Thursday, October 18, 2007
TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG
I've struggled with how and if to start writing a blog since I registered this account in 2006. I have tended to agree with the view that, if you're not careful, a blog is most easily seen as a form of vanity publishing - and I hope I'm not vain! Well, I have yet to be brave enough to add a photo of my ugly mug to this blog - ditto Facebook, which I've had to join because friends travelling the world on their yacht want to send me pics from their various stops, and Skype.
So, anyway, I have got started at last and I have decided the first thing I need to do is tell you how awful Windows Vista is. I'm no Microsoft basher, but Vista makes me want to take up the baseball (or cricket?) bat and go looking for someone from Redmond or Seattle to sort out. We're several generations into Windows now, so why does the latest version of the world's leading PC operating system have so much wrong with it at launch? Why does Microsoft insist on forcing people to learn how to use its software all over again, with its attendant negative impact on productivity, efficiency and user serenity?
I bought a new Toshiba Satellite laptop from PC World in early August. It was pre-loaded with Vista Ultimate. 'Ho hum' - I thought, having heard nothing good about Vista since it was launched and that includes the people who have to sell PCs with Windows Vista. Within a day or so, I realised that the new 'Power Plans' do not actually work. It doesn't matter what settings you apply to tell your PC when to turn off the display or hard drive or itself - it just ignores them and stays on regardless, whether on battery or mains. Ok, this could be Toshiba's fault for not ensuring that its hardware worked properly with Vista before putting it on sale, but I never heard of anyone having this problem with PCs running Windows XP. Neither PC World not its so-called Tech Guys could solve this one, so if I want to turn off the display while I go and do something else for a while, I have to put the PC to sleep manually. That's progress?
Remember Outlook Express? Quite a mature program (when I write I tend to use the American spelling to differentiate computer software from things like television programmes) by the time you found it bundled with Windows XP. Nice simple email program that... sent and received email. In Windows Vista it has become Windows Mail and, on my new lappie at least, refused to send email under any circumstances. Even with the firewall turned off. For a nth generation product, that is completely unacceptable. As I wanted to use the full version of Outlook for another email account, I had to go hunting for another email program. Being a fan of Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, I thought I'd try its Thunderbird product, but that's hopeless as well. Eventually I came across end-of-life Eudora, which does what it should, even if it does display incoming emails in a rather quirky way - header gobbledegook and all.
I know I am far from the first to make these gripes about Microsoft, but I do feel that the company introduces changes and tweaks for the hell of it, just so they can claim that they have launched something really new. Why did they do away with the Office Toolbar, a truly useful little gadget for launching your favourite programs? Why in Vista have they moved things you use all the time to new locations, so you have to learn all over again where they are? Why did they mess around with the Mail Merge Manager in Office 2003, so it doesn't work as well as it did in Office 2000. I could go on, but you get the point.
A quick pop at Hewlett-Packard, "the inkjet cartridge company" as someone once Christened it. I have a ScanJet 3300C flatbed colour scanner. Not ancient, by any means - connects via USB - so quite up to date. Went to get Vista drivers for it from HP's otherwise excellent support pages, only to find the doom-laden message: 'HP is not supporting this scanner under Windows Vista. We suggest you consider buying one of our lovely new scanners instead.' Well, thanks for that, HP. As both scanners I've had from you over the years have tended to be a tad temperamental, I think it's time for a change. So it's bye-bye HP, hello Canon and 'nul points' to Microsoft for making Vista just different enough to make my scanner redundant and to HP for contributing a little bit more to landfill world-wide.
Rest assured -my blog is not going to be IT-based. I have finally found a genuine reason for blogging: to showcase my writing abilities so that visitors to my business website can see bang-up-to-date proof that I can write - and write well. I hope you will come along with me.
I've struggled with how and if to start writing a blog since I registered this account in 2006. I have tended to agree with the view that, if you're not careful, a blog is most easily seen as a form of vanity publishing - and I hope I'm not vain! Well, I have yet to be brave enough to add a photo of my ugly mug to this blog - ditto Facebook, which I've had to join because friends travelling the world on their yacht want to send me pics from their various stops, and Skype.
So, anyway, I have got started at last and I have decided the first thing I need to do is tell you how awful Windows Vista is. I'm no Microsoft basher, but Vista makes me want to take up the baseball (or cricket?) bat and go looking for someone from Redmond or Seattle to sort out. We're several generations into Windows now, so why does the latest version of the world's leading PC operating system have so much wrong with it at launch? Why does Microsoft insist on forcing people to learn how to use its software all over again, with its attendant negative impact on productivity, efficiency and user serenity?
I bought a new Toshiba Satellite laptop from PC World in early August. It was pre-loaded with Vista Ultimate. 'Ho hum' - I thought, having heard nothing good about Vista since it was launched and that includes the people who have to sell PCs with Windows Vista. Within a day or so, I realised that the new 'Power Plans' do not actually work. It doesn't matter what settings you apply to tell your PC when to turn off the display or hard drive or itself - it just ignores them and stays on regardless, whether on battery or mains. Ok, this could be Toshiba's fault for not ensuring that its hardware worked properly with Vista before putting it on sale, but I never heard of anyone having this problem with PCs running Windows XP. Neither PC World not its so-called Tech Guys could solve this one, so if I want to turn off the display while I go and do something else for a while, I have to put the PC to sleep manually. That's progress?
Remember Outlook Express? Quite a mature program (when I write I tend to use the American spelling to differentiate computer software from things like television programmes) by the time you found it bundled with Windows XP. Nice simple email program that... sent and received email. In Windows Vista it has become Windows Mail and, on my new lappie at least, refused to send email under any circumstances. Even with the firewall turned off. For a nth generation product, that is completely unacceptable. As I wanted to use the full version of Outlook for another email account, I had to go hunting for another email program. Being a fan of Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, I thought I'd try its Thunderbird product, but that's hopeless as well. Eventually I came across end-of-life Eudora, which does what it should, even if it does display incoming emails in a rather quirky way - header gobbledegook and all.
I know I am far from the first to make these gripes about Microsoft, but I do feel that the company introduces changes and tweaks for the hell of it, just so they can claim that they have launched something really new. Why did they do away with the Office Toolbar, a truly useful little gadget for launching your favourite programs? Why in Vista have they moved things you use all the time to new locations, so you have to learn all over again where they are? Why did they mess around with the Mail Merge Manager in Office 2003, so it doesn't work as well as it did in Office 2000. I could go on, but you get the point.
A quick pop at Hewlett-Packard, "the inkjet cartridge company" as someone once Christened it. I have a ScanJet 3300C flatbed colour scanner. Not ancient, by any means - connects via USB - so quite up to date. Went to get Vista drivers for it from HP's otherwise excellent support pages, only to find the doom-laden message: 'HP is not supporting this scanner under Windows Vista. We suggest you consider buying one of our lovely new scanners instead.' Well, thanks for that, HP. As both scanners I've had from you over the years have tended to be a tad temperamental, I think it's time for a change. So it's bye-bye HP, hello Canon and 'nul points' to Microsoft for making Vista just different enough to make my scanner redundant and to HP for contributing a little bit more to landfill world-wide.
Rest assured -my blog is not going to be IT-based. I have finally found a genuine reason for blogging: to showcase my writing abilities so that visitors to my business website can see bang-up-to-date proof that I can write - and write well. I hope you will come along with me.
Labels: To blog or not to blog - getting started
