, CNN, whatever.

I have always said that the goal of AOL, Microsoft, Compaq et al is to turn the Internet into television, where your choices are limited to what the corporate hacks think you should have. The entire idea of these buttons is revolting. The personal computer was, at one time, a force for personal liberation precisely because it was flexible and non-proprietary and controlled by the user. Ever since then, Corporate America has been trying to take it back. This is the latest step, along with all those obscene programs you get with every laptop to try to get you to subscribe to Genie or MSN or AOL or some other apparatchik-infested on-line service. The goal is to force you to watch their propaganda and advertising. The goal is to, once again, reduce the computer user to a computer viewer: passive, docile, mindless. The ultimate consumer. Just enter your charge card number…. Their worst nightmare is that you might one day once again seize control of your computer and choose where you get your information from.

It will have to go down in history as one of life’s great mysteries, along with these:

Why did cruddy Microsoft Windows outsell every other operating system in the world?

Why did mass audiences ever learn to accept the hideous vulgarity of television sitcom laugh-tracks?

Why did VHS defeat Beta in the market place?

Why was the 2000 election in the U.S. ever even close enough for George Bush Jr. to steal? Quick, list Dubbya’s accomplishments prior to his elevation to this lofty status.

Why did anyone ever buy a Vega or a Pinto?

Why do shriveled old bureaucrats present trophies at celebrated sporting events?

Who buys “extended warranties”? Why do these people think that salesmen would hustle them so avidly if they were a good deal for the customer?

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Why is Microsoft Windows So Bad?

Is Windows so bad because Microsoft’s engineers are incompetent? Or is there a conscious strategy here?

It didn’t make sense to me for a long time. Microsoft is a big company. It hires some of the best programmers in the world to work on their products. They have endless resources and talent. So why can’t they come up with an operating system that doesn’t crash all the time?

You have to consider a few basic facts, first of all. How many “power users” are there out there? What I mean is, how many people out there are smart enough to manage their own computer systems properly? Let’s think of percentages. I would say that, of the people I know, about 10%, at the most, are potential “power users”.

Whoa! Let’s step back! Only 10%? Isn’t that kind of insulting to the vast majority of computer users?

Well, what is a power user? Someone who meets these qualifications:

  • creates his own logical directory structure for storing his files
  • backs up his data to a portable, removable storage media, because his work is important
  • installs programs himself, and maybe some hardware, like CD ROMS
  • knows how to fix problems with the computer
  • sets up and configures his own internet connection
  • customizes applications to be more productive (in vain—they will crash regardless).

Okay? So there you go. Power users are basically like people who renovate their own homes: they want to design the system to work for them.

What do we call non-power users? Consumers. Consumers live in malls. Consumers don’t want to be challenged: they want everything provided to them on a silver platter. They don’t care about the environment or monopolies or long-term interest rates. Consumers, after all, just want to consume.

Consumers want to turn on the computer with that knob on the front and then play Doom or cruise the internet for pictures of Alicia Silverstone. That’s about it. And maybe send e-mails to friends that consist mostly of messages like this: “Hi. I have e-mail now. Isn’t this cool. Send me something so I know it’s working.” Of all the people I know, about 90% are potential computer consumers.

Think about that. 10. 90. 10. 90. If you were Microsoft, which would you rather have as your customer base?

That’s why Microsoft expects you to store all your documents in “My Documents”. You don’t get to name this directory something logical like “work” or “data” or “letters”. Oh no. You can’t even delete Microsoft’s “My Documents”. It’s like mom telling you what to wear every morning. “Here’s your turtleneck.” “Think I’ll wear a t-shirt today.” “Here’s your turtleneck.” “Have you seen my t-shirt?” “Here. It’s your turtleneck.”

And that’s why Microsoft puts all your applications in “Program Files” even though, when you go to the dos prompt, you can’t type “CD Program Files” but have to type, instead, the idiotic abbreviation: “CD Progra~1”. Of course. What consumer would go to the DOS prompt anyway?

That’s why Microsoft is constantly trying to run your computer life for you. When you go to the DOS prompt, it puts you into the Windows directory. Why? What idiot wants to go there? When you use Windows Explorer to go looking for files, it displays the names only, without size, date, or type. Why would you want to know those things? You’re just looking for “letter to mom”. Microsoft is pushing modem and printer manufacturers to design their equipment so that it only runs on Windows, even if that means taking precious processor cycles away from your CPU. They don’t tell you, when you buy one of these modems or printers, that they only work on Windows, and that, in a couple of years, you are going to have to replace that equipment because Microsoft will make sure that the software that runs it will be out of date.

Microsoft Word even tells you when it doesn’t like the way you write. Fix it, or I’ll annoy you to death with colored squiggly lines all over the page. All of your family and friends will know that you write stupid.

Microsoft isn’t the only offender here. Quicken used to be a useful, snappy little checkbook manager that did it’s job and got out of the way. Now it tries to reach into your wallet and take control of everything you do. It wants to hook you up to the internet every time you fart in the direction of the phone. It tries to create new accounts and categories for you every time you don’t type something just the way you want them to. When you enter a new check for a payee you have entered previously, it helpfully copies details into the current transaction— including the “reconciled” flag!  Great idea!

Norton Utilities and Norton Anti-virus have the same attitude problem. These tyrannical little programs really get out there and try to push you around, constantly harassing you about rescue disks and live updates and all that baloney. And you know, it wouldn’t be quite half as bad as it is except that most of these programs don’t work! Norton keeps begging me to let it update it’s files, so I say, okay, go ahead. What does it do? Lock up. Norton anti-virus crashes my Windows 98 every time it boots, so I now have to step around it. Uninstall the program? “This application could not be uninstalled”. Best of all, some of the third-party uninstall programs won’t even uninstall themselves!

Netscape thinks you would like nothing more than to go the Netscape web site every time you turn on your computer.

You can see why Linux is getting so popular. Microsoft is like your Mom, constantly harassing you about what you should be doing. Linux is like your Uncle Max. You go up to him and he says, “What do you want?” At first, you might think he’s a little rude, but if you say you want to go out for a beer and a smoke, he’ll say, sure, what do I care?

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Garbage Compaqter

My first experience with a Compaq computer must have been about ten years ago. A social service agency in Chatham had been persuaded, by MicroAge, to buy one Compaq’s “Deskpro” models. It had run pretty well for them for a couple of years, but when we needed to upgrade the memory for some new applications we wanted to run– surprise! You couldn’t just go to the computer store and buy a couple of off the shelf SIMMS. Oh no– you had to buy Compaq’s own proprietary memory modules. I’ll give you one guess as to which cost more. A lot more.

The Compaq representative tried to tell me that Compaq’s memory was more than twice as expensive because it was “better quality”. Leaving aside the question of whether or not any sane customer would be willing to pay $575 instead of $150 for memory that might be 1 nanosecond faster on a 386 computer, you have to ask yourself what Compaq really thinks of their customers.

That was the last time I recommended Compaq computers to anybody in a long time. I would guess that in the seven or eight years since I became aware of Compaq’s nasty tendency to booby-trap their hardware with proprietary devices (they even sometimes soldered memory onto the motherboard) my recommendations have been the deciding factor in about $200,000.00 of computer purchases. Maybe Compaq doesn’t care about the business they lost. They did pretty well anyway– until this year–, meaning that you can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time.

Don’t ask me why, but I recently recommended the Compaq notebook computer, an Armada 1700, to a few people. Lapse in judgment? I thought maybe Compaq had changed. Most of the computer press had given the Armada 1700 favourable reviews and I didn’t have time to review every detail, so I made a snap decision.

Surprise! Compaqs now come with built-in WINmodems. You know what a WINmodem is? Well, in the old days, a modem was a device that translated analog signals from a telephone line into digital information that was then forwarded to your CPU for processing. Well, the WINmodem offloads that translation function onto the CPU itself. This has a couple of wonderful effects. First of all, it adds work to your CPU, slowing down your computer. Secondly, it is proprietary to Windows– you can’t access this modem with Linux because Linux programmers aren’t stupid.

The real effect of WINmodems is to increase Microsoft’s death-grip on your desktop, and to add profits to the modem industry by making it cheaper for them to change models (they only have to rewrite the software: they don’t actually have to manufacturer new chips anymore).

Isn’t this a GREAT idea? No wonder Compaq embraced it!

There is nothing on the advertising or system information that comes with the Compaq notebook that tells you that you are getting a WINmodem. You have been suckered.

I called Compaq about a week after I received a Presario 1920 with this problem. I explained that I had been tricked: I had expected a real modem. I wanted to return my Presario for a similar model with a real modem. The technical support guy, who was polite at all times, said that Compaq did not make any notebook computers that did not have a WINmodem. Fine, I said, I’ll take my money back and go shopping for a brand (like Sony) that does have a real modem.

Unfortunately, Compaq said– in polite, but firm language: SUCKER! WE ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY! Even though the computer was less than 2 weeks old, there was no way that Compaq was going to take it back.

I said to the technical support guy something to this effect: A week ago you told me (figuratively) that this was such a wonderful, valuable, noble notebook computer that was worth every penny of what you were asking for it. In only one week, is it now so worthless that even Compaq doesn’t want it? There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

There are a couple of other reasons to dislike Compaq Notebooks:

Compaq has their own version of Windows and makes dire threats of evil consequences if you dare to install any other.

Compaq loads the notebook with tons of advertising and software for AOL, GENIE, MSN, and other on-line services. This is YOUR hard drive we’re talking about.

Compaq advertises a 6.4 GIG hard drive, but 1.5 GIG is taken up with something called “System Save”. Apparently, you can delete it if you want to, but, once again, you get dire warnings about potential problems.

Compaq’s installation CD over-writes everything on the hard drive. So, let’s say your Windows 98 gets buggered up somehow. Normally, you could try reinstalling it over your current system. If that fails, you can delete the Windows directory and try reinstalling again. Either way, you get to keep your precious data and configuration files. But Compaq’s install disk OVER-WRITES everything on your hard drive!

Here’s the biggest idiocy of all: due to overwhelming consumer demand, Compaq has decided to do away with the OFF switch. I kid you not. Compaq is so sure that Windows 98 is going to work just great that they have left it up to Bill Gates’ malevolent mishmash of mushy modules to shut your computer off.

How fool-proof is this? Within three hours, my Presario would no longer shut off. I called technical support. They said to hold the button down for four seconds. No dice. They said try again. Try again. Try again. Finally, he put me on hold and went off seeking advanced expertise. The advanced expert advised me to unplug the thing and pull out the battery. Brilliant! This approach has the advantage of possibly corrupting your systems files, requiring a re-install of Compaq’s proprietary Windows and the destruction of all of your data.

Finally, after about six or seven hours of use, my Compaq Presario 1920 began to lock up while running Word for Windows. Again, I am not kidding. A brand new 300 Mz. Pentium notebook computer with 64 MB of RAM locked up within six hours of use. And before it locked up, it began to thrash and hesitate: I would be typing away and the keyboard would be locked out while the CPU ran off to lala land. When it locked up, not even ctrl-alt-delete could revive it. Dead meat. Lost work. Thank you, Compaq. Thank you Microsoft.

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Lament for Geoworks

Does it surprise you to know that Windows is only about 9 years old? That it was released in 1990?

That version of Windows, of course, was called 3.0. There was a Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0, but they were so pathetically, mind-numbingly bad that nobody even tried to use it. Windows 3.0 was different. It was merely incomprehensibly bad. But it was made by Microsoft, the company that gave us Dos 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, and 3.3, and 4.0, of course, and 5.0 (the best dos ever), and 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2. And Bill Gates, at the press conference announcing the conception of Windows, warned that other graphical user interfaces wouldn’t be compatible with future versions of dos.

In 1990, nobody could have believed that Windows would be so late, so bad, and so slow. Everybody thought that in a year or so, we’d all be happily clicking and dragging around on our IBM compatibles in Microsoft Windows.

Geoworks was released in 1990, and it ran great. It was a true graphical user interface with a remarkably functional core, and real multi-tasking. It ran happily on 2 MB of RAM and required very little disk space.

Just as it was set to take the world by storm, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft was almost ready to roll out it’s own version, Windows, in just a few months.

Geoworks was destroyed, crushed by the announcement. Software developers switched to Windows, so third party applications dried up. Even worse, the investors pounded Geoworks’ stock until it was pretty well wiped out.

It took five years for a truly functional Windows to emerge (Windows 95) and, even then, it still wasn’t as reliable as Geoworks was in 1990. I run both Windows 98 and Windows NT on my desktop. They are both pieces of garbage, to put it bluntly. They are bloated, slow, bug-ridden, and annoying. Why do I use them? Because I make my living with computers. Everybody wants Office 97 and Quake and all the other Windows applications. I get paid to try to solve all the problems that shouldn’t exist.

There are other operating systems: Linux, BeOs, OS/2, but few applications that run on them. These other OS’s are strong, reliable, and fast, but Microsoft beat them off with sticks and stones. That is the legacy of Microsoft’s strong-arm tactics over the last 9 years. The result has been disastrous, though few people seem aware of it. The loss of productivity due to problems with Windows must be phenomenal.

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Avast, Ye Scurvy Software Swabs!

Have you ever considered the fact that the BEST thing that ever happened to Microsoft was software piracy?

Forget about today. Today, everyone buys Windows whether they want to or not, because, first of all, you usually have no choice, and, secondly, all of the software you want to use is written for Windows.

Let’s go back to 1985, before MS-DOS and Windows were dominant. The point of critical mass for the computer industry. Large numbers of people were buying a personal computer for the first time. These people were very, very important. These people were on the cutting edge. They were smart and willing to learn new things when most other people were content to keep using whatever it was they had been using before computers even existed.  When corporations, schools, and institutions bought computers in a big way a few years later, these people decided which computers and operating systems they bought.

So, it’s 1985. You are shopping for a computer. Some of your friends already have computers. You look at an IBM clone for $2500.00. You look at an Apple MacIntosh for $3000.00. You know the Apple is a better computer– that’s no secret. But the biggest factor is money. Okay, but you own a Toyota: you’re willing to pay a bit more for quality. Okay– it’s the Apple.

Wait a minute! Once you get your computer, what are you going to run on it? Well, you’ll need a word processor. Actually, you lust for a word processor. You check the prices: Word for the MacIntosh is $450.00. Word Perfect for DOS is $450.00. What about a spreadsheet? Lotus 1-2-3 for $565.00, or Excel for about the same price for Apple. Graphics? Accounting? Games? Music? Are you ready to spend $5000.00 for enough software to really go to town with your machine?

Are you nuts?

But, hey, Bob, your accountant friend, has a copy of Lotus, and he also has a little application that removes the copy protection from the disks. Same for Word Perfect– which is about to drop copy protection anyway. And you know someone else with a copy of Flight Simulator. Hey, now we’re in business! How about ACC/PAC? Newsviews? ProComm? Now we’re cooking. But these are all DOS applications. You don’t know anybody with MacIntosh software for obvious reasons, not the least of which is this: the MacIntosh is much more difficult to hack.  Why?  Because it is a better computer and because Apple maintained tight control over how software is written for it.  That’s why there are few bugs.  That’s why it runs better.  But that’s also why it’s much hard to copy their software.

So, the IBM clone, of course. You get your pirated copy of Word Perfect 4.2 and love it.

Next year, your company buys computers. Do you want to retrain yourself in Word for the MacIntosh? Are you crazy? So you recommend IBM computers, or compatibles, and your company buys lots of licensed copies of Word Perfect, fearful of avenging squads of Software Police.

Why are pirated copies of DOS applications freely available? Because Apple uses proprietary hardware and software on its systems. You can’t buy an Apple clone and hack into it. If you want an Apple, you have to buy an Apple. But hackers and pirates are not big spenders. They buy the cheapest clones they can get. They take their computers apart (something Apple discouraged, with it’s sealed case and integrated monitor) and hack and pirate away. And because of the plentiful IBM clones there also plentiful IBM clone accessories, add-in cards, peripherals. At another critical moment, colour monitors became cheaply available for IBM clones while MacIntosh, inexplicably, stayed wedded to their tiny little black and white integrated screen.

Piracy was the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft.

Imagine for a moment that there had been no piracy. Imagine that Mr. Computer Buyer, above, knew that he would have to pay for every piece of software he acquired for his computer. Imagine.

I imagine he probably would have bought the computer he thought was the best. He would have acquired the best software for the money. And a lot of people would have chosen a MacIntosh instead of an IBM clone.

Sure, a lot of people would have bought the cheapest hardware out there regardless of quality. But at the moment of critical mass, a very large number of people would have bought the better product, the same way that large numbers of people started buying Toyotas and Hondas instead of Cavaliers and Escorts, even though they cost more.

So Apple died the death of a thousand cuts.

Well, Apple is trying to make a comeback with its new Imac. Is it too late? It is a tribute to the bitter disappointment many influential computer people feel about the Microsoft product that Apple even has a chance. In fact, never in history has such a bad product, Windows, been so successful in the marketplace.

Back in 1985, I owned an Apple IIc. It wasn’t much by today’s standards, but it did one thing that Microsoft Windows still isn’t able to do: it ran reliably. Every night, I turned it on and went to work. I wrote and calculated and listed and printed and compiled and researched and edited and drew and composed… I worked. It worked. It was great. I had Appleworks, which combined a spreadsheet, word processor, and flat-file data base. It ran great and I loved it. I installed it once. Once.

Then I got myself an IBM XT clone. For the next year, I spent most of my time trying to figure out to get the damn thing to run decently. Word Perfect was nice, but there was no DOS version of Appleworks, so I lost my data bases and spread sheets. Lotus was powerful, but I didn’t need macros: I needed to be able to switch efficiently from one application to another. The IBM clone couldn’t do that at all for another five years, and couldn’t do it reliably for another ten. So what did I trade my precious IIc for, really?

Fonts.

Yes, fonts. That’s about it. The main advantage of the IBM clone was… fonts.

What do I spend most of my time doing with my mighty Pentium 133 with 6.5 GIG hard drive, 64 Megabytes of RAM, 32 voice digital music card, laser printer, SCSI drive, ATI Rage graphics adapter? Configuring. Fixing. Reinstalling. Debugging. Patching. Figuring out.  And doing the same work over and over again because the damn thing crashed while the file was still open.

This year alone, I have had to erase everything on my hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch three times. This takes hours and hours and hours. And then it takes weeks to get the system tweaked back to a level of usefulness. By that time, your fresh install of Windows is back to its old tricks: locking up, freezing, slowing to a kludge.

This is insane.

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Microsoft Windows Sucks

I recently reformatted my hard drive, erasing every last vestige of my bug-ridden, over-worked, over-loaded, registry polluted Windows 95 installation. I thought it might help. My hard disk was thrashing like crazy, programs froze-up, graphics broke into fragments of tiny coloured pixels like some splattered silicon suicide on a glass sidewalk.

It did not help. Windows still runs like garbage. I have 64 megabytes of RAM, and it still thrashes like crazy. Word sucks up memory like a drunken politician leaving precious little for really powerful programs like Corel Draw. It is pitiful.

For a quick record, these programs run badly:

  • Word 7.0
  • Corel Draw 5.0
  • Adobe Photoshop 3.0
  • Windows 95
  • Clean Sweep
  • Norton Utilities 2.0
  • Crash Guard
  • Netscape 4.0
  • Norton Anti-Virus 3.0.

These programs run reasonably well:

  • Quicken 2.0
  • Front Page 98
  • Excel 97
  • Cakewalk 6.0

These programs run REALLY well:

  • Paintshop Pro 5.0.

Even Microsoft basically admits that their software is full of bugs. My question is, why can’t we get our money back? Because they won’t give it to you. They simply refuse. They laugh in your face and say, “Go to hell. We got your money. Don’t make trouble or we’ll sick our vampire lawyers on you.”

The automakers must see this and turn green with envy. Why didn’t they think of that? “Sir, the gas tank on my Pinto just exploded incinerating my family.” “Go to hell– what do we care.”