Lancing.

[hannah]

I'm not quite so angry I'm shaking anymore, which is good. Maybe I'll get to sleep without alcohol to help.

I turned on my new computer and fiddled with it for about twenty minutes, nearly an hour ago, and I still want to throw it across the room and beat it with a baseball bat in the driveway.

The root of the problem is that it has Windows 7 as the operating system. And before anyone chimes in with some comment on Macs or Linux or Unix or punchcards or the abacus, don't. Please don't. It's more than I'm just very angry with computers right now: the problem, which you can't seem to grasp, is that the issue isn't the hardware or the software or the amazing capabilities but the simple matter of how the information is presented on the screen.

Read that again. How the information is presented on the screen. The GUI, if you like. If I can't figure that out, or the display that comes up as soon as I've named the computer and plugged in the time zone makes me recoil, I'm not going to want to keep using the product.

I fail to see why that's such a hard concept for so many people to understand. No, it's not about the operating system 'working me' and no, it's not about copyright law, and no, it's not about gaming, and no, it's not about pretty much anything else like that, either.

It's about whether or not I can find what I'm looking for, and whether or not it'll give me a headache.

I'd be less worried about this if I knew my school's computer lab could swap out Windows 7 and put Windows XP on instead without messing with the computer's wireless settings.

Yes, yes, word processing and media and internet box, that's what I want in a computer. But I can't do any of that if the machine itself is, for my perception, broken.

Thank you, good night, and fuck you.

Comments

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

*snuggle*

This is why the only reason I upgraded from Windows 98 is because I bought a new computer.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

If Microsoft charged $5 for GUIs that made one operating system look like another, they'd have enough for a congressman by now.

[anglepoiselamp.livejournal.com]

Trying to find stuff in Windows 7 gives me a headache too. Not only is it fairly different from XP, some of the things I used the most are in counter-intuitive places or no longer available at all. :/

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

It's got too many graphics. I need more text.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

I understand exactly. My new work computer came with Office 2007 on it and I hated it. The display was like a word processing program for illiterates with a short attention span. We still had the Office 2002 software, so I took that new crap off and put the friendly old stuff on.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

What bothers me less than the new presentation for Office - which I find annoying, but capable of dealing with - is the presentation for Windows Media Player, where I can't organize anything worth finding again. Fortunately, I know I can uninstall it and put an older version back on.

[lizzie-omalley.livejournal.com]

I totally understand. I hate the latest Microsoft logic; it doesn't function as I do. I want a computer to be configurable to my style; I don't want to have to adapt to its. It is my tool, I am not its operator. I did switch to Mac and it does work for me, most of the time. There are instances where Mac logic doesn't, like the fact that I can't sort things by extension type, but, for me, the Mac is better than the latest Microsoft stuff.

(Note: This is not a plug for you to switch to the Mac, just an explanation about why I did. For the record, it took many years and the fact that I did not like any of the latest PCs available when my last PC reached the point of dying. Since I can't do that kind of shopping on the Net, too touchy feely a shopper, I had my hands on many different computers over many months before I purchased anything.)

I hope you can get the computer set up sorted so it does fit how you need it to be.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

I can understand how Microsoft is working right now, trying to rebrand itself as something reasonably hip that anyone could use, but I'll never get how anyone can find anything on a Mac.

[lizzie-omalley.livejournal.com]

Ah! Therein lies the problem; I am not hip. LOL. Never have been and now I don't even wanna be. *silly grin*

Interestingly, I structure my organization and tell my mac where I want things put, much as I did with the PC. I never used any of the folders that Windows had set up for storage. It was always a matter of annoyance that I couldn't get rid of them altogether.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

All I can say is, you have my sympathies.

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Thank you.