I Hate Microsoft Windows

Having to use Windows is horrible, there's no scripting and - but before I start moaning, let's look at what's just happened and then hint at the solution. I've been using Windows for an hour. There are a few problems, some minor usage quirks like getting an error message after hitting return to enter my username to login, instead of the cursor moving down to the password field, and some major incompatibilties like an inability to cut and paste tables from Word into Outlook. (Why is an email program called Outlook?) Come on, Office is supposed to be a suite. The first few columns of the table do not get transferred. The table cell does not resize so that I can type the numbers in. Suddenly sending a helpful email to my boss becomes a major challenge.

Printing is a big problem in Windows. I made a selection by dragging the cursor across some text. CTRL/P. (Why place the CTRL key on the corner of the keyboard, further away fom the letters?) The print dialogue had the selection option greyed out! I thought I could get around this madness by only printing page 37. Stupid Windows then printed the entire document.

(That reminds me: why are there different print dialogues? If I want to print an image from Internet Explorer I do not get an option to scale the image to the paper, but if I print from Photo Editor then I do. And that's another thing: the program is called 'Microsoft Photo Editor', not 'Photo Editor'. Why does Microsoft always do this?)

"Hardware Threshold Alert: HP Client Manager has detected that your disk space threshold is below 22 percent" (sic). Leaving aside the neologism and that I do not want HP to manage me, I do not wish to be informed about thresholds. Usage, maybe. Maybe they meant usage and wrote threshold.

"Java (TM) updates are ready to download." Great, I love Java. I kicked off the install but "the NTVDM CPU encountered an illegal instruction". What does that mean - can't they write it in English like on other operating systems? Another annoyance is that it is not possible to copy/paste the error text from the alert (which also contains long numbers) in order to pass it on to support, so I imagine most people won't bother. As with the Outlook problem above, Windows has put obstacles in my way so that the job does not get done.

The attitude of Windows users is: don't worry about it. I can't understand this, coming from the Mac community. We would scream and holler on Macfixit.com or the Apple forums if there were similar problems with the Mac OS and Apple would have put it right years ago. Yet the Windows users, millions of them, just put up with this crap. It never gets fixed. Their workflow is interrupted and has extra steps. Weird. They need a step change. They need a website.

Worse than Watergate? More political scandals

The Valerie Plame Affair.

The Evening Standard: The Paper that Hates London

As El-Attar points out in his unpublished letter to the Standard, the only hatred and terror for sale in this case was the hatred and terror being incited by Robert Mendick and sold by the Evening Standard.

Craig's BookNotes has a new address AGAIN: now at http://booknotes.weblogger.com/ - cut and paste it where it counts.

Meanwhile in 2004:

The Hutton Report seems to be largely forgotten now. Most people remember the '45 minutes' claim, and the 'sexed-up' assertion, which all seem to distract from the hundreds of deaths in Iraq that continue to this day. Hutton Inquiry.

Book: Blair's Wars: war without end which reminds me everyone should read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to understand phoney wars. Of course it all goes wrong when people believe they really are the enemy just because we are killing them and destroying their country's infrastructure. 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Why?

Attack on Faluja: Screams will not be heard.

MPs give harsh reception to ID card scheme - those were the days. Everyone's against it except the three or four people who can drive it through, it seems.

Greenpeace Oceans campaign to ensure we have food in the future.

Save or Delete is Greenpeace's campaign to protect ancient forests, so that we can breathe in the future.

News from Palestine: Arabic Media Internet Network. (Edward Said used to be here.)

Ben Hammersley on software patents.

Bush-backers-only policy riles voters at RNC rallies is an appalling example of control that Britain's New Labour woud be proud of. I find I am reading the US press as if I lived there now. And weblogs like Emphasis Added.

Secret Services harass blogger: We Interrupt This Madness...

U.S. Military Orders. Three Questions for President George W. Bush. US clears RFID chips for people.

They Voted for this Mess - the church in the US is telling people to vote Republican, despite it all. Good rant.

Book: Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting 21st Century Philistinism apparently not written by an intellectual, according to the comments on Amazon, but the question is valid.

Children not welcome: The War on Youth.

British Apples: Fallen fruit.

Apple Fiends

Apple's recent suits and resulting court case against Apple 'rumor' weblogs to get them to reveal the names of the Apple staffers who leaked trade secrets, has caused much concern among journalists who are worried about losing their rights to privacy of sources if a legal precedent is set.

Whether these Apple news webloggers are indeed journalists is unclear: they may be producing news articles but without any journalistic ethics or methods. Apple's methods in going after these one-man-bands with heavy lawyers reminds me of America's war against cocaine. It is not fought at home.

Unable to police its millions of coke addicts, the USA is defoliating coca crops — and any other crops in the vicinity — in Colombia and putting many innocent farming families on the breadline in the process. (If they do succeed, the coca will no doubt be grown in another country to satisfy the US market.)

Similarly, Apple is not questioning its staff about the leaks. Perhaps Apple does not want to demotivate its employees by investigating them too heavily internally(!?), or maybe they prefer their buyers to be deprived of advance information on their products, but Apple's image and fans are suffering as it switches from being the cool alternative to being The Man.

You are reminded that...

If a notice is to be stuck to a wall or window at your place of business, then you must follow these rules:

Enhance visual amenities by using a whole sheet of A4. Do not think about rotating the text or cutting the paper down to size.

Obviously, do not write the notice by hand, no matter how neat your copperplate. This is far too human and friendly.

Select a grotesque font, preferably one of Microsoft's bastardizations of a classic typeface. These really stand out. Do not try to improve the kerning or line spacing. Don't even think about using a non-Windows system that can actually do fonts, especially if the notice is to remain on display for years.

Layout: do not use layout. Use UPPER CASE throughout and justify the right edge of the text: that'll slow down those speed-readers!

Impress everyone by employing a self-important tone wherever possible. An unnecessary heading like "Important Message" or "Polite Warning", instead of the actual message or warning, is a good start.

Be Indirect. Useful gambits here are "It has been brought to our attention" or, if this is something new to everyone: "Staff are reminded that" or "As you are all already aware"... Note the passive tense which is ideal for pomposity.

Include at least one misspelling (say 'hazzard' instead of hazard) and miss out word, also repeat the word 'the' at the end of one line and the start of the next. Changing word order randomly can also make that distracting green underlining by the grammar checker go away.

Grammar. Everyone knows what you are trying to say, so you don't need to actually say it. Skill is usually needed to write something with the opposite meaning to what is intended, but combining the points below should achieve this:

• Neologism: say 'dissolvable' instead of soluble, and always say 'orientate' instead of orient. Ignore the dictionary and be creative.
• Tautology: Always add 'back' to words like return or revert in order to reverse their meaning and annoy pedants. Similarly, use 'at this moment in time' instead of 'now' and so on...... And don't forget that the more dots you use, the stronger the ellipsis. Add 'alternatively' to 'or'. (You know that you can only have one alternative, but your readership probably wouldn't.)
• Be poetic: Affect the vocabulary of a bygone age by saying 'whilst' instead of while: this is compulsory because while you would never say 'whilst' out loud, it is absolutely fine for notices and e-mail to use fancy ten-dollar words.
• Be vague: for instance don't ask for something specific to be kept in a certain state, say 'the facilities' must be 'left in a tidy manner'. This literally would instruct your readers to dance out of the room a la Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse rather than leave the room in the condition that they would like to find it in, thus excusing you from obeying your own notice.
• Mix tenses. The passive is to be favoured, but abruptly using the present or pluperfect will really make some people pay attention.
• Be emphatic. If some words do not seem to stand out on a first read through, underline them. Also if you did stick with lower case, then capitalize phrases such as "All Staff Must Comply". Also say they should adhere to this procedure, although not literally, obviously, ha ha.
• Use buzzwords. If there is a business aspect to your notice, you must include the phrase "going forward" to leave everyone with a really positive feeling.
• Be cliched. You ought to include words like 'hopefully' at random points, preferably while simultaneously splitting a verb.

Use more syllables. Longer words convey more power to a message.

Be redundant. Say what some new equipment is not intended for.

Be loyal to FHM. Affect the house style of a cheap bloke's periodical by ending all -ize words with -ise.

Be covert. Don't let this task get delegated to a senior manager, or some clever junior who may dilute or simplify your message.

Finish well. Multicoloured clip-art borders can be really pretty.

If you get on a roll and manage to do most of the above, consider getting your sheet of A4 laminated.

Brand Republik

Able was I ere I saw a copy of Marketing on the train. Among the treats in store:

1. New women's magazine Happy launches in April. The title features shopping content linked to the Express Shopping TV channel.


2. Jack Link's is planning a UK launch of its bestselling US meat snack brand, beef jerky, in six flavours. The ads will carry the strapline "What's your beef?" and target the brand as an alternative to crisps for men.


3. RFID tags, half the size of a grain of sand, can be embedded in products such as clothes so the next time you enter the shop the staff can greet you gaily by name. The retailer links the product with the card used to buy it.


4. Vauxhall cars link with lad's mag FHM to launch their VXR sports car with a rally and "trackside totty". FHM has 4.5M consumers per month. Vauxhall were "impressed with their creative approach".


5. Skinny Cow, the low-fat frozen dessert range, is to expand with new half-litre tubs.


6. A record 223M Christmas cards were sent by businesses this season.


7. DFS is featuring a Katie Melua song in its new ads to appeal to a younger more fashion-conscious female market. (What - human females?) Strapline: "Are we crazy? No, we're DFS".


8. Genevieve Wright, a director of planning and insight, states in her article that she was impressed by Waterstone's bookshop. "The shelves were clearly labelled, allowing easy distinction between pop-up books and those with a Christmas theme. It might seem obvious, but this is where most bookshops fall down, using instead some bizarre segmentation that only the assistants understand."


9. Andy Fry writes that Personalized Video Recorders (PVR machines such as TiVo or EyeTech) carry two key threats. Firstly, that watching recorded content diminishes the impact of time-sensitive adverts; secondly, PVR users are skipping ads. (In the USA, if the user fast-forwards during the break an ad pops up on TiVo and if the user clicks on it their personal information is sent to the advertiser who can then make a direct approach.) One option to minimize the impact of PVRs is to schedule event-based TV that more people feel compelled to watch live, says ITV Director of Broadcasting Mike Desmond. For genres such as drama, one line of defence is to make it harder for the viewers to dodge commercial messages by using sponsorship 'bumpers' as markers to rejoin a show or having flexible breaks with fewer ads. There could also be more product placement and channel sponsorship. This is called "sustaining a dialogue with consumers". But the PVR threat is only part of the problem. On-demand, sunscription-based services with no adverts such as HomeChoice are rolling out.


10. The role of Madame Tussauds marketing manager is to make the experience fun, not to make waxworks of important politicians. This involves brainstorming and wacky ideas. The latest is a nativity scene featuring the Beckhams.