Elliot_Lin's Journal: "Easy to Use"

Recently it appears that all OEMs are beginning to view the consumer as someone who wants the idiots guide to everything. Which is all well and good. A majority of people who buy from OEMs need and want the idiots guide to everything, but I don't. So I am going to have a little rant about it. Here are my complaints about 'easy to use'

• It runs on Windows, nothing else. Even if you ask for something to run anywhere other than Windows, the answer is no.
• Its ugly. I am sure that OEMs put a huge amount of cash into working out how to make a decent UI. I am however also pretty sure that once they get the report they use it as toilet paper and then flush it down the toilet. Upon discovering that this was important they get their 3-year-old son called George to draw something in paint and then use Word for Windows to add text to it.
• Its buggy. I have never experienced one single 'easy to use' interface that didn't crash. Including the default Ubuntu installer. And while maybe its just a long series of bad experiences I am pretty sure that the HP backup disk is not supposed to quote 300hrs as the estimated time for it to complete the reinstallation of demoware. Especially not when the time it takes to do that means that the timer reaches 0 and then STARTS AGAIN
• Its useless for anything except one purpose. On this easy to use software there is never a single 'Options' or 'File' menu. It has been designed to do its job one way, regardless how you want it done. For example, the HP recovery disk will blank your entire hard drive, without asking. Just to install Windows on it. You got partitions set up? Not anymore you don't. And even then it doesn't do that properly.. but thats another story.

Rant over. If you're a developer and your reading this, and you can't understand why I'd think this do the following: Go sit down with a litre of expresso and work it out. Then I will buy you your next litre. OK? If you are a user that is reading this and can't understand why I'd think this... what the hell are you doing on slashdot? Else, Thankyou for supporting my rant.