This is part two of a four part series on the current state of personal computing from the standpoint of a savvy but not “power” end-user. Scroll down for Part I: My Computer Sucks. The remaining two parts will be published later this week.
Software Sucks
I considered breaking this post into “Operating Systems Suck” and “Applications Suck,” but the sad truth of the matter is that it is nearly impossible for the end user to determine which of these is the culprit when the SPOD turns (Spinning Pizza Of Doom, OS X’s way of telling you the computer is too busy to care what you want). Adding to this difficulty, a call to technical support will result in finger pointing: the OS manufacturer will blame the application; the guys who made the application will blame the OS. There’s a kernel of truth — pun intended — to both points of view, but mostly because both are at fault.
It can be very difficult to isolate what is going wrong with your computer, partly because it’s a complicated bit of machinery. Because the manufacturers of the hardware and OS don’t really want you mucking about too much, they give you things like the SPOD, which are about as useful as a single light marked PROBLEM to let you know something is amiss. The problem might be that it is loading a file. On the other hand, it might be that a program has hopelessly crashed. Or worse.
Let’s start with the Operating System, because you can’t run a computer without one. There are for all practical purposes 3 major operating systems: Mac OS, Windows, and Linux/Unix. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Purists will point out that Mac OS is based on Unix, that Linux is based on Unix, that Mac OS only represents 5% of the market, that “almost everybody” uses Windows, that Linux isn’t really a system designed for personal use, etc. ad nauseum.
No matter which you run, you will find that upgrades and patches are an all-too-regular thing. Because of security issues, it is absolutely imperative that computer users keep up with this stuff, and many upgrades actually fix problems you might be having. However, most of the time, upgrades result in “broke different.”
My last OS upgrade a few months ago, for example, fixed a few under-the-hood type of things that I would not have noticed except for being told it is so. It also gave me something called “Dashboard,” which puts stuff like a calendar, calculator, dictionary, and weather report just a click away. This impresses Mac newbies a great deal. Whatever. It also got me a disk search technology called “Spotlight” which everyone tells me is just wonderful except for what had to be done to the email program to make it work right. This of course means I have an updated Mail.app that I didn’t really need with a new user interface to learn and a new storage system. All to make my email searchable at the operating system level instead of just searching it from within the email application.
It also broke three different applications in fun and exciting ways. In two cases, a fix was immediately downloadable from the software manufacturer (thank goodness for Version Tracker). In the third case — ironically an Apple product — there is no fix. The program works, but some things just don’t work right. The worst part is a nagging feeling that they don’t care.
It also got me “Megahertz Gnomes,” a phenomenon where upgrades make… things….. run…….. slower……….
Applications deserve their fair share of blame too. As far as I am concerned, nothing illustrates this like the single biggest must-have software suite, Microsoft Office. I recently upgraded to Office 2004 for Macintosh, and the best thing I can say is that it is “bigger and badder than ever.”
This behemoth takes up 486 meg of space on my hard drive. The bit I use most, Word 2004, is 19.5 meg alone and has so many features that it actually inhibits my ability to get things done. In fact, 80% of the features are only used by 20% of users. They have officially reached the point where features obliterate other features. The other night I spent well over a minute trying to figure out where they had moved the toolbar that lets you see what font, size, and formatting were in use. But if I were writing, for example, a textbook, there would be handy formatting tools at my fingertips.
I didn’t want to write a textbook. All I wanted to do was write out a recipe.
The other bit of Office that I use on a semi-regular basis is Excel. Over a decade has gone by since its inception, and this version just almost has feature parity with its Windows namesake. It is still slower, still more difficult to use, and just occasionally will decide it doesn’t like something about a spreadsheet made in Windows Excel, but there you are.
Bundled with these two programs are 3 additional programs that I have no use for. I do not use Entourage for my email, and have not for some years. Microsoft still seems to hope I will migrate. Nor do I use MSN Messenger. The last thing in the world I need is another messaging program. Everyone I care to talk to is either on AIM or IRC. And as for PowerPoint, I haven’t the faintest idea what I would use it for. Outlining? I won’t go so far as to join those who call it evil, or say it makes us dumb, but I sure have seen a lot of bad uses of PowerPoint for someone who doesn’t work in a large office environment and doesn’t attend a lot of academic events.
What is this doing on my hard drive again? Oh yeah, it came with the suite and someday I might need it. A nagging voice in the back of my head tells me that “I might need it someday” is how hoarders get started.
Some items of interest to regular readers:
“That’s not a snake, it’s a housing bubble deflating!” Job growth may bring enough people back to the job market that unemployment rises. Textbooks are so bad they are discouraging reading. And finally, Big Brother is our friend.
I agree by and large, except for the crack about writing a textbook. No one in their right mind would try to write a textbook in Word. If you have a publisher, then they’ll typeset it (so you don’t need the word processor to be doing anything fancy.) If you don’t, you use LaTeX (since it kerns worth beans and you can grep the source.)
“Despite the rock solid uncrashability of OSX, Application iChat has taken a giant dump and must be restarted. Sorry if you were using it right then.”