On 9/5/06, Ilyse Kazar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
At 11:07 AM -0400 9/5/06, Chad Smith wrote: >Let me tell you something. Everytime your computer (or its user) screws up >- it's not Micro$$$oft's satanic plan to ruin your lives, rape your kids, >and steal all your money. *YOU* messed up *YOUR* computer I do not think that is fair. Plenty can go wrong on a box due simply to conflicts between what different software titles write to the registry, missing dll's that installers forgot to include, SO MANY THINGS that are beyond the purview, control, or presumed knowledge of and end-user and which are DEFINITELY not due to them "messing up".
But the problem he's describing - downloading a viewer, installing it, and then deleting it, and wondering why his files won't open - that's *his* problem, *his* mistake, *his* error. That had nothing to do with the "Evil Empire" trying to oppress anybody. It's not a virus. It's not a trojan. It's not a worm. It's not a hack. It's not an exploit. It's not spyware. It's not adware. It's not anybody's fault but the user. Blaming Microsoft - or *trying* to blame Microsoft is not only stupid, it's FUD, and it's just plain wrong. I'd say (and have) the same things to people who come on here bitching about "ur softwarez ate my Office filez!!!!11!1!!!one" or "OPNN OFICE TOOK OVER MY COMPOOTR!" when *THEY* downloaded / installed OpenOffice.org - purposefully checked the boxes that said to associate MS Office files with OpenOffice.org, and then complained. You are right, it's not always user error. But it is sometimes. And it definately is this time. The original poster on this thread is a Windows user. That's why he
is using Windows, doh. He seems to have a fear of things that might happen TO his computer and it is just completely unrealistic to propose that anything that might happen TO a computer (particularly one with new virus threats every hour of every day) is the fault of the end-user!
Yes, it actually is their fault if they do not have anti-virus software (there are plenty of free ones out there, even open source ones) and for opening / installing programs (like this guy did) that they don't have a clue what they do. I've been a Windows user since Windows 3.1. I've had *ONE* virus in my life that did anything other than get quantined by my AV software - and that was because I hadn't installed any AV on that machine yet. And I opened a file that I shouldn't have, from someone I didn't know, and it was an EXE. I'm not saying it's *always* the users fault. But it usually could be prevented with some free tools and some common sense. -- - Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
