A little "This 'n That"...

Parts of another home-grown Theme....

I updated Winamp this morning, hoping that by re-installing it from cyberspace it would get it officially entered into both "Programs and Features" in Control Panel (instead of just being dragged into the Programs folder from a CD or from another O/S on this drive) and also entered into "Default Programs" so that I could choose it as my official Default. Only some of that worked. It's now shown in Control Panel's "Programs and Features", but it still doesn't appear in the list in the "Default Programs" list of choices on which you can click to select its defaults and make it as your program default. Why not? Because Microsoft hates a level playing field....If it isn't Microsoft, it's shit, as far as they're concerned.

And that, Dear Reader, infuriates those of us who find ourselves wrestling with this kind of innate stupidity. A world-beating operating system aimed at saving the company from ending up in good old Obscurity isn't going to come from mediocre ingredients combined with an attitude that their inventors' shit can be used for butter! And that "Everything Microsoft" attitude is what got them in court a few years ago, on charges of trying to monopolize the marketplace. As I recall, they lost that battle, and had to cough up a hefty settlement....and it came from the money you and I spent on our Windows, kiddies....

Periodically, Microsoft solicits opinions from volunteers who agree to help test an upcoming new release of their well-known operating system. But they have a disgusting bias for listening only to the "good news", and that's the very thing that resulted in a couple of gigantic flops called "Windows Vista" and "Windows 8"....and some of us wonder why, if they can make a winner like "Windows 7" why the hell can't they maintain that level of smarts, and do likewise, or even better, with their next incarnation? Do they lose intelligence between releases? Is there a Brain Drain there? Should we look at them and wonder who ties their shoelaces?

Why are we even testing Windows Ten? Can't they remember how they made the other several? And if they really don't want to be told where they're barking up an empty tree, why the hell did they pretend to ask if all they really want are a bunch of friendly butt-smoochers? I was reading a Tech Preview Forum yesterday, in which a user asked if he could remove a feature of the new Start called "Trending". He was told by a "Microsoft Engineer" that this feature was there by design and could not be removed. He was then invited to examine other features of Technical Preview. TRANSLATION: "Don't question our decisions because we know far more than you do about what you ought to like, and if you don't like it, God will get you for this - Now, go play with something else and don't annoy your betters with stupid questions!"  And this "engineer" was probably reading his carefully-scripted reply from a page in front of him,  and he didn't give any sensible answer to his questioner because he either didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, or else he was under orders to say as little as possible as often as necessary....

I'll say this one more time: We of the great unwashed masses may not know how to write code (if we did we wouldn't need Microsoft!) but we definitely know what we like or don't like - and being treated with condescension or insulted by those who should be hoping to sell us something is counterproductive and just plain stupid. Don't ask us to offer opinions if you really don't want any. And good luck with being a world-class 'know-it-all'. Call me when you get your shit together and your thumb out of your bum and your mind out of 'neutral'.