More musings from 'Oldest Living Blogger'

We used to joke about calling Microsoft Support, and getting some call center in India, where someone in badly fractured English tries valiantly to convince us that they really do know their ass from their elbow when it comes to what's wrong with Mighty Microsoft's latest baby.

Mostly, what's wrong is that Mighty Microsoft isn't nearly as receptive as it ought to be to suggestions from its users, who just happen to be its paying customers, without which it wouldn't be worth diddly, and Bill Gates would be simply plain old 'Bill Who?'. Yes, Friends, that Bill.... the one who brought us Vasta Vista and Wonderful Windows 8, the do-all for you-all....except it doesn't.

"Why not?", you mumble. "Because..." I reply....there's just no way that one system can be all things to all computer users - the viewers and the doers of cyberspace, without whom the phone companies would still be buying horses for their Pony Express. And the U.S. Mule er, I mean Mail, would arrive on four legs instead of only two. But I digress... again. 

Microsoft got too big for its parking spot, and started thinking "We wrote the book on computing, so we're making the rules." Old Man Unix and those upstarts at Apple disagreed, and started inventing things like iPads and iPods and iPhones with pictures and games, and all like that. And Mighty Microsoft scoffed at all that and called it a passing fad that would be gone in six months.
Big Mistake.

And Mrs. Gates' little boy Bill might be a computer coding whiz-kid, but when it comes to listening to other people's ideas, he's practically deaf, dumb, and blind. You'd have to hit him on the head with a two-by-four to get his attention, because he's too busy counting all his money and convincing himself that it means he really does know it all. News Flash: No, Bill, you don't - nobody does. And that's why we're all in this together. Computer skills and people skills are not synonymous. They aren't even kissing cousins. And you have to kiss a lot of cousins to sell more computer programs than the competition is hustling.

Which brings us, limping and wounded, to Wonderful Windows 8, the do-all for you-all. And it doesn't, because most of us aren't ambidextrous and bisexual.
We find it goddamned awkward trying to work on a vertical surface with a horizontal brain. And forget 'all-in-ones'. They pretend to be able to let you do it all on one tiltable surface, but the problem there is that none of them will recline flatly enough for a good comfortable working surface, and you still will want your old-fashioned keyboard (get one that lights up the keys!) and a nice optical mouse, for surfin' and turfin' comfortably. The office world hasn't been breaking down any doors to switch to 'touch, tap, and pinch' instead of click and clack. Life isn't really an interactive game. It involves serious texting and data exchanges in a businesslike atmosphere.

And that's why NetMarketShare tells us that Windows 8 isn't setting the world on fire amongst computer users. And maybe it's time Mighty Microsoft faced up to that nasty little fact, and cleaned up their act. Possibly by listening to its users and their wish-lists and maybe acting on those, instead of pretending it really knows best and we'd better shut up and listen to the voice of Obscurity.

And I didn't even mention the open source community and PC-BSD, which is both 'out there' and 'happening'. Check it out...