Only Microsoft can do stupid things like this.
First I was silly enough to buy Office 2013 through my work. It hadn't dawned on me that Office 2013 came out after Windows 8 with it's weird Metro interface that nobody wants to use on a desktop. Since Metro was intended for touch phones and tablets and not full-up computers with graphics cards, it has limited graphics and colors. So Office 2013 follows those limited capabilities for some unknown reason.
I installed 2013 some time last year. The first thing I noticed was that Office 2007 was still installed. Later I found out they shared the configuration and mail files. Of course I also noticed how limited the color choices were in Office 2013. At work we use Office 2010 and I'm comfortable with it. Office 2010 is what I wanted to buy rather than 2013. But, it was no longer available.
I leave my computer turned off for most of the week. I turn it off on Sunday evening and usually don't turn it on until Thursday or Friday evening. This past Thursday I turned the computer on and tried to download and read my email. Microsoft Outlook said there was a problem and I should go into Programs and Features in the Windows 7 Control Panel and repair it. I did this, after which every time I TRIED to start Outlook I got a message saying that Outlook 2013 was busy. Eventually I tried other applications in Office 2013, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, et al., and none of them worked. I Googled the problem and ended up following a link that led to a 'Fix It' link. The 'Fix It' was to uninstall Office 2013.
I clicked the link and hoped it would only remove Office 2013 and leave Office 2007 alone. The fix took many minutes to complete. It sort of did leave 2007 alone. However all the menu selections in Outlook 2007 said they were "not supported". I decided to try and repair Office 2007 in the Control Panel and rebooted for the third or fourth time.
Sure enough Office 2007 is back and working like a champ. Apparently this was all due to one of two Windows updates that were installed when I shut my computer down last Sunday night. I now have a more appropriate Office suite for a desktop computer. I did waste money on the 2013, but at least I managed to recover from Microsoft's fiasco.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Samsung Galaxy S2 and Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) 4.0.4 Flawed
Last Thursday night when I turned my phone on for the first time that week, I was pleasantly surprised to find there was finally a operating system (OS) update for my phone's OS running Gingerbread. Since I had been anxious to try Chrome on my phone and it was only available on Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the OS update, I immediately chose to go ahead and update to ICS 4.0.4. Since the Jellybean update has already come out I thought I would be happy to be only one generation behind the latest OS after a year of waiting for ICS due to Sprint and Samsung being so slow to release the update.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 phone had always worked flawlessly, until...
The update went very smooth and the phone rebooted with the new OS. I used the phone for Twitter, Facebook and SMS messages that night and went to bed happy that my phone had finally been updated to the long promised ICS.
Then I woke up and found the Wi-Fi wasn't connected, even though it showed a strong signal and said it was connected to my home Wi-Fi. I restarted the phone using the new Restart choice on power off. The Wi-Fi connected after the restart. Later I noticed the Wi-Fi had quit working again. This time I chose to cycle the Wi-Fi alone rather than restarting the phone. Again the phone connected to the Wi-Fi. Being in the same room as the Wi-Fi router doesn't seem to help the problem. This pattern has continued ever since.
All other Wi-Fi devices continue to work normally.
This morning, Sunday, I was trying to add a comment to someone's Facebook entry. I tried using the "Speak Now' function and found it didn't work. I canceled the attempt and decided to try Speak Now in another application. I tried SMS texting and then tried a note taking application I had installed. Neither of these applications worked with Speak Now. I can only guess what other "features" no longer work. This update, which is most definitely not an upgrade, has turned into a disaster.
I have tried googling for suggestions to fix the Wi-Fi issue and have tried some of the suggestions. There appear to be a lot of people having related issues. I tried setting the Wi-Fi to only connect at 2.4GHz rather than the default of auto, which had the most hope, but it didn't work. None of the suggestions appear to fix the problem. Now I can look forward to dealing with Sprint and Samsung support for fixing these problems if even they know how. Given Sprint and Samsung's track record on releasing updates a year or more after they are available doesn't make the future of this phone look promising.
Makes me consider all the promises made with the Samsung Galaxy S3 that just came out. They all promise the world when they come out and never live up to expectations. All I want is a smartphone that works and uses the current operating system. Since an iPhone isn't an option since I can't stand their control-freak attitude, and Microsoft seems too incompetent to release a phone of any sort I may just go back to a dumb phone.
The Samsung Galaxy S2 phone had always worked flawlessly, until...
The update went very smooth and the phone rebooted with the new OS. I used the phone for Twitter, Facebook and SMS messages that night and went to bed happy that my phone had finally been updated to the long promised ICS.
Then I woke up and found the Wi-Fi wasn't connected, even though it showed a strong signal and said it was connected to my home Wi-Fi. I restarted the phone using the new Restart choice on power off. The Wi-Fi connected after the restart. Later I noticed the Wi-Fi had quit working again. This time I chose to cycle the Wi-Fi alone rather than restarting the phone. Again the phone connected to the Wi-Fi. Being in the same room as the Wi-Fi router doesn't seem to help the problem. This pattern has continued ever since.
All other Wi-Fi devices continue to work normally.
This morning, Sunday, I was trying to add a comment to someone's Facebook entry. I tried using the "Speak Now' function and found it didn't work. I canceled the attempt and decided to try Speak Now in another application. I tried SMS texting and then tried a note taking application I had installed. Neither of these applications worked with Speak Now. I can only guess what other "features" no longer work. This update, which is most definitely not an upgrade, has turned into a disaster.
I have tried googling for suggestions to fix the Wi-Fi issue and have tried some of the suggestions. There appear to be a lot of people having related issues. I tried setting the Wi-Fi to only connect at 2.4GHz rather than the default of auto, which had the most hope, but it didn't work. None of the suggestions appear to fix the problem. Now I can look forward to dealing with Sprint and Samsung support for fixing these problems if even they know how. Given Sprint and Samsung's track record on releasing updates a year or more after they are available doesn't make the future of this phone look promising.
Makes me consider all the promises made with the Samsung Galaxy S3 that just came out. They all promise the world when they come out and never live up to expectations. All I want is a smartphone that works and uses the current operating system. Since an iPhone isn't an option since I can't stand their control-freak attitude, and Microsoft seems too incompetent to release a phone of any sort I may just go back to a dumb phone.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Romney Health Care vs Obamacare
Again, I'm dumbfounded by the news media who think they know everything. They compare Obamacare to what Romney did in Massachusetts. The liberal press doesn't seem capable (or is it willing) to point out the major difference. Obamacare is Federal and Romney's Massachusetts law was at the State level. A major difference reflecting States Rights. Discussing States Rights is not being addressed and that's really where the issue resides. Do we want Federal law and bureaucracy involved in our medical system?
As for Romney now saying the mandate should now be considered a tax rather than a penalty, he didn't say it. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decided the Federal Obamacare mandate was a tax rather than a penalty. Romney merely conceded and confirmed the SCOTUS legal decision over his own personal opinion. Romney is being accused of flip-flopping and attacked by the liberal press when instead he has merely agreed with the SCOTUS decision. Why Romney doesn't defend his position mystifies me, however I understand why the press makes noise rather than report news.
As an independent voter I am not a Romney supporter. My opinion expressed here has more to do with how sick and tired I am of the press, both liberal and conservative, babbling about a non-news topics. These people defile the concept of journalism. America has so many serious issues and real problems to address while these "journalists[sic]" distract the American people on politically motivated non-issues. These people don't report news, they espouse editorial comments. They do America and the American people a deep and serious disservice.
The American people, including me, need to recognize what nonsense and drivel these news outlets provide and turn them off.
As for Romney now saying the mandate should now be considered a tax rather than a penalty, he didn't say it. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decided the Federal Obamacare mandate was a tax rather than a penalty. Romney merely conceded and confirmed the SCOTUS legal decision over his own personal opinion. Romney is being accused of flip-flopping and attacked by the liberal press when instead he has merely agreed with the SCOTUS decision. Why Romney doesn't defend his position mystifies me, however I understand why the press makes noise rather than report news.
As an independent voter I am not a Romney supporter. My opinion expressed here has more to do with how sick and tired I am of the press, both liberal and conservative, babbling about a non-news topics. These people defile the concept of journalism. America has so many serious issues and real problems to address while these "journalists[sic]" distract the American people on politically motivated non-issues. These people don't report news, they espouse editorial comments. They do America and the American people a deep and serious disservice.
The American people, including me, need to recognize what nonsense and drivel these news outlets provide and turn them off.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Firefox Hijacked - Firefox 8 Disaster
The folks at Mozilla don't have time to actually use their browser (test) before they release it to the wild with this new 6 week update cycle paradigm. Enough already stop this madness!
I just updated to FF 8 and regret it already. Continuous updates that cause add-ons to become incompatible is insane. I'm not sure who is driving this train wreck, but creating this post may be the last time I use any Mozilla product. Why would I be presented with 9 tabs each asking me whether I wanted to update each individual add-on and have to check a box and hit a continue button only have to restart FF again. FF is already so slow to start that by the time it starts I have often forgot why I was starting it.
Even worse, based on the lists below there should have been 19 more tabs to annoy me.
I can trace my use of FF all the way back to Netscape 6.2. I remember the conversations at wired/web-monkey discussing starting the Mozilla project. I even took part in them. I used Thunderbird for a long time, always hoping they would come up with a decent integrated calendar. Finally, I just had to give up and unhappily I've moved on to MS Outlook. Now I'm about to do the same thing with FF.
Maybe somebody at Mozilla can drop me a line and let me know when they decide to start listening to their users, rather than their wiz-bang developers. I may give it a try again for old times sake.
Another sad failure.
Here's the list of Add-ons:
COMPATIBLE
Adblock Plus 1.3.10
Console 0.8
DownloadHelper 4.9.6
Firebug 1.8.4
Fireshot 0.94
IE Tab 2 (FF 3.6+) 3.10.7.2
Norton Toolbar 2012.2.1.6
Norton Vulnerability Protection 3.2
Shareaholic 3.0.1
INCOMPATIBLE AND DISABLED
Ad blocker 0,6,7
Broadband Speed Test and Diagnoses 1.2.5
CS Helper 1.0
Chostery 2.6.2
Go Parent Foler 2.5
IE View 1.4.5.1
Link Evaluator 0.9.9.7
Live HTTP headers 0.17
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.2.1
Minimap Addon 0.3.13
Personas 1.6.2
RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin 1.0
Screen Capture Elite 2.0.0.20
Show Parent Folder 1.8
Skype extension 5.3.0.7550
Sothink SWF Catcher 1.3.2
Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.6
Web Developer 1.1.9
YSlow 3.0.4
I just updated to FF 8 and regret it already. Continuous updates that cause add-ons to become incompatible is insane. I'm not sure who is driving this train wreck, but creating this post may be the last time I use any Mozilla product. Why would I be presented with 9 tabs each asking me whether I wanted to update each individual add-on and have to check a box and hit a continue button only have to restart FF again. FF is already so slow to start that by the time it starts I have often forgot why I was starting it.
Even worse, based on the lists below there should have been 19 more tabs to annoy me.
I can trace my use of FF all the way back to Netscape 6.2. I remember the conversations at wired/web-monkey discussing starting the Mozilla project. I even took part in them. I used Thunderbird for a long time, always hoping they would come up with a decent integrated calendar. Finally, I just had to give up and unhappily I've moved on to MS Outlook. Now I'm about to do the same thing with FF.
Maybe somebody at Mozilla can drop me a line and let me know when they decide to start listening to their users, rather than their wiz-bang developers. I may give it a try again for old times sake.
Another sad failure.
Here's the list of Add-ons:
COMPATIBLE
Adblock Plus 1.3.10
Console 0.8
DownloadHelper 4.9.6
Firebug 1.8.4
Fireshot 0.94
IE Tab 2 (FF 3.6+) 3.10.7.2
Norton Toolbar 2012.2.1.6
Norton Vulnerability Protection 3.2
Shareaholic 3.0.1
INCOMPATIBLE AND DISABLED
Ad blocker 0,6,7
Broadband Speed Test and Diagnoses 1.2.5
CS Helper 1.0
Chostery 2.6.2
Go Parent Foler 2.5
IE View 1.4.5.1
Link Evaluator 0.9.9.7
Live HTTP headers 0.17
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant 1.2.1
Minimap Addon 0.3.13
Personas 1.6.2
RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin 1.0
Screen Capture Elite 2.0.0.20
Show Parent Folder 1.8
Skype extension 5.3.0.7550
Sothink SWF Catcher 1.3.2
Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.6
Web Developer 1.1.9
YSlow 3.0.4
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Microsoft Not To Be Outdone - Win7 SP1
My October 2010 comments on "Firefox & Software Update Madness" didn't address Microsoft and the need to continuously update their software.
Microsoft created Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 (Win7), the latest version of their operating system back in April or so. I happen to own three computers running Win7. My wife has a new laptop running Win7 64-bit Home Premium. I have an old home built computer running 32-bit Win7 Home Premium. I also have a computer running Win7 64-bit Ultimate, which I consider my primary computer.
When SP1 came out I was hesitant to install it based on past experience. I had learned the hard way that you should always let others do the initial late-beta testing that seems to be necessary after Microsoft initially releases a service pack. I chose to try installing SP1 on my 32-bit Win7 computer along with the other monthly updates. I started getting Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) randomly Eventually, I managed to track down the problems with help from Microsoft's update support and the computer started running normally after resorting to a cloned disk backup. To play on Dirty Harry, I felt lucky and installed it without problems on my wife's new laptop. Then I decided it should be safe and tried installing on my 64-bit Ultimate computer. I regretted the decision for the next four weeks.
The install went poorly and hung at 16% after rebooting. Tom's Hardware web site gave a suggestion to go ahead and turn the computer off and then turn it back on to go ahead and finish the install. The suggestion worked and the install completed. I began to suffer BSOD's both while running and even more scary during the boot sequence. I would be presented with a recovery screen after the boot failure which invariably said it failed. That's when I first contacted Microsoft for the new problems. The problems continued and I contacted MS support again the next weekend. The problems continued after this second contact with MS support so I called them yet again. After this I noticed things were still not right. The AMD Vision Control Center crashed immediately. Media Center crashed immediately, yet Media Player worked fine. I got a notice about IE8 shutting down unexpectedly, even though I'm running IE9. It mentioned an event number and I thought I would look at the event.
When I tried bringing up the Event Viewer it said that the Event Viewer snap-in could not be displayed and that it may not have been installed correctly. OMG, this is part of the operating system and I decided to call MS support once again. After explaining the new problems, the MS support idiot asked me whether I could boot without crashing. I said yes, and this idiot sent me back to another MS drone to get a new ticket number for this latest problem caused by MS SP1. That's when they told me they were going to charge me to fix this "new problem". I went ballistic and the MS drone eventually hung up on me. My only indication they were not there was a dial tone.
I decided to hell with Microsoft and their incompetence. I called a local computer repair guy to come to the house and figure out what's wrong. The repair guy came by the house and looked at the 64-bit system and decided to uninstall Win7 SP1 manually since according to Windows Update it had not installed completely. Once he did that he installed it again. All the symptoms are now gone. Best $100 I've spent in a while.
LESSON LEARNED: Most MS Support people are nice (not that last set of idiots) but they blindly follow a script which might only hide the true problem. The first three calls were to foreign support people. The first was in the Philippines and the second as well as the third were from India. The foreign support people were respectful, patient and easy to work with, even if they couldn't solve the problem. Only the American MS support people, if I remember right in Oregon, appeared more interested in ending the call than helping a customer with a problem caused by a update to their software. Nasty, nasty people.
Microsoft created Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 (Win7), the latest version of their operating system back in April or so. I happen to own three computers running Win7. My wife has a new laptop running Win7 64-bit Home Premium. I have an old home built computer running 32-bit Win7 Home Premium. I also have a computer running Win7 64-bit Ultimate, which I consider my primary computer.
When SP1 came out I was hesitant to install it based on past experience. I had learned the hard way that you should always let others do the initial late-beta testing that seems to be necessary after Microsoft initially releases a service pack. I chose to try installing SP1 on my 32-bit Win7 computer along with the other monthly updates. I started getting Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) randomly Eventually, I managed to track down the problems with help from Microsoft's update support and the computer started running normally after resorting to a cloned disk backup. To play on Dirty Harry, I felt lucky and installed it without problems on my wife's new laptop. Then I decided it should be safe and tried installing on my 64-bit Ultimate computer. I regretted the decision for the next four weeks.
The install went poorly and hung at 16% after rebooting. Tom's Hardware web site gave a suggestion to go ahead and turn the computer off and then turn it back on to go ahead and finish the install. The suggestion worked and the install completed. I began to suffer BSOD's both while running and even more scary during the boot sequence. I would be presented with a recovery screen after the boot failure which invariably said it failed. That's when I first contacted Microsoft for the new problems. The problems continued and I contacted MS support again the next weekend. The problems continued after this second contact with MS support so I called them yet again. After this I noticed things were still not right. The AMD Vision Control Center crashed immediately. Media Center crashed immediately, yet Media Player worked fine. I got a notice about IE8 shutting down unexpectedly, even though I'm running IE9. It mentioned an event number and I thought I would look at the event.
When I tried bringing up the Event Viewer it said that the Event Viewer snap-in could not be displayed and that it may not have been installed correctly. OMG, this is part of the operating system and I decided to call MS support once again. After explaining the new problems, the MS support idiot asked me whether I could boot without crashing. I said yes, and this idiot sent me back to another MS drone to get a new ticket number for this latest problem caused by MS SP1. That's when they told me they were going to charge me to fix this "new problem". I went ballistic and the MS drone eventually hung up on me. My only indication they were not there was a dial tone.
I decided to hell with Microsoft and their incompetence. I called a local computer repair guy to come to the house and figure out what's wrong. The repair guy came by the house and looked at the 64-bit system and decided to uninstall Win7 SP1 manually since according to Windows Update it had not installed completely. Once he did that he installed it again. All the symptoms are now gone. Best $100 I've spent in a while.
LESSON LEARNED: Most MS Support people are nice (not that last set of idiots) but they blindly follow a script which might only hide the true problem. The first three calls were to foreign support people. The first was in the Philippines and the second as well as the third were from India. The foreign support people were respectful, patient and easy to work with, even if they couldn't solve the problem. Only the American MS support people, if I remember right in Oregon, appeared more interested in ending the call than helping a customer with a problem caused by a update to their software. Nasty, nasty people.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
BlackBerry & RIM Comments
My first smart phone was a Palm Treo 755p. Oh how I miss that phone with it's stylus and touch screen. I replaced it with a RIM BlackBerry 8330 eventually. Even initially I had trouble with the BlackBerry. The first phone I had, I returned to the store and went home with a Samsung Insight instead. I ended up returning the insight after accidentally texting my wife's aunt in California at 4:30AM her time. Thankfully, it was a landline and the message didn't get delivered. Didn't get along well with the Insight's touch screen. I finally decided my first impression of BlackBerry must be wrong and it couldn't really be that bad.
I took another BlackBerry home and tried installing the desktop software on my 64-bit Vista Home Premium computer. No luck, the software didn't support 64-bit Vista. Eventually, I ended up just using the BlackBerry as a USB drive to transfer data. This all happened nearly two years ago, and my BlackBerry contract with Sprint is going to expire this coming spring.
I continued being disappointed with the BlackBerry. Installing apps was always a pain. My Treo 755p had long had the Slingbox app to watch my cable TV from anywhere, which never became available for my model 8330. Installing updates on the BlackBerry often caused a regression to an application or made the experience less fulfilling.
The Vista 64-bit computer has since been upgraded to 64-bit Win 7 Ultimate.
This morning I decided to try an app called Flixter that I learned about on InfoWorld.com. Sounded like it might be an interesting application. The link took me to appworld on blackberry.com. It wanted to install something called "Blackberry AppWorld Installer". I tried installing using Firefox with no luck. Tried using an IE window in Firefox with no luck. Finally started up IE 8 and tried installing from there. It seemed to install, but the connection to the phone didn't seem to work enough to satisfy the installation web page. Decided enough was enough and looked for help on the BlackBerry web site. What I quickly found was their recommended work around was to use a compatible operating system on my computer to install and use their application. In disgust I uninstalled Blackberry AppWorld Installer using the Control Panel.
Imagine the arrogance involved with a phone application (or web site or phone vendor) requiring that I use a compatible operating system on my computer to load their application. Although I have another 32-bit Win 7 Home Premium and three 32-bit XP @Home computers which might be compatible, they are not my primary computer. I will not defile them with this software. So I hereby decree, I will no longer install anything related to Blackberry on either my computer or the phone itself and will begin investigating Android phones to replace the BlackBerry. If I can't find a phone compatible with my needs then I'll do without a so-called smartphone and save lots of money each month. Oh how I miss my Palm Treo. Palm sort of reminds me of the Commodore story of a better product failing because they couldn't sell it to save themselves.
I took another BlackBerry home and tried installing the desktop software on my 64-bit Vista Home Premium computer. No luck, the software didn't support 64-bit Vista. Eventually, I ended up just using the BlackBerry as a USB drive to transfer data. This all happened nearly two years ago, and my BlackBerry contract with Sprint is going to expire this coming spring.
I continued being disappointed with the BlackBerry. Installing apps was always a pain. My Treo 755p had long had the Slingbox app to watch my cable TV from anywhere, which never became available for my model 8330. Installing updates on the BlackBerry often caused a regression to an application or made the experience less fulfilling.
The Vista 64-bit computer has since been upgraded to 64-bit Win 7 Ultimate.
This morning I decided to try an app called Flixter that I learned about on InfoWorld.com. Sounded like it might be an interesting application. The link took me to appworld on blackberry.com. It wanted to install something called "Blackberry AppWorld Installer". I tried installing using Firefox with no luck. Tried using an IE window in Firefox with no luck. Finally started up IE 8 and tried installing from there. It seemed to install, but the connection to the phone didn't seem to work enough to satisfy the installation web page. Decided enough was enough and looked for help on the BlackBerry web site. What I quickly found was their recommended work around was to use a compatible operating system on my computer to install and use their application. In disgust I uninstalled Blackberry AppWorld Installer using the Control Panel.
Imagine the arrogance involved with a phone application (or web site or phone vendor) requiring that I use a compatible operating system on my computer to load their application. Although I have another 32-bit Win 7 Home Premium and three 32-bit XP @Home computers which might be compatible, they are not my primary computer. I will not defile them with this software. So I hereby decree, I will no longer install anything related to Blackberry on either my computer or the phone itself and will begin investigating Android phones to replace the BlackBerry. If I can't find a phone compatible with my needs then I'll do without a so-called smartphone and save lots of money each month. Oh how I miss my Palm Treo. Palm sort of reminds me of the Commodore story of a better product failing because they couldn't sell it to save themselves.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Firefox & Software Update Madness
I spent nearly an hour downloading Microsoft Office Plus 2010 after purchasing and Firefox stopped responding. The download had reached 621MB of the 650MB. Eventually I found a hidden dialog box asking me to update Firefox to 3.6.11. I clicked the button to "Ask Me Later", but Firefox still was not responding. My only choice was to kill Firefox which I did.
Firefox restarted and I chose to restore the previous session which it did. Finally checking the download manager I found it was back to downloading the Office download at about 285MB. It quickly completed the download successfully in 5-10 minutes.
I've grown used to clicking on a link in an email message and receiving a "fatal error" message from Firefox only to find Firefox wants to update some totally unrelated add-on. Performing the update gets Firefox to finally start. However, interrupting a 650MB download for an update is totally unacceptable. Mozilla, the Firefox developer, along with all the software development community have got to get this update madness under control. Each piece of software seems to think their software is the only software installed on a computer and must be updated immediately regardless what the user is doing.
Last week proved to be incredibly annoying. It was Micro$oft Tuesday and they wanted to install a massive number of updates. In the midst of the M$ mess, Adobe Reader decided it needed to be updated immediately. Then Norton Internet Security wanted to update from the 2010 version to 2011. When this happens on a weeknight while trying to update five (5) home computers and all your trying to do is read your day's email, it becomes overwhelming.
So what do you think? Has this update madness gotten out of control and do software developers need to change their paradigm on when to tickle a user to update?
Firefox restarted and I chose to restore the previous session which it did. Finally checking the download manager I found it was back to downloading the Office download at about 285MB. It quickly completed the download successfully in 5-10 minutes.
I've grown used to clicking on a link in an email message and receiving a "fatal error" message from Firefox only to find Firefox wants to update some totally unrelated add-on. Performing the update gets Firefox to finally start. However, interrupting a 650MB download for an update is totally unacceptable. Mozilla, the Firefox developer, along with all the software development community have got to get this update madness under control. Each piece of software seems to think their software is the only software installed on a computer and must be updated immediately regardless what the user is doing.
Last week proved to be incredibly annoying. It was Micro$oft Tuesday and they wanted to install a massive number of updates. In the midst of the M$ mess, Adobe Reader decided it needed to be updated immediately. Then Norton Internet Security wanted to update from the 2010 version to 2011. When this happens on a weeknight while trying to update five (5) home computers and all your trying to do is read your day's email, it becomes overwhelming.
So what do you think? Has this update madness gotten out of control and do software developers need to change their paradigm on when to tickle a user to update?
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