I'm a knitter and a crocheter and, as I was so thoroughly embarrassed by a Jambe in our Barony who said (paraphrase) "if it has to do with yarn, she pwns it." I used to draw too, ya know.
So, I'm working on ideas for my midterm already, although I am thinking about dropping out simply because the peetaybees are taking a weekly course and making it biweekly. Not good. How am I supposed to remember what I'm doing between classes? I have four memory distractions - husband and three kids. If it does go biweekly, I will be not impressed.
It was fun. My fingers were covered in ink, chalk, pastels and charcoal and I was happy again for a brief moment. I miss those days covered in something from Art class. If I didn't have a spot on me, I wasn't doing anything at all that day. I ruined more shirts, and pants! than I would ever admit.
Anyway, because Windows 7 is about to come out, I am offering this little treasure:
One day, a long, long time ago, I went with my then boyfriend(now husband) and roommate (two different men) to find a new video card for my specially built desktop, specced out by I/O Error two years earlier. Not bleeding edge when I got it, but close enough for what I could afford at the time. Roommate stood to my left. Boyfriend to his left. The male computer sales clerk (henceforth, salesjerk) at (store I will not name *cough*staples*cough*) was asked, by me, to show me the different cards. He did, sorta. He turned to the two guys and would ask them a question about my computer.
Just three little problems with that.
1: Boyfriend - Compaq user with a system that needed replacing.
2: Roommate - Mac lUser hopelessly in love with his gumdrop at the time. He's still in love with his Macs. I'm told he's about to get a new one.
3: me, the actual computer owner and partial builder - being ignored.
Salesjerk would ask a question to the guys, the guys would point, look, gesture, verbally tell this guy to ask me specifically and he would ignore me if I answered and actually turned away from me. Rinse, repeat a few more times. "Ask her," one said, "she's the computer's owner."
"It's her machine, don't look at me. I have a Compaq."
"I'm a Mac User. I don't know a thing about PCs."
Again, rinse, repeat. While the guys were still having a charming talk with the salesjerk over the video card that I was no longer going to buy from him, I slipped away to find the manager.
I gave him a piece of my mind. This was actually the second day in a row at the same store that I was trying to buy a frigging video card and I had the money on me at that moment to buy up to and including their bleeding edge one. I told him that his salesjerk lost him a sale and any future computer hardware sales from me and anyone else I would ever have a chance to tell - all because the salesjerks would not ask ME the questions. Yes, this was two separate men, not just the one salesjerk.
I had tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, which is why I went back in trying to get the piece of hardware I needed.
What does this have to do with Windows 7? Simple: Windows 7 is not listening to their user base. They are charging way to much for an upgrade, even the "home" edition, than what should be charged. They are forcing people to buy better, juicier, meaner machines, maxing out budgets and more just to be able to run their bloatware. Microsoft is telling us, the user, what we must have to be one of them, instead of working with the lowest common denominator and keeping them running happily. Windows 3 support died years ago. So did Windows 95, 98 and more. XP is supposed to be dead in the water now. Vista is supposed to go away in about 2 years forcing everyone to upgrade to 7 or whatever else they are force feeding us.
How is that wrong? In an economy such as this is, we, the general home user, and schools, and small businesses and more, can not afford their highway robbery licensing fees nor the cost of constantly upgrading. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Make do. Mend. None of those are part of Microsoft's schemes. Microsoft wants us to constantly upgrade. You might as well just hand over your credit card number to Microsoft and let them bill you on a monthly basis.
All the hype, and even before Windows 7 comes out, there's already a patch.
My question: how much would PCs cost if they didn't come with Microsoft Windows?
The ironic thing about all this: the manager learned from the experience and even took a printout of the original 'toon from the older site and posted it in his training room. If anything, it taught the manager that his salesjerks need a smidge of knowledge that the women that come in the door might just know a bit about computers, not the men.
(end rant)
ps: this applies to cars too. I might not know much more than "that's the gas pedal, that's the brake, that's the clutch, that's the gear shift and I use this to aim where I'm going" but I do know that if you ignore me when the car is for me, I won't buy it. Nor will any of the women I know.
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