How ridiculous can we get?
So, I install an antivirus system on a Windows 10 laptop… it will be run once and then uninstalled, and then another one will be run, and then a third one. Then I’ll uninstall all of them except the built in antivirus Windows 10 comes with. This is a “trick” I use as part of what I call a “tune up” on a computer. No one antivirus will get them all. In fact, even running 4 or 5 top of the line antivirii [isn’t Latin fun?] programs, I can not certify a computer as virus-free, any more.(1)
But my point is only this: I install one of them, start it running, and 20 seconds or so later I get an “alert” in the messaging Windows 10 side bar proclaiming that an antivirus program was just installed.
Really? You’re kidding, right? Who would have guessed…
Truly, on a stack of silicon that high, I will swear that I do not require my hammer to inform me that I just hit a nail. I know what I just did! Of course, as a programmer, I am delighted that the computer knows what I just did, but let’s not get silly here. Microsoft and/or the antivirus makers should easily enough be able to differentiate between actions performed by the user — which obviously don’t need to be reported back to the user — and those that were done by some other pathway (automatic updates, Martians hacking in, etc).
Microsoft might think this (i.e., the message / alert system) is a great feature. Me, I look at this and it merely tells me that all is definitely not well at Microsoft. That alert / messaging window almost never says anything useful, so usually just wastes my time.
Then there are the times when a laptop I’m working on, but away from at the moment, chimes, displays a message just long enough for me to turn around notice that there is a message just as it goes away. I wheel my chair over the computer, try to find the message in the message sidebar, and it isn’t there. So I have no idea what was just almost communicated to me. In a case when I wasn’t actively doing any thing to the computer, I’d kind of like to know what it thought important enough for my attention, dig? Silly me…
Then I’ve worked on computers where that sidebar is running a stream of ads, several a minute coming in. So fast, so many, that’s actually why the computer was brought to me for service, as the user has no clue how to stop that overwhelming flood. That, also, is just plain ridiculous; a waste of “advertising bandwidth” you might say. A person can only absorb so many ads at a time, folks. After that, all ads are just noise.
That messaging sidebar’s current behavior is totally Ridiculous! Ridiculous, I say! A waste of computer potential; a waste of operator time. A waste of advertising potential (though I don’t approve of the current fad of turning computers into nothing more than advertising portals — most definitely I do not — still, this is a self-defeating use of that capability). A waste of internet bandwidth, which in spite of all the advertising to use more more more internet, is not unlimited.
Ridiculous. I do not support the ridiculous, the wasteful, the that-was-almost-a-great-idea.
I am pushing no recommendation here; this article is more in the way of:
- An open letter to Microsoft. Please update your designs to something that is truly user efficient, user friendly, user obvious. Need help on that? Talk to any master programmer, any one who’s been “in the field” for 20 years or more [that’s what it takes to make a master programmer, by the way: 20+ years on the job — everyone else is not yet at the top of his game].
- Giving you, the reader, something to think about. If a thing’s behavior is annoying, why did you pay all that money for it? Why do you tolerate it? Why tolerate it at all? Corporates assume too much, push too much, declare “that’s the way it is” too much. We do not serve the corporations; it’s the other way around.
Perhaps you find the message/alert sidebar just fine. Hey, that’s cool. I can dig it (as we said in an earlier decade). My reaction is because I’m a programmer and it’s behavior tells me nasty things overall about how poorly designed and thought-out all this is. After 50 years (more or less) of small computers you’d think there’s be a Perfected Operating System by now, wouldn’t you? [That’s another story, actually… How constant “new and improved” must ultimately kill any product.]
By the way, almost to the side
Oh, and it won’t do any good to call Tech Support and make a suggestion. They don’t take suggestions. They mostly don’t even have the answers you need (my experience, at least — hopefully yours has been better!). I know of no effective pathway to submit suggestions to the Big Companies any more. They have “out sourced” so much of what they do, that it’s possible the side-bar wasn’t even crafted by Microsoft. Do you have any idea how many manufacturers are involved in making a car? 100’s… maybe 1000’s, depending on the make and model. The so-called “make” of a car is almost false advertising any more. Ridiculous…
So, this brings us to my 3rd point:
3. When you [as a company, say] out-source critical components, services or design expertise, you lose control over it and run the risk — near certainty — that it will no longer represent your company and your brand faithfully, that it will no longer serve your customers — and therefore your stock holders(2) — reliably.
I don’t know that any software components of Windows are out-sourced (though I’d put money on it, given the schizophrenic (i.e., utterly inconsistent) nature of the system these days), but I do know that tech support and feedback services most definitely have been outsourced and that has made them worse, not even close to better. Ask the many customers who finally come to me for help, after hours on the phone getting no where.
Ridiculous…
(1) NOTE: do not install more than one antivirus program on your computer at a time, not to leave it there. Run it once, and uninstall it, and go back to your normal antivirus. Multiple antivirii programs running at the same time can lead to all sorts of problems. Secondly, know that no matter what you do, viruses / malware will get on to your computer; that’s the nature of the sewer we call the Internet. Just sayin’…
(2) One does not serve the stock holders by serving the stock holders; one does that by serving the customer, making the best product possible that will sell as many times as possible and generate so much customer satisfaction that they keep coming back forever. That’s how you serve the stock holders; ignore them, for the most part, focus on the product and your customers. Yes, an old fashioned, naive idea that I have come to realize is also a true one.