Cheap Laptop and Windows Grief

Until the iPhone has an offline RSS reader, I will be using my subway downtime to blog. It seems I have line-wrap issues, which I have to go back and edit in Blogger. Ugh! Still worth it.Anyway, the $269 laptop I got yesterday died, and I swapped it off for one that is $120 more, bringing up to just over $400 after tax--very close to what a new Acer laptop would cost after mail-in rebate from Radio Shack, or the price of 2 OLPC's, assuming you donate one.

Still, I don't have the time, and just have to bite the bullet and do it. I don't look forward to installing another 88 critical updates, after the Microsoft Installer, then another bunch to patches to IE7, and even more if I accept Media Player 11, then even more to patch Office, but not till after installing Windows Genuine Advantage.

Even for me, a Windows fan and lover of VBScript, this is ridiculous. Now, I see why Vista was necessary. XP has been patched into oblivion. It seems that the system's architecture should strike a better balance between security and ease of use without requiring investing an entire night into innocuoation. Its so bad that deleting temp files and doing a defrag and full system backup have to be the last step.

The iPhone in comparison can do so much less than a laptop, but I see where they're going with it. Technology won't acheive its promise until it serves us more than we serve it.

Sent from my iPhone