Apples and...fruits that are an awful lot like Apples...

Dear Bill Gates:

Yesterday, I purchased a new laptop. My old bare-bones cheap Toshiba had hit that geriatric computer age of three and has, of late, been rapidly decompensating. It's sad to watch, Mr. Gates. My once spry and youthful companion is showing signs of advanced computer dementia. It crashes all the time, randomly turns itself off, has some sort of weird Outlook impotence, and, dude, it really can't handle all the iTunes upgrades...and it's constantly tethered to the external hard drive, so it can't go anywhere anymore...so heartbreaking... Um, tell me again why three years has somehow rendered my laptop arcane and decrepit? No, wait, that wasn't the purpose of this letter. The point was, I replaced it yesterday with a shiny, new, slightly meatier although still cheap Toshiba laptop (I have to say, the cheap-ass Toshiba held up better and with stronger constitution than any prior computer I've had, including - yes - the IBM), and it came with this New! Improved! Windows Vista Home Ultimate. It's new! It's improved! And, sir, I have simply this to say regarding the updates to your operating system:

If I wanted a goddam Macintosh, I would've bought a goddam Macintosh.

KNOCK IT OFF!

Or if you insist on trying that hard to emulate Apple, could you at least include some software that's as useful as iPhoto and iTunes?

Cordially,

Kate


Seriously though. This is crazy. There are still some things that identify it as a PC, fortunately, but had I known Windows was coming this close to assimilating the Mac interface, I would've at least gone to the Apple store and thought about buying a Powerbook. And it's not just Microsoft's fault. This past year, when I was putting my MD to good use selling yarn, the shop at which I worked was run by some of them (you know. Mac fanatics). So our shop computer and in fact also our cash register was an iMac. I hated that stupid computer, and it hated me. And part of the reason we didn't get along was because it had all of these "PC" programs on it that were not, in point of fact, right. Like, it claimed to be Excel, and it looked like Excel, but it didn't do the things Excel was supposed to do. The macros weren't there. You couldn't enter the same commands. The menus were all different and it was lacking a lot of functions. Which would've been fine if it claimed to be "Sort Of Excel." But it didn't. It said it was the real thing. It lied. It lied and then it crashed when you tried to make it act like the genuine article.

Do you think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dress up as each other for Halloween?

And, and, I had no shortcut or icon ANYWHERE to Internet Explorer (what?!), and, my computer did not come with Outlook. I'm hoping my copy of Office 2007, when it comes (it's on backorder), has it, but for now I'm using Windows Mail. Which, admittedly, is virtually indistinguishable from Outlook, which means undoubtedly that it will be just close enough that nothing will transfer over. Ack!

But at least I have Solitaire again. I somehow erased it off my old computer.

In slightly related news, my old bosses have just today announced that the iMac-run yarn store is officially up for sale. Anybody want to buy a knitting shop? It's a nice place. Good location, excellent space, terrific employees (current and former), solid reputation. Lots of untapped potential to be explored if you're not trying to concurrently juggle a high quality hand-dyed yarn business at the same time (it's time for them to sell the shop and just focus on the yarn business. Ever since the Harlot got a hold of the stuff, demand has gone through the roof. And hey, it's good yarn). Get it now while the gettin' is good...