... but I don't do windows
by sonya hammond
PC users do an awful lot of complaining, but as far as I'm concerned we can't complain too much. It is no longer a case of 'if you can't stand the heat, stay off the keyboard'. Let's face it, the keyboard is where a large portion of the population is doomed to stay, and the heat goes on.
We are apparently doomed to cope with the
insidious message that a 'fatal error has occurred' in some program we're convinced we
don't even have, and even if we do, we haven't a clue what we did to irritate it. The
message's so-called explanatory 'details', written in some code a CIA mole couldn't break,
consist of endless numbers that probably don't refer to anything except possibly the
program originator's income.
Unfortunately, the worst problem facing the fatality perpetrators is getting rid of the message and returning to some screen containing recognizable information. It is conceivable that there are thousands of PC users destined to spend their lives staring at the accusing evidence of some sin they have committed by innocently hitting the 'Enter' key, without which, let's be honest here, we would all be better off.
The only absolutely infallible solution to this life sentence is to take the forbidden step of turning off the computer without 'properly' closing Windows95, an invention that takes its own etiquette seriously and has deep disdain for anyone using it.
While one of the few things that almost anyone can do to a PC is turn it off, not doing it 'properly' provokes W95 to send nasty new messages once you turn it on again. These communiqués cannot be ignored [unless you don't plan to use your PC ever again], but following their instructions to 'hit any key' is simply an invitation to twiddle your thumbs for several hours while mysterious invisible activities search every nook and cranny of what is laughingly called your 'operating system', occasionally reporting that you have done all sorts of stupid things you didn't know you did, and probably could not have done if you had been ordered to do them under penalty of death.
There is little point in complaining about fatalities or frozen programs to on-line 'technical support groups', who exist primarily to accumulate anecdotes from the electronically challenged public with which to amuse others of their kind.
There is even less point in calling an offending program's 'technical support staff', since you will get through to them only after your program [if not your entire PC] is outdated by the interminable upgrades and new versions without which these people would find themselves unemployed and looking for new careers that involve actually being able to snarl something besides "Re-install the program!"
And there is certainly no point in complaining to a MAC user. Those who expect sympathy from these self-satisfied snits will have better luck looking up the word in the dictionary. One MAC person I know had the temerity to advise me that he had never ever so much as seen a 'fatal error' message.
MAC people are invariably smug about the 'user friendliness' of their machines, which apparently do everything but massage their backs as they sail effortlessly through tidal waves of programs that would have swamped Columbus if he'd had a PC.
Aside from the errors we unwittingly commit simply by looking away from our screens to search for manuals translated from the original Sanskrit into new languages yet to be named, shortly after picking up our first mouse we become convinced that by installing every program with a title containing the words 'fix', 'utility', or 'repair', we can immunize our systems from everything from crashes to the plague. This is one fatal error for which we can blame only ourselves.
After I recently installed a highly acclaimed system 'doctor', about the only thing on my PC that consistently worked was the 'fatal message' screen, although I did receive persistent orders to clean, scrub, defrag, scan, upgrade, reinstall and/or 'contact the program's manufacturer if the problem persists.' This latter advice was ludicrous, since the program usually in question was the one that was supposed to make me worry free forever.
It took several days to get rid of this theoretical 'fixer', since many portions of it refused to be uninstalled by any program in my 3.5 gigabytes of other stuff that is supposed to make my life easier, more productive, and generally useful.
Other than throwing out large quantities of expensive equipment, along with what little knowledge we have managed to acquire in attempting to use it, or starting all over with a MAC, we will continue to suffer. And in spite of the fact that the source of most of our problems has recently agreed to refrain from permanently chaining us to his latest block of stuff designed primarily to ensure our need for more stuff designed not to fix its sins and omissions, there's nothing to keep him from coming up with future tortures.
The courts in which he has recently been questioned should have sentenced him to wash the 8,427 windows in his new 639-acre home, while endlessly chanting, "I have committed a fatal error."
©sonya hammond 1998