19 December 2014

My computer loses her mind.

I've been offline for about a week.

     My desktop computer had a mental breakdown. It's a 'homebuilt'. I didn't build it, of course, but I had it built by a geek. It's worked fairly well, but we had a tremendous windstorm last week. I was too stupid to not work on it during the storm. Two power surges, both so fast I had absolutely no time to react, blew her mind away.

     So she went to the Geek Squad repair shop. Now she's home, and I"m working to restore all the changes I made to Microsofts idiotic platform. Many aren't so easy to fix...for instance, now I find little check boxes next to desktop icons. What in the eff is this? Microsofts infuriating insistence on changing things for the sole purpose of change is driving me right around the bend. But what else is there? Nothing. The one thing Microsoft does best is make it ever more difficult to do even the smallest of changes. Their corporate mission statement must be, never let the customer think he's anything more than a moron.  Microsoft's idea of intelligent organization...well, it doesn't exist. If Microsoft ran the telephone system, when I wanted to call my dentist to schedule an appointment, I'd have to buy a raffle ticket first. That's where they'd keep the dentist's phone number, under Purchase. (NOT raffle, not dentist, not appointment, not ticket) The two are completely unrelated to each other, but...that's what Microsoft does. Hides even the simplest of functions under arcane names and even more unintelligible procedures.  The "Start" button to shut off one's machine is absolutely the classic example of that.

     While my computer was in the shop, I learned that thousands of  Word Press bloggers had been hacked.
      Go figure. WP spent millions of dollars and a year 'improving' (meaning infantilizing) their blog editing software, pissing off thousands of loyal Pressers, refusing to listen to the thousands of agonized pleas to return to the original, well working software. Yet their vaunted software engineers had neglected to notice a huge opening in their security software, allowing the invasion by hackers in the former Soviet Union. I wonder how they handle security in their offices? A big neon sign says "This way to the WP company safe. Combination is printed in big letters on the door."

     Worse, they're blaming the blogger. "If you hadn't done this update to an arcane and unintelligible program in WP, the hijacking of your blog is your fault." Not once did WP ever make me aware of one, the need for an update, two, the capacity or expertise to accomplish it, and three, the tools with which to do an update. But that means nothing to WP. Once again, WP is dodging responsibility, dismissing their customers (many of whom paid a bunch of money to supposedly secure their own domain) as whiners, and neglecting even the most basic steps of internet security.

     Which is, again, why I'm glad I moved here to Google. Blogger is clunky and doesn't work well. I have to take half a dozen steps just to get my dashboard to appear, and I still cannot figure out why it won't allow people to comment.
But so far it seems to be fairly secure against evil slimemold shitheads from hacking into it.

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