Why We Hate Microsoft by di-lema

I'm certain Microsoft will tell you that this is not a workaround. They designed it this way so you would have to work hard to copy a picture that isn't yours.

Workaround: IE Barf#1

IE8 Stands Out

IE8 wouldn't run the javascript in my new web pages without prompting me and subjecting me to a click, a loud "bump" and another click. All other browsers that I tried worked fine. I googled myself silly looking for a way to fix this. And there were many suggestions, all of which I tried. None worked.
Then I came across some nut who said you need a comment as the second line of your html file something like:

He Wasn't Nuts

In sheer desparation, I tried it. It worked.
A Microsoft spokesman says this is not a workaround.
I say civilization should find a Microsoft workaround.
Let us hope it is merely a matter of time.

Workaround: IE Barf#2

How Dare You Try To Open Your Local File

Tried to link to a local (on my harddrive) .wmv file. IE8 told me my security settings do not allow this file to "download". What collection of imbiciles work there?
Actually like all Microsoft obscurity, it is so simple to workaround:
InternetExplorer/Tools/InternetOptions/Security/Restricted/CustomLevel/FileDownload/enable
I guess that means they think my harddrive is the least trusted source; i.e., more suspicious than the Internet or the Intranet.

Isn't it neat

Now whenever I boot, I get this warning message that I should not browse the internet with the current security settings which I had to establish in order to access a local file!

Couldn't Deal With It

This is so annoying that I had to put the security settings back to default and hope that when the page is published, the server will deal with this stupidity.

Workaround: OE SpellCheck

Subject Not Subject To Correction

If you are unsure of the spelling of a word you typed on the subject line, repeat the word in the body of the email.

Surprise

The Outlook Express SpellCheck does not police the subject line.
After almost two decades, then still can't figure it out.

Not Yours Anymore

Window-7 Reclaims the word "Customer"

A Visual Basic Application failed under Window-7 because a programmer had the audacity to name a variable "Customer". This application works properly in all previous versions of Windows Office back to XP.

You Can't Have It No More

Since Microsoft has the attitude that everything belongs to them, the Windows-7 big shots decided that they would take this word back. Their level of arrogance shields them for the glaring irony.

Data Mining

I See You

Bill Gates, Ray Ozzie and a bunch of other heavy-hitters from Microsoft are named as inventors on a newly issued patent for a "personal data mining" system that would analyze information and make recommendations with the goal of aiding a person's decisions and improving quality of life.
The patent was issued recently, based on a September 2006 patent application. I'm not a patent examiner, of course, but as I was reading, I couldn't help but see similarities to what other companies have been doing for a long time. For example, one potential application cited in the patent would have the system make suggestions or recommendations "with respect to books to read, movies or plays to see and/or places to visit" based on "a user's determined interests and correlations of other users' interest."

They Snoop To Improve Your Quality Of Life

Those aren't the only potential applications of the Microsoft patent, but at its core, isn't that what Amazon.com has done, and patented, dating back at least a decade?
At any rate, maybe there's more nuance here than I'm perceiving. The newly issued Microsoft patent essentially takes data mining concepts used by businesses and adapts them for personal use.
"Personal data mining mechanisms and methods are employed to identify relevant information that otherwise would likely remain undiscovered," according to the patent abstract. "Users supply personal data that can be analyzed in conjunction with data associated with a plurality of other users to provide useful information that can improve business operations and/or quality of life. Personal data can be mined alone or in conjunction with third party data to identify correlations amongst the data and associated users. Applications or services can interact with such data and present it to users in a myriad of manners, for instance as notifications of opportunities."

Or Not

Of course, it's not all about improving lives: Further down, the patent explains that "such data can be afforded to businesses involved in market analysis, or the like, in a manner that balances privacy issues of users with demand for high quality information from businesses."
The patent may be more notable for the names of the inventors, which make clear that these concepts were the subject of some pretty high-level discussions at the company a few years ago. In addition to chairman Gates and chief software architect Ozzie, they include Microsoft Live Labs founder Gary Flake; Microsoft advertising R&D chief Alex Gounares; Lili Cheng, now general manager of Microsoft’s Future Social Experiences Labs; Microsoft veteran Amit Mital; and Live Platform Services exec David Treadwell.

Deprecated: Excerpt from a Microsoft Document

Rarely And Never Are Different

"Before jumping to the list of which features are being deprecated or removed, let me say that we never make decisions lightly about removing functionality that has been in the product. We rarely remove functionality and strive for backwards compatibility with every version. When we do make changes to functionality that has been in the product we do so when we believe it will be a benefit to the majority of our customers by helping us to make forward progress."

Translations

1. You lose. How many times do we have to fool you before it is shame on you?
2. Hey, if your business application no longer works, so what. Just rewrite it.
3. We wanted to make changes for the sake of making changes. If 49% of you don't like, too bad.
4. In our minds, we achieve backward compatibility by striving for it.

Window7 Defined

Unguarded Moments

You go out to do yard work. When you come in and get cleaned up, you turn on your new Windows7 system.
The experience is as if, while you're out in the yard, your wife moved everything you use inside the house to a different location; your tooth brush, your razor, your workshop tools, the refrigerator, etc. so that you have to spend a lot of time finding everything and trying to remember where you found them because you are not allowed to put any of them back where they belong.

Take A Deep Breath

Eventually you'll remember that your favorite screwdriver is in the linen closet.
By the way:

none of your applications work, and
none of your drivers work.

Alternate Plan B

The system is fast, there is lots of memory and lots of disk storage (the hardware guys aren't the problem). Maybe you can use it as an Ubuntu server instead.

Email Backup

I Recognize That File Name

I refreshed my backup copy of my c drive today. Just to make sure my mail files had been copied, I found the name of the folder that contains them:
C:\Documents and Settings\Dick Lemay\Application Data\Identities\{C0918520-22CD-11D5-8FBE-000094B636B5}\Microsoft\Outlook Express
A path having 125 characters (idiots who do this suffer from severe brain damage)

Empty Heads Make Empty Folders

Of course you can predict that the backup copy of my c drive, C:\Documents and Setting is EMPTY
There is only one way to deal with idiots like this: a firing squad.

Sensible File Names Not

And, if you wouldn't volunteer to be a co-conspirator, consider this further evidence: when I examine the source folder, the subfolder names are random numbers instead of what I called them. Stupidity beyond comprehension.

Patent PowerDown

Those Pesky Patent Attorneys

Patent attorneys are always bugging the engineers. Sometime back at Microsoft, an engineer, tired of being bugged said: "Will you stop bothering me; just go patent our stupid shutdown code. That ought to keep you busy."

And So He Did

Indeed, the patent attorney did just that.
And so our patent office has rewarded Microsoft for a most despicable behavior of Windows.

They Will Never Understand

Unidirectional

There are many examples but here are a couple, which in my experience apply to all Microsoft products:

If I learn how to add something, by that learning process I should now know how to delete it.
If Microsoft software makes a change to, for instance text, then when the circumstance which prompted the change does no longer exist, the "correction" should be removed; e.g., If I type, "the" and Microsoft decides to change it to "The", then when the context changes, then rules need to be reapplied with the result that "the" might now be correct.
If they choose to automatically apply changes, they should be correct.

In Word, type a line and hit enter; then start the next line with a lower case first letter.
Microsoft will capitalize the first letter whether the previous line formed a complete sentence and had an ending period or not.
And of course if you delete the CRLF, the brilliant software has no idea that their change is now clearly wrong instead of being probably wrong.

What's Yours Is Mine

I buy a computer and these people grudgingly concede that I own some portion of what I bought. They label those parts "MyBlah" and "MyOtherBlah" reminding me that they consider themselves to continue to own all else and they prevent me from having access to certain of "their" parts unless I jump through hoops or do sneaky stuff.

Who's In Charge, Moe or Curly?

Open a read-only document. You don't realize it is such. You make changes. Then you realize it is read-only so you attempt to close it.
This is what happens:

Word asks you if you want to save the changes to the read-only document (idiotic);
if you say no, it closes;
if you say yes, you are told that they won't save the changes because it is a read-only document.

A good thing that they didn't give me a complete list of all the choices I don't have.

Workaround - OE Gives Up

Mail To Multiple Recipients

If, out in the cloud, some server rejects the mail sent to one of the recipients, Outlook Express paints the other recipients with the same brush. Neat. So what you do is create a new message, copy that text from the message OE kindly put in the outbox and paste it in the new message and go from there.

Heaven forbid that OE would allow you to delete the offending recipient(s) from the original message and resubmit. That would be common sense; that would be ergonomic; that would be user-friendly; we can't have that now can we.

Excel Add Ons

Move To Version 12 from 10

No way can you move an app running in Excel version 10 to 12 because if you try to run it, it says that the function Left in VBA fails because it can't find the project or library. Then, after lengthy investigation, you find out that the library was installed but Microsoft decided to default it as uninstalled. This means that whenever you try to install this app on another computer, you have to go through this nonsense all over again.

Excel Calendar

Move To Version 12 for 10

The calendar function provided in versions 10 and 11 is deleted in version 12. It is replaced by a lousier one and there is no accomodation so that you can port the code easily. You just have to start over.

XL TimeBomb

XL is going away

Leave it to Microsoft to provide a clock for the desktop which counts down the days remaining for Microsoft support of XL. It is of course predictable that the tool only runs on Vista and Windows 7.

Task Manager

Technological Breakthrough

Expending significant research and development funds, Microsoft announces that using the three keys ALT-CTRL-DEL to invoke the Task Manager in XP was ergonomically unsound. So, in Vista, the three keys required are ALT-SHIFT-ESC. Users of Microsoft software worldwide are grateful for this advancement in computer science. How confused would we be if stuff work the same in a new release as it did in a previous one.

Why Tab?

Email Lesson

Email Learner: "How do I go from the "To:" line to the subject line?"

Teacher: "You have to hit the TAB key twice."

Email Learner: "Oh, I see; I have to get past the "cc" line."

Teacher: "That's right."

Email Learner: "Now I want to type my message; how do I get to the message box?"

Teacher: "Just hit the TAB key once."

Email Learner: "So after I complete a line of my message, I just have to hit the TAB key to get a new line, right?"

Teacher: "No, you have to use the ENTER key."

Email Learner: "Oh, OK I could have used the ENTER key into the "To:" and "Subject: " to go down to the next line, right?"

Teacher: "No, if you do that in the "To:" line it makes the box taller and if you do it in the "Subject:" line, it rings a nice bell for you."

Email Learner: "That's stupid."

Teacher: "Indeed; that's Microsoft."