OneChele writes an open letter to Microsoft:
Dear Microsoft,
I feel betrayed. I have defended you and stayed with you when time after time you have done me wrong. I stayed when people implored me to leave. I have downloaded upgrade after upgrade of Windows. I left WordPerfect and QuattroPro to embrace MS Office when you guaranteed me no drama. The price of this relationship escalates exponentially, I'm not sure I can afford to be with you anymore.
Speaking of expensive, I flirted with Apple to experience a different way of life but quickly realized that adding anything beyond the basics is too high a price. I had a brief affair with Netscape when your browser demanded update after incessant update. But Netscape couldn't give me what I needed. Just when I thought you and I could co-exist peaceably, you suckered me into Vista. L
There's no easy way to say this… Vista sucks. The amount of memory needed to operate this with any efficiency literally drains me. The constant permission asking and hidden programs running and upgrade/solution/update nonsense are too exhausting. And still I persevered. Then you introduced Office 2007 and rocked my world… not in a good way. All the easy shortcuts and simplistic commands that worked so well in the past have been replaced with slick-looking menus that as might as well be in Greek. What happened to ease of use? Why did it take me DAYS to configure line-spacing in Word? What is all the goobledy-gook in the Table Menu in Excel? Why does Outlook freeze for no reason?
Okay, I learned to work with it. After all, we've been together for so long that I couldn't even imagine being with anybody else. And then you forced me to upgrade to a new Internet Explorer. This was the last straw. My once quick and agile computer slowed to a crawl. Pages that opened in seconds now required me to go get a cup of coffee and then come back. Don't try and blame it on the size of my hard drive, speed or memory. It's not me… it's you!
A few months ago, a dear friend introduced me to Google Chrome. And even though you tried to make it hard for me to leave by declaring that nothing would work as well as you and things would never look the same, I defied you and left anyway. I have no frozen pages, my images load with the greatest of ease. Today, my new love Chrome gifted me with an awesome upgrade that already warms my heart.
Just you wait, Microsoft. If Google hooks up Gmail with more bells and whistles, I'm dropping Outlook. I've already started looking around for an Office Suite replacement and I swear for God my next laptop is going to be XP. You can keep your Vista. Let Google (or anyone else) come out with an operating system that doesn't require an update every two days… I'm out!
You have abused my trust for the last time; I'm going to have to go Lauryn Hill on you: I used to love him, now I don't. Yes, it's the break up, Microsoft. Shocking after all my years of loyalty and fealty but it's time. When you miss me I'm gone,
OneChele
P.S. Love to Bill, I'm still down with him if he and Melinda want to fund a black blogger… I'm just saying.
Can you tell I'm having computer drama? How many of you have left Internet Explorer behind?