Wednesday, August 11, 2010

More Reasons to Hate Bill Gates

* * Strong Language Warning * *

Written 11 August, 2010


More Reasons to Hate Bill Gates

I admire Bill Gates for his philanthropic work, but with one exception, I hate everything he ever did with computers. That exception is MicroSoft's implementation of the BASIC programming language in the first generation of home computers. It was a tiny (by today's standards) piece of code that brought computing into the homes of millions of people around the world.

Since then, it's all been downhill.

I finally abandoned my Commodore 64 for a 286 desktop running Windows 95. My workplace had two boxed IBM PS2 computers, and I appropriated one and installed Windows 3.1. The installation took up about 80% of the PS/2's tiny 5 mb hard drive, and I blamed it on Bill Gates.

Over the years I've renamed my My Computer shortcuts, growing stronger and stronger in my expressions of dislike for Bill Gates- for instance, IReallyHateBillFuckingGates.

I stopped this tradition with Windows XP (couldn't think of expletives stronger than the ones I had already used), but I just today renamed My Computer on my laptop to BillEffingGatesBreaksDamnAllEverything!!!

When Windows Vista debuted, I was wise enough to stick with XP, which has worked well for me. But the laptop came with Windows 7, and I can't find my XP disk (which is 32 bit anyway), so I've been TRYING to like W7. Sweetie is a bit exasperated with me, but she, being a Mac person, can't know how frustrating it is when EVERYTHING is different.

* The Start Menu, in particular, makes me want to tear my hair out. Sweetie did some research so I was finally able to open it and rearrange my programs in logical order, thanks, dear, and I made folders and dragged shortcuts into them-- and guess what? The folders don't show up in All Programs, even though they're in the frigging Programs folder.

I understand there are some third-party fixes for this, but haven't yet installed one. For now, I've dragged the entire Programs folder to the desktop, and fuck Bill Gates.

* iTunes-- a critical program, for I have an iTouch-- told me it was broken and asked me to reinstall it, but even though I'm running as administrator, W7 tells me I don't have the necessary permissions. So for several months, no iTunes. I don't know what I'll do when I go on the road. Take my old laptop, possibly.

* I loaded WordPad today to edit a file. The drop down menus-- you know, FILE, EDIT, VIEW-- were just gone, replaced with a doofy dropdown that reminds me to no end of the hidden media controls in Second Life Viewer 2.0.

Just everything is damn different-- and for what? Why?

Bill Gates, introduce new shit if you want to, but you need to leave us the option to interact with our computers in familiar ways. And until you learn this lesson, despite your philanthropy, just FUCK YOU!

1 comment:

Melissa Yeuxdoux said...

Linux patiently waits, ready to install for free and to coexist with Windows if you wish via dual boot. It gives you a wide variety of windowing environments to choose from:, extreme minimalist environments like ratpoison, the small and elegant fluxbox, or others like xfce, on up to the heavyweights GNOME and KDE. (Or Enlightenment version 17, which is really impressive while still not bloated.)