Amid Assimilation
January 18, 2002
7:33 a.m.
I had another good morning at the keyboard. I went back and scanned through the stuff I did yesterday first (a process Steve calls taking one step back, then two steps forward), then moved on. My assessment of yesterday's work was: good stuff, but out of order. So I mushed it a little. Overall, things are going swimmingly right now … well … with one little exception …   I am not a Microsoft hater. Still, I have to admit I have always found myself drawn to things more in the vein of the open source mindset--things more Netscapey. Microsoft often makes some pretty good software. They may not be great innovators, but they know how to release and perfect and release and perfect until they overpower their competition. Despite the fact that XP does a ton of things that make me uncomfortable because I'm not used to them, it is not Microsoft's software that bothers me. It is the attitude of their software. Or, maybe to be more precise, it is their presets. Why the heck does Microsoft think they need to preset every one of their features on? I mean, who the heck can tell what's happening when it's all happening at once? How about just dropping basic functionality onto your programs, and letting the users actually choose what to turn on and what to leave off? Geeze… Lisa has been on the Windows upgrade path for several years, whereas until the new system came in I had stayed with Windows 95, and Word 97. During her travails, I would often come home to find her in--let's just say--a dark mood because she had spent most of the day struggling to deal with a Windows issue. But now she's on the crest of the curve, and she's digging into her new system and exploring the nuances and features of the thing and just having the time of her life. It's enough to make you sick. I, on the other hand, have yet to come fully to the thinkspace that XP requires. "I notice you're not having fun," Lisa has said on several occasions. And I generally grumble and go back to the drawing board, and then spend the next fifteen to thirty minutes trying to figure out why the heck my system is trying to get on-line when I don't think I've told it to. Microsoft is too damned "helpful" in my book, at least at present. I like that they've got all this great stuff. But the attitude they show through their presets is "Why in the world wouldn't you want to do this? And I find that approach a bit … uh … abrasive. At one point last night, Lisa said "It seems to me that you just want a rock," meaning that I jsut want a basic system that has no features. But that's not right. I love features and gadgets. What I want is for my system to do what I tell it to do, and nothing else. I'm sure it's just me. But I rely on my computer for a lot of things, and I find myself getting edgy when stuff happens that I don't understand. Even if it's really, really helpful in the end. Yesterday Lisa walked me through several things that she knows, and that helped. In the end we argued, though, because she wants me to enjoy this new system, and doesn't think I am. To an extent she's probably right. Don't get me wrong -- I love the hardware. A 17" flat panel is a glorious site to behold, and the processor is ten times the unit I had before. And, to be certain, IE 6 is gloriously better than Netscape's 4.X package. Sorry if that makes you mad. I love my Netscape, but as Catherine so eloquently stated, the latest product from them has been fecal in matter. It's nice to have a browser that doesn't hang ever hour or two. And, I've got to say that I have yet to have XP crash. This is all good. But when I have to stop doing productive things in order to figure out what the operating system or an application is doing, then I'm going to get grumpy. I've only got one and two hour packets of time in my regular work cycle to get anything done. I don't like spending twenty minute chunks of that time figuring out what's happening behind the scenes of my desktop. So Lisa's having to deal with the fallout. At the end of the night, I looked at Lisa and apologized for any frustration I was taking out on her, not that it really helped, I suppose … but there you have it. "The problem here," I said. "Is that you're watching the process of me being assimilated, and it's not a pretty sight." Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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