Monday, May 23, 2011

Will My Computers Ever Do Anything Besides Update Themselves?

I know this might sound a bit Andy Rooney, but Good Grief!

I use the damn things so infrequently these days that it seemsevery time I turn one on, it sets itself so single-mindedly to attending to its computer business that I can’t seem to get any people business done.

First the antivirus starts updating, then the operating system, then when I launch any single goddamned program I’m asked if I want to update to the latest version. Heaven forbid I want to play a game. By the time they’re done downloading new “splash screens” and game data, my supper’s ready and free time’s over.

Then I realize the reason it’s grinding to a halt is it’s performing a virus scan. “Last scan performed over one week ago!” Thanks for the warning, jerk. I last turned this piece of junk on a week ago!

Even my word processor is out of date! Open Office has become something called Libre Office, and the Windows Live Writer I use for blogging just encouraged me to help Microsoft develop their products and switch my default search provider to Bing. Apparently it wasn’t happy just composing blog entries.

When I give up and shut the things down, they tell me I can’t turn them off because they need to finish installing their updates.

Tell me why I shouldn’t go back to using my typewriters again?

1 comment:

  1. I am confirmed in my preference for Macs whenever I try to use a PC: one is deluged with these warning messages, updates, nanny reminders, etc. Extremely intrusive. Of course, there are constant virus attacks, so the virus updates are necessary.

    Not that I'm excessively smug about Macs. They too are liable to crashing and can get you caught in a cycle of hardware and software upgrades. It's the nature of computers.

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