Heh heh heh.

And then there are dumb programmers. I was working on a server product, which could be accessed by a browser. IE something.something used to put up a generic "... or contact Microsoft support" message when the server being contacted wasn't responsive. We were debugging a server, so of course it wasn't responsive. This dummy was seriously arguing with me that the right course of action was to call Microsoft support.

(He wan't a novice. He was experienced, in the sense that he has been pressing buttons attached to a computer for many years. But a dummy.)

Microsoft is becoming AOL. A crappy, proprietary, expensive, unreliable impediment to getting onto the internet. Their applications have plateaued, and open-source desktop and web-based competitors are improving rapidly. They'll hang on longer, but they've begun their long decline.

I suppose writers, spreadsheet jockeys, and developers all have to share the "generic" category, which doesn't seem right.

In the generic category, they are going for cool appearance (interesting materials, backlight) over functionality, key layout, tactile feedback, and durability. How else to explain the complete absence of any "clicky" keyboards? The old IBM keyboards are still available. They are fantastic, I'm using one right now. And there are newer keyboards with similar mechanisms -- I expect that they are very good but I haven't tried them.