Better Late Than Never!

I so wanted to update this blog on a regular basis but life doesn't seem to work on the same schedule you lay out for yourself, does it?

I know everyone does it, but I want to rant a bit on MicroSoft (could it be that maybe they deserve the rants?) I cannot understand why they offer updates that totally screw up your system and especially mess up their own products!

We only have slow, slow dial-up internet service out here in the boonies so I spent about 4 hours downloading some non-critical updates from MicroSoft in order to try their latest beta of Expression software. After I got all the updates downloaded and installed, got the software installed, I found out that Expression was merely a 30-day trial and not a free download after all! Not only that, but some software I already had on my computer now refused to work or kept giving me error messages! The worst thing was that my email no longer worked! I use Outlook Express and I kept getting error messages with it saying that it had to close! Finally, I had to totally uninstall the Expression beta and do a system restore to get my other software working again.

No wonder everyone rags on MicroSoft - this was not some insidious worm or virus that a competitor or smart-alecky kid produced and which entered my system because MS forgot to plug a security hole. This was the company's own programmers writing updates and software that conflicts with other software that they've produced! Now, how smart is that?

I believe that Apple products are waaaay overpriced, but if they work as well as their loyal supporters say they do, my next computer may well be a Mac!