I’m a little peeved about… no, wait - let me be completely honest about this: I’m not a little peeved, I’m seriously pissed off about - the “gotcha’s” that computer companies try to cram down our throats.

I’ve seen these twice today, and the second one has been thrown in my face three or four times.

First, Micro$oft pops up some crap about “Windows Genuine Advantage” when you boot your computer - at least, I’ve seen it happen a lot the last couple of weeks, and as far as I can recall, it’s when you boot. It has some high-sounding bullshit about preventing piracy, when what it really is, is a way for Micro$oft to scam data off of your computer and do god knows what with it. If you “accept” it, you’re agreeing to whatever the hell it is they’re doing with it. This one’s bad enough, but then there’s the second one.

Second, I just got a new computer - a Toshiba notebook, big screen, big keyboard (yes, it has a real ten-key pad, which is why I picked it). In the process of setting it up, I decided not to give it a ‘net connection right away, just to see what it would do (or not do). For one thing, although it did notice that it didn’t have net connex, it still wanted to go tell Micro$oft and Toshiba about itself and complained when it couldn’t. Not surprising - stupid, yes, but it’s exactly what I expected would happen. Now, despite not havving net connex, the Norton 360 that came with it partnered up with Micro$oft to warn me that my “computer is at risk” because the software isn’t fully installed (apparently Norton thinks that computer viruses fly around in the air randomly, just waiting for the unwary), and worse, Norton 360 popped up a window occupying fully half the screen real estate, with a dire warning about spyware, viruses, et cetera that it would protect my computer from, but first… “Click Next to Turn It On”… Naaah, not right now, don’t wanna, not gonna. Go away. Ummm… Go Away! God dammit, GO THE HELL AWAY!!!! Turns out, not only is there not a cancel button, this handy little piece of software has the little red “X” in the upper right corner grayed out, and doesn’t pay any attention to it. Won’t quit. Okay, the hell with it: ALT-F4. Guess what? Got that short-circuited, too. Hahaha! You think VIRUSES are bad? Wait ’til you see what NORTON can do to you! Actually, I eventually got it killed by giving the three-finger salute (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and doing the “exit” button to the task named NORTON. It didn’t respond at first, but finally departed.

Gotcha! You vill youse our soft vares, und you vill LIKE zem! Bend ofer for your in check shun uff SEKKURITY, Herr CitiZen. Zare, now, you are feeling SAFE, Ja?

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