Re: Just venting (totally OT)

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

Computers make me scream too - I really hate it when I use the help
on Microsoft products to find out how to do something and it tells me
to use an option on a non-existent menu.


Yup! This is a Jasc product (PaintShop Pro) with a plugin that
someone has made for PSP and it's that which isn't working! :o(

[snip]

There are alternatives to Microsoft and the whole Windoze thing, you
know.

Yup, but Windoze is the only OS I know how to use and my memory is so bad
that it's pointless even *trying* to learn something else! :o(

Another way to look at it is that your memory is so bad it's irrelevant.

You'd find `not a lot of trouble' moving to a Mac from modern Windoze -
the current Mac UI is designed to match the expectations of Windoze
users, sort of thing (it's different in all sorts of ways, but it's been
tweaked to make it easy for people changing from Windoze). The whole UI
is much less confusing, so once you'd got the hang of it - `what all the
bits mean', sort of thing - you'd probably end up finding it a lot less
bother than Windoze. Honest.

And this is from someone who thought most of the above back on first
meeting a Mac in 1990, after he'd been using MS OSes for some time.

I'm not a long-term Mac head, you see - I came to Macs rather late in
the day. I had been using lesser computers. Bloody crappy MS-powered
computers, damnit, and I loathed 'em. Apple is as much of a loathesome
firm as MS, but its operating systems are a lot better.

Look, one of the reasons you have trouble using computers is that you
can't recall what to do and none of it makes any sense. It's easier to
recall what to do on Macs than on Windoze 'cos it's more obvious and
makes more sense - and that's what I thought within half an hour of
being shown a Mac and `how it worked' at the UI level. I'd been using
MS OSes for years before that - years of practice with MS operating
systems counted for nothing when compared to the ease of use of the
Macs.

Yes, it really is like that. And if you did make the switch, you'd be
spared a lot of bother. Okay, bother with Macs exists, but there's less
of it.

btw, I'd very much like to be able to suggest that you abandoned MS and
chose `A Mac, or a something else, or a third option'. The problem is
that there's only Macs or MS for the non-expert home user these days -
Apple is the only firm that survived MS's illegal actions to wipe out
its competition in the microcomputer marketplace.

Right from the early days, Apple wanted to sell millions of computers.
But right from the early days, MS wanted to achieve a global monopoly by
hook or by crook. MS won, because Bill Gates comes from a long line of
corporate lawyers. Apple survived, because The Steve understands
`what's hip'. The Steve is every bit as loathsome and despicable as
Bill Gates, mind.

The last time I used Windoze on a regular basis was in 1995, and that
was Win 3.11. It's *great* not having to put up with all that crap -
especially since it's got a lot worse since those days.

Yup, Windoze 3.11 is what I was taught on and I've been using Windoze
ever since!

I've never been taught to use computers (well, aside from a classroom
1/2hr intro to Macs once). I learnt. I learnt on a Nascom II and an
Apple ][ back in the late 70s. Then a ZX81 and a BBC Micro. Then
crappy MS-DOS came along, in all its 1970s glory (just what was needed
in the 80s, obviously). MS-DOS stank. Then MS Windoze 3 came along.
It stank too. I did once use MS Windoze 2 - it's just a sick joke.
I've seen screenshots and explanations of MS Windoze 1. It's a weak
sick joke designed by a sickly infant - not even worth noticing, and I
cannot imagine who would have tried to use it. You wouldn't believe it
to see it, I reckon.

I've always loathed MS software - MS Basic was, back in the 8 bit days
before MS-DOS, raved about by USAians but largely sniggered at over here
because the non-MS dialects of Basic we had were all superior; BBC Basic
and Sinclair Basic were rather nice, actually. Especially BBC Basic
with proper structuring.

Anyway, Win 3 is crap, and Win 95 was designed to be unreliable by
design with the `fragile by design single point of failure' registry
file. It's a wonder that modern versions of Windoze run at all if you
ask me. Well, if you read what people write, you find out that actually
it never seems to work properly. All subsequent versions of Windoze
have suffered from the same problem.

Which isn't to say that Macs all work right - they don't. But I can
cope with the fancy GUI typography controls being `simply non
functional' - Apple boasts about how wonderful all this magical new kit
is, but a lot of it `just doesn't work at all'. <shrug> But the basic
OS just keeps going.

Rowland.

P.S. Although any computer is likely to make you scream at some point.
Although what's making me scream at the moment is iTunes's inability to
play .flac files directly, coupled with the inability of the flac
converter I found to put sensible metadata on to the files it outputs.
Translation: lots of bloody typing. Oh yes it can convert the files in
a flash, no worries there - there are some advantages to four fat and
fast CPUs and a multithreaded converter - but then it takes me twenty
times as long to type in the track names and whatnot. Harumph. I've
got a computer to do that for me, so why isn't it?


I wish I knew but that has just got wizzing over my head... sorry!

Oh, don't worry about it.

Rowland.


--
Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sorry - the spam got to me
http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk
UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
.

Loading