Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Say Something Nice About Microsoft Day

No, that's not a real holiday. I just feel like it. It's kind of difficult. I've never done it before. The nicest thing I think I've ever said is that I'm not uncomfortable using Windows. Otherwise I tend to avoid that which emanates from Redmond. When I heard about OpenOffice.org's free office suite I downloaded it right away and use it for all my word processing and spreadsheet stuff. I don't have the Microsoft version on my computer and I never miss it. I tried Hotmail once. Dumped it. I gave Bing a chance. Google still works better for me most of the time. I even find MSNBC to be annoying (which isn't really saying much, as the alternatives are pretty darn annoying too).

For the last year or so I've been running Windows Vista. Why, you may ask? Because some nasty virus strolled right past my Norton anti-virus (screw you too Symantec) and made a nice little nest for itself in XP-land. Killer. I switched over to a new machine with the operating system that had just come out. Vista was . . . you remember Clippy, the annoying “office assistant?” When Microsoft finally killed the critter its soul migrated into Vista. Here's how it worked. You want to do something routine. “It looks like you're trying to do something. Are sure you want to do that?” Yes, I'm sure. “Are you really sure?” Yes, dammit, I'm sure. “Okay. Oh wait, you can't do that.” What, why not? “Because I am Vista, and I HATE YOU!”

Or something like that. Anyway, I recently switched to Windows 7. I've been using it for more than a week now. And here comes the difficult part.

I like Windows 7. I like the way you can move things around and personalize your machine. I like the new taskbar. I like jumplists. I like the way things are laid out. It makes everything easier. I like it.

There. I've said something nice about Microsoft. Confession, I'm told, is good for the soul.

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