Dopp Juice Archive

Dear Vista,

It was all worth it. Despite what you may hear me say to other people, I really don’t regret a day of our time together. From the moment I picked you out at Circuit City — you clean black HP Slimline, you — to this moment, right now, 12 days later, where I’m burning my data to disk so I can leave you for good… I want you to know it was all worth it. I wouldn’t trade our time together for all the Macs in the world.

I needed to know the truth, and this was the only way.

I’d heard them talking about you. Everyone. Your friends were all calling you sleek, cool, and elegant. Friendly. Easy. My friends were calling you clumsy, arrogant, and greedy. A poser. Sleazy. I needed to know for myself.

I needed to know what it felt like to boot up to your pretty gradients and rich colors, to see how you organized things, to see if you really did learn a thing or two from your intelligent hipster cousin, the Mac. I needed to see for myself that you missed the boat. That you force Yahoo! Search in your toolbar instead of Google. That you boot up with more crap programs than I know how to clear away. That your “Arcade Games” folder actually takes the metaphor so far as to charge me each time I want to play them.

Have you learned nothing about how to treat people?

I was hopeful. I opened up IE 7, your teenage son who’s had a lot of growing up to do over these years, and I really thought for a minute that maybe you were on the right track.

But it turned out, I just needed to see for myself that you still make HTML-constrained images look pixelated and terrible, and that you force your kind Uncle Firefox to behave that way when he’s in your house, too. I needed to viscerally experience that you’re still politically opposed to anti-aliasing. And I’m not sure if I was relieved or appalled to learn that there is one browser that can now show beauty on your system. Only one. And it’s Safari. Did it sneak in the back door when you weren’t looking? Are you being infiltrated against your will? Should I feel sorry for you?

Oh, Vista. You try so hard. And I think maybe we could have been friends. But my Mac came back to me today, after its all-expense-paid vacation to the repair spa, and you know where my heart belongs. You know I could never really love you. And you know that I would have been happier if I’d bought a Mac Mini and run parallels to test my websites on you. You know it would have cost about the same. And you know that if it weren’t for the majority of Internet users being sucked into your monopoly and forced by goaded ignorance into viewing my websites in Internet Explorer, I’d forget you existed altogether.

You know it’s not me, it’s you.

And you know we’re not going to be friends after this.

But also I want you to know it was worth it. Because now the doubt in my mind is gone, and I know the truth: You’re still not ready for me.

Until we meet again…

Sarah

p.s. In case my prose here was too flowery to sink into your cluttered head, here’s all you really need to know: I’M LEAVING YOU FOR YOUR COUSIN.

I just got a snazzy little digital camera for Christmas. It’s 12 megapixels, it fits in my pocket, and it takes beautiful pictures. There’s only one problem: out of the box it makes loud beeping noises every time I press a button. And much to my dismay, the “OFF” switch for this is NOT quite so intuitive to find (hint: clicking the “MENU” button isn’t going to bring you there, and the instruction manual hides the answer). But after many wincing minutes of “Okay, I think we’re gonna need to return this damned thing,” I finally mashed enough buttons that I ran into it.

So if you’re trying to enjoy your brand new toy and find yourself fighting with the same problem, I bring you… THE SOLUTION!

1. Click the “HOME” button once or twice until you see a menu.
2. Use the Right arrow key to scroll all the end of the list, where you’ll find “SETTINGS”
3. Click the Middle button to select “MAIN SETTINGS”
4. Use the Right arrow key to select the first option: “BEEP”.
5. Click the Middle button to toggle the options for this setting.
6. Use the Down arrow key to find “OFF” and select it with the middle button.
7. Click the “HOME” button again to get back to taking pictures.

All better!

Beth Kanter (the heavyweight champion in getting technology into the hands of nonprofits) points out some new research to us today. Well, actually it’s more like a sneak preview of new research — which, of course, is even better.

The research shows us that large nonprofits are adopting social media more readily than Fortune 500 companies. They define social media as online video, blogging, social networking, podcasting, message boards, and wikis; and they also note that nonprofits are monitoring their reputation on the web more carefully than businesses are.

It makes perfect sense. Utilizing social media is an inexpensive and trust-driven way to reach lots of people. I hope awareness of how to use these tools effectively is also trickling down to the smaller nonprofits — the ones who need it the most.

You can download the four-page executive summary from UMass Dartmouth.