VISTA and the Stuck alpha numeric Keys

Yet another reason to hate VISTA

 

I understand that a company does customer research; or we hope they do, but certain Cola companies, as well as Wendy’s seem to just skip over that step.  And, in doing their research, let us say that Microsoft has found that their customers want them to use an icon for a key that holds the shut-down, sleep, hibernate modes.

 

You know there are a lot of things that could work for that, a shut eye, a pillow, a sleeping baby, a bunch of zzzzz’s, a hibernating bear.  I’m sure you can think of better ones, so what world do the Microsoft Designers live in where an arrow pointing right means “shut-down, go to sleep, hibernate.”

 

Granted, I may not be the smartest bulb around but I have, as I so often tell you, used computers since the KAYPRO.  And, it took us a while to actually find where they put the Shut-down, on the thing. Obviously, since it was nearly in the same spot, it should not have taken that long, but it did. It just wasn’t obvious.

 

When the personal computer came out, I think they wanted to encourage people and let them know that everyone could use it. Now, their goal seems to be to make you work for it. They want you to hire techs to show you how awesome their new version is. Hence, the idiot insulting commercial they play now; insinuating that all those new VISTA owners are only complaining because they cannot figure it out.

 

I envision Microsoft designers, sitting around, drinking Margaritas.

 

Designer #1 says, “Hey, you know what would be fun? Let’s move all those things that have become automatic for people and watch them fumble for months with their new computer.”

 

Designer #2 says, “Yeah, Dude, I love to watch those idiots screw up simple stuff.”

 

Designer #3, wakes up and goes, “Ya really want to mess with their minds?  Play with Sticky keys. They get so frustrated when they accidently turn them on.”

 

Designer #1 agrees, “Yeah, and put Help and Support so they can only access it from online.  They’ll hate that one.” 

 

Designer #2, “Okay, but we gotta find something that they can’t find when they need, like in Control Panel.”  He giggles and New Coke drizzles out his nose.

 

Designer #3, obviously the man with all the really GOOD ideas, “Yeah, that’s good, they’ll go to Control Panel and get confident they know what they’re doing and then they go to Accessibility Options and it’s not there.  Let’s rename it so they have to search for it.”

 

Designer #1, “I got it, rename it  EASE OF ACCESS CENTER.  Then it’s on a whole other row.

 

Designer #2, “Okay, but ya gotta change the icon too so they don’t find it right away.”

 

AND, in their brain dead state, they do all that and more and then insult me by telling me that I only need someone to show me how to use it.  I know the #%!% how to use it, it just doesn’t work.

 

JRockGuitarMan’s VISTA challenged computer was stuck on numeric lock for the alpha keys for three days.  Granted, I should have figured it out sooner.  It was really simple but I got stuck, myself, on the idea that it was a “Sticky Keys” issue, thus finding out that the only way to Access Help is by going on-line and that, for some unknown reason, they changed Accessibility Options to Ease of Accessibility, so the first time you go for it you have to search. 

 

Today, I realized his computer had a simple fix with the Fn key and the “Scroll/lock” key and now he can type normal again.  So many things do not work on VISTA, like any software I have or purchased right before I bought it, that I’m expecting everything to be difficult.  Shame on me!  Now, onto the next problem – why did his voice recognition quit working?

 

However, I, a died in the wool defender of Bill Gates and Microsoft for years, declare it officially now:      Microsoft VISTA STINKS!!

 

As if I did not know that already.

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Windows Mojave, RIGHT!!!!!

I have used Windows for eons. I have owned about a dozen computers, starting with a DOS KAYPRO, and currently have four laptops and two desktops in our home; depending on how many people are actually home that month.  We, who have ONE, count them, ONE laptop that has VISTA, and absolutely HATE IT.

 

Now, I have spent enough time on VISTA, trying to get it to work, to have learned my way around.  I am not sure why they felt the need to move the Control Panel, nor made it more steps to Shut it Down.  Oh, WAIT, yes I know that one.   They made it harder to find the shut down because it takes so freekin long for it to shut down that they figure you will just leave it on all the time.  What? They own electric company stock too?

 

You know what, Microsoft.  I am impressed with some of the things that VISTA comes with; like the voice recognition is improved.  But, what does it matter when none of my (repeat this) NONE of my current and recently purchased software will work with it.  Even with that handy, “Make your software work with stupid VISTA” program you include.  Guess what.  It doesn’t work either.

 

AND, WE ARE NOT STUPID! And, I am insulted by your stupid attempt to act like your customers are all just stupid.  We, who have used Windows since you introduced it in 1985, I used MS Dos before that, and figured out every upgrade to date, we are not stupid.  We have figured out how to use it and we still do not like it.

 

We know that obviously you either cannot or refuse to fix VISTA for us and paying gazillions of dollars to make and play an add that says, “Hey, you are so stupid that this whole time you have been fighting with VISTA, we are going to tell you that you just don’t know how to get around in VISTA.  It’s not our idiot VISTA operating system. We call it Mojave, and taught people how to turn it on and they LOVE IT.  So, it’s you. You stupid people.”

 

What a fool I am.  Had I known that unlike every other Windows version where software would extend over several versions, you made sure that VISTA owners would have to purchase all new software. This includes downloading new software for my two printers, only one of which works anyway with VISTA, even after I downloaded the software.  So, now I’m supposed to go out and purchase a new printer too. You may be made of money, Microsoft, I am not.

 

Is this kind of like WalMart.  Sam Walton dies and it goes to China and hell?  The goods and bags are so cheap and self-destruct.  Of course, that is good for the ecology as I now have neat $1 cloth bags.   So, Bill Gates retires and now Microsoft is owned by a bunch of unsupervised idiots, who are so stupid they are publicly insinuating their own users are idiots?

 

Yeah, Microsoft, I’m real impressed with your new name for VISTA.  It’s going to make it a lot better.

 

Windows Mojave, RIGHT!!!

 

You know the commercials where the Mac Man and the Windows Man talk. I have been a Windows person since the beginning, but man that Mac is looking better and better.  I have heard that my software works with it now.

 

There, I got that off my chest!

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Who I am: blogging and art.

I am someone who has had incredible problems just responding to a blog. I am currently banging my head on a brick wall in figuring out how to “blog.” I’m sure there is a Blogging for Dummies book out there, but I refuse to buy it. I’ve been like that since I bought a KAYPRO, way back when, and for those who do not know what a Kaypro is: It is a computer in a metal suitcase with no memory. The memory was all on a 5 1/2″ floppy, but it had a great game called Wumpus. There were no visuals, all in your head and memory, Do you want to turn right, left or go center, then it tells you what happens, like it “smells a Wumpus” and you run into … kind of thing, and you make a decision. No fast action, just good for the memory.

As I get older, however, I find that I need to ask for help more often. and, I don’t like it. Thank goodness for Ben, the tech at Gold Rush Web Hosting, or my web page would never be up. I sit here putting things on my Blog page and taking them off that column on the right; scrolling other Blogs and wondering how they did this or that, and then going shoot, she has the same banner as I do. Like I thought no one else did????

 So, add to the list, of things to do, to replace this generic banner, which I like, with my own artwork, which is much more descriptive of who I am.  I hope I will get to that a bit quicker than I have gotten to redoing my web page. It was last updated so long ago that I don’t even remember when anymore.

 There is a reason for that. I can’t find just the right background.  Stop laughing. I’m serious. I love textures, I want certain textures in this 2D environment and I haven’t gotten it right. So, one day I finally say to myself, That’s enough you idiot. Just do it, you can always change it later. But there is a catch-22 in that sentence: “change it later.” That changing it is what I have been trying to do for over three years now. It will happen right after I have gone back and relearned how to punctuate.

 Is it my imagination or have the punctuation rules changed in the last decade or so?

 So, here I sit, conquering a new medium, blogging. Why? 1. It looks like fun. 2. I enjoy writing. 3. I’m told a writer needs a blog. 

I have been a writer most of my life. I have been an artist all my life. I have been an artist since I found it was much more interesting to draw parishioner’s portraits on the church bulletin, than to listen to the sermon.  Gosh mom, there’s where I went wrong.

I received my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1990.  I had painted commission portraits for about six years and wanted to become a better painter. By that I mean, I had the realism thing down, I wanted to grow. I was in a class with Gustin. He’s a wonderful teacher and he made me do an exercise where you have continually trade drawings around the room with other students. I was getting so darn mad, because I would just get into it and then he would switch (like musical chairs) that I started really painting; as in: putting my emotion into the work. It was good. Probably the best I have done. I was furious but happy.

By the end of the semester he tells me that he is putting me in an advanced class. I will be painting under the direction of two teachers; he is one and a woman, who goes by initials I choose not to remember, is the other. That was the worse semester of my life, with her as a teacher. She would harrangue me in class, ask to see my slides and then throw them down, do things like send me to the museum to study the color, which was the best time I had in her class. I had students ask me what was her problem with me.  She would dramatically flop herself down in a chair and say, “What am I going to do with you?” Her drama and her own paintings reminded me of the little crying woman on the tombstones of PBS’s Mystery tv program. I could see her laying over those tombstones, hand on brow, crying ”ohhh” “ooohh.”

I ended up going from being a painter to a potter. I was so frustrated I went down in the basement to throw clay around. One look into the kiln room and I found out that I was a closet pyromaniac. I got a job cleaning the pottery lab, so that I could go in and breathe clay dust at 7am. I caught the 11pm South Shore back to Indiana every night.  I lived pottery. I now have a pottery studio in Brown County, Indiana where I can also paint whenever I want.

How long should a blog be? I think I may have reached the limit and my life will still be here tomorrow.

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