Vista-Gates

The Bloggess Bookclub aka Jenny Lawson was my very first live TwitterCam streaming thingie on Friday night. And verily, it was awesome!

 And I finally am on Twitter.
 And verily my mind is blown by the potential of all this technology can do now!

 “Why the *^%$!!! did it take you so long?” you ask?

 It’s the same answer as to why I wasn’t blogging or uploading video or engaging on the Internet much at all these past few years.

You see, sweet little kittens, my PC was running on Vista OS.
 Vista OS is a POS.
Vista OS made my computing life hell!

There are a lot of poor bastards out there still struggling with a perfectly good computer but a piss poor operating system. After a bit of googling, it seems that Microsoft resolutely ignores complaints and puts the blame on customer’s bad habits, or viruses or whatever, but never Vista.

VISTA (P)OS is rather like a bad neighbor whose dog is always taking a massive steaming dump on the lawn next door. Bad neighbor never acknowledges the mess, or apologizes, or attemptes to clean up. Bad Neighbor blames other dogs.

 Now smarter folks than me immediately dumped VISTA straight off the bat and returned to their previous XP operating system thus avoided the years of computer hell I have endured. Alas, my computer came with Vista (P)OS and I was stuck.

 So I relied on a HP notebook to get by, but major files uploads were a total drag. I cut back to simply checking email and took my Vista OS disabled PC offline to avoid the hellishly constant ‘upgrades’ and patches, the constant crashing, and all the incessant, badly-designed, mind-numbing, hard-drive grinding BS that VISTA (P)OS is famous for. By the time System 7 rolled around, I was offline anyway, and ‘once burned twice shy’ as they say.

 Then HP completely fucked up the notebook with one of their idiotic system “upgrades”. The first time, the hub was able to fix it. This last upgrade messed up the notebook so bad it wouldn’t boot up at all. When we dutifully called HP for help, their reps sweetly asked for a payment of $70ish for advice on fixing a product that been working quite decently BEFORE HP did their upgrade.

Extortion anyone?

 So I reluctantly upgraded my offline PC to OS 7. After the constant agony that was VISTA OS, OS7 is a HUGE improvement, but I resent the time and effort spent trying to fix the unfixable Vista and irrevocably lost production time from dealing with a bum operating system.
I ESPECIALLY resent having to pay to upgrade.

The upshot of all this? Microsoft has forever lost me as a future customer. They could have offered Vista users a free upgrade to OS7 and an apology and maybe turned this around with a MEA CULPA. But they didn’t.

 Remember New Coke? Remember how the Coca Cola Company realized right away they pulled a massive marketing BONER. Did they whistle, and turn a blind eye or blame someone else’s dog? No. They quickly returned Coke back to us, albeit with “Classic” in front of it and quietly killed off “new Coke” over time.

The point is Coke didn’t try to force “NEW COKE” down their customer’s throats and thus drive furious customers to other brands of carbonated, over-priced sugar water Coke didn’t already own.

Yeah yeah... I am just one voice in the internet wilderness. But I resent being lied to, extorted and generally ignored by companies who make it a mission to send customers running in circles until they go away.

That’s very bad business.

 So, when Bell Canada screwed me over for long distance rates back in 2000, I left Bell at first opportunity and never went back.
And I tell a lot of people how badly Bell let me down.

 Hersey’s shut down the Smith Falls factory, then fucked up the recipe my favourite candy- licorice Goodies - with their new and improved “Goodier” formula (that STILL tastes like burning ass) and blew me off with a souless form letter. So I stopped buying all Hershey products.
And I tell a lot of people how Hershey’s let me down.

HP screws me up and tries to make me pay for their mistake?
Microsoft will not acknowledge or be held accountable for an incredibly bad operating system?

Well, folks, lemme tell ya, Microsoft and HP let me down. I will NEVER trust HP or Microsoft again.

My two cents, Mr. Gates.
Invest them wisely.

Wow. It has been almost a year since my last post.

 Kinda sad, but I have been a teensy bit distracted. Long story. Will save it for the ebook.

The point is I am getting back into Social media, and with about 20 years of stories on my laptop that I am going to methodically start e-publishing on Smashwords, Amazon, etc.

 I have a guy to format my work properly, then it's simply a matter for wrapping my head around the process of tagging, uploading and e-marketing and tax forms.... okay, well maybe not a simple matter, but I will get this set up and hopefully make a bit of coin from my literary efforts.

 Over the past few year I have been carefully watching Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler have navigated the Northwest Passage of the Indie VS Big Six, and finally decided to take the plunge. The system is working and the reading audience is democratically deciding with their wallets what is being downloaded and read. Damn cool beans, really.

So, I am going to 'be the monkey'. I'll get my feet wet with a half-dozen free short stories and then launch my two novels this fall.

 If you are a writer still on the fence about Self Publishing, then download "Be the Monkey" by Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler. As long as the power stays on, this is the new game in town.