A minor rant

I don't hate computers - in fact I find them to be useful tools in both my professional and private life. I have had one since the days of the Radio Shack TRS-80 and the VIC 20. But computers, or rather those who insist that I need a better one - drive me crazy.

I was quite happy with Windows 98 and the associated software. I need a typewriter and occasionally a spreadsheet - the machine that does those things does not need to be upgraded every 2 years. For the past few weeks I have been struggling with my computer. All that I wanted to do was to make it a bit faster.

I tried to run Ubuntu which is an open source operating system - worked great except it would not run my canon printer. I tried to re-install Windows XP on a newly formatted hard drive but Windows would not let me format my C drive. It drove me crazy and made me grumpy.

It is finally done and all is well but why did Bill Gates and the boys and girls who work for him decided that I could not be trusted with DOS? Life was so much easier when one needed to use common sense to and some intelligence to operate a computer. Someone has decided that we are all dummies and therefore the best solution is for us to trust someone else to decide what is best for us.

I am not too sure which is worse - being treated like I am stupid or feeling stupid taking so long to figure out a way around the problem.