I’m sorry but I’m going to have a little rant here. For years I’ve been using microsoft products and for years they’ve seemed to be hell bent on matching every success with an opposite and equal disappointment. Windows 11 Professional for example, is a clean and snappy OS that is massively worth the $100 upgrade cost, BUT it still constantly nags you to use microsoft’s One drive cloud-based storage. It also has some great administrator features – BUT has almost forced telemetry of your information, and it tries like hell to prevent you from installing as a local account. This is all unfortunate because again, Windows 11 Professional is very good. I cant tell you when my last BSOD was, because they just don’t occur anymore. But the aforementioned issues have added up for years now and Ive just had enough.
My first official ‘unplugging’ came by canceling my Office 365 subscription. Dont get me wrong, Office is a great product – but some files turned up missing on One Drive (either my fault or theirs) and I was unable to recover them (this day and age). This was after going through the tedious, time-killing, and circular motions of contacting their customer support. They thought it was odd that all the folders were still in the One-drive, there just want anything in them. Me too! Who knows though? I dont. But that was was that – I got rid of Office 365 shortly after and went with the free open source Office Libre instead; and while it is nowhere near as pretty and feels ten years old – it gets the jobs done.
One other thing, since I ditched office, I lost Outlook. Office Libre does not have an email solution, and the alternatives I found online either required some sort of subscription, or are were super clunky. Now Windows 11 does come with a bubblegum version of Office Outlook, itself confusingly called ‘Outlook’. It’s free but my God do you pay for it in other ways.
First and foremost it isn’t timely. You can ‘send’ an email, but more often than not it is not immediate. It will wait for a bit, lollygag around for an undefinable time, and then eventually *yawn* it will transmit. Same goes for receiving emails. You know those six-digit authentication codes that are emailed to you form your bank when you try to log in to your account? You cant really use the free Outlook because it will not sync on command – only when it feels like it. So I have to use my phone or my mac (which comes with a beautifully functional and elegant email program BTW) to get the code before it times out.
I guess microsoft did this is to encourage folks to get the real Outlook via Office 365. But to me however, I think: if they are petty enough to ‘shitify’ their own program in order to get you to upgrade – then what else have they compromised? (lots).
Also, this ‘free’ Outlook comes with another cost – the first two emails in your inbox will always be junk ads.
Another ‘massive’ unplugging from microsoft came when I purchased my Father in Law’s six year old macbook pro with the first generation of apple’s m based silicone. After a few learning hoops here and there (and still to be honest) I’ve found it to be a wonderfully refreshing computing exp
erience. Despite its age it runs all of my programs with ease, it looks great, it has astonishing battery life, a beautiful screen and most importantly…It just works all the time, every time.
Finally, (because Im on a roll here) I am not a fan of Bill Gates. He seems a bit shady, disingenuous, and ulterior motives behind the smarmy smiles. The Epstein connection and unprecedented farm land acquisitions don’t help either.
So anyways – yep, done with MS. Ill still keep my existing rig around since most of my Steam games run on Windows. After that tho, I guess Ill have to replace them with some other form of entertainment. Probably not such a bad thing, at my age.
Now, on to another company that ranks in near the very top of my ‘Wall of Shame’ is Hewlett effing Packard, or HP. The undisputed champion manufacturer of the worst printers on planet earth. A celebration of cheap junk that doesn’t last, planned obsolescence, and (as a result) a heavyweight e-waste contributor.
They also have the audacity to push you to subscribe to their ‘Instant ink’ service. A monthly waste of money that provides you with small capacity cartridges that are programmed to stop working if you decide to cancel your subscription.
This current HP printer of mine was given to me by a friend who was moving out. It is weird, things seemed okay between us – I didn’t realize that he despised me to the core. He must, because this Office jet 3835 printer is such a turd that I am almost certain it has peeled months off of my life through frustration and stress.
Practically new when I got it, it still only managed to ‘kind of’ work, as you had to ‘help’ the paper feed grab the paper in order to print. It then had constant WiFi connection problems – where although it was on the network, it would not wake up when print jobs were sent its way. Only after turning it off and allowing it restart would it begin printing. But then after a while, even that method required holding your tongue just right.
Now – it doesn’t work at all. It still turns on, still shows its connected, but it just doesnt do anything. All print jobs – no matter what device I send them on – are ignored. This of course after I spent stupid money on a genuine HP black ink cartridge (HP makes it near impossible to use third party cartridges, or refills btw).
So in the dumpster it went. Here’s a pic of its final resting place. Sorry if its a bit blurry, but this printer wasn’t worth the additional effort of waiting for the auto-focus to set in.
Never again will I buy from these two companies – and you shouldn’t either. Buy a mac, and buy a Brother printer. Sure these companies (especially Apple) have also made some controversial moves in the past (ie. iphone battery sabotage) and yes they certainly cost more – but they are by far the best options I’ve come across over my many years of geeking.
