Re: Just venting (totally OT)

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
news:1ib5lx5.1099zl51vlfw5rN%real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

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.


I might give it a go if my memory improves then! :o) Where do you get
Macs from? The only places that I know sell computers sell Windows
machines and I haven't got a clue where to start looking for Macs!

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.


Ah right!

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.


Groovy! :o)

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.


Cool!

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.


What sort of problems do you get with Macs?

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.


I've just had a thought... everything I do on the computer only works on
Windows, not on a Mac :o(

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.


Ah right!

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.


*nodding* It doesn't sound like it!

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.


I had a Sinclair Spectrum when I was a kid to play games on and stuff

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.


XP and Vista are more stable thankfully... neither of them are perfect
but they are better than the early days!

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.


Yup! :o)

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.


Sorry!

Rowland.



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