The other day I was in the checkout line at the local office (super)store. The guy in front of me was eager to get out the door with his new copy of some PC virus software (I’m not sure if it was a virus installer or deleter). I was good – no wisecracks from me at all. After all, he was bigger than me. WAY bigger than me. Anyway, while I was waiting for him to pay for viral salvation with his Quicken VISA card, my eyes were drawn to the ever-present checkout line magazine stand. Unlike the grocery store, where tabloids contain the sordid details of the latest on, off, on-again, off-again Hollywood wedding, or a photo with the head of a baby, poorly grafted onto a 1000 pound torso, these magazines proclaimed even scarier headlines.

They were PC computer magazines. Here’s some of the “headlines”, the main features, of these mags. They serve as a testimony to the differences between the Windoze PC experience, and that of us Mac users. And, unlike the tabloids, I am not making these up.

From PC World: “50 Biggest PC Annoyances – And How to Fix Them”. “Windows – Blast Away Bottlenecks”. “Internet – Zap Obnoxious Ads”. “Hardware – Solve System Mysteries”. “Email – Cure In-Box Headaches”.

From PC Magazine: “Recover That Missing Data”. “Over 85 Ways to Protect and Defend Your PC”. “Stop Viruses – Hackers – Session Hijacking – Worms – Laptop Theft – Snoops – Data Theft – Trojans – Identity Theft – And More!”

From Smart Computing Windows Tips (More than 16 Million Sold!): “Find Out How To – Solve Nagging Windows Problems – Make Windows More Secure – Pick The Antivirus Software That’s Right For You”.

All this got me to thinking. If you had a car, and that car, a couple of times a day, for no reason, just quit running, right in the middle of the road, and you had to wait several minutes for it to restart each time, you’d return the car to the dealer, right?

Yet, over 90 percent of the computer users in the world accept that kind of behavior from their “Towers of Babble” and ugly slab notebooks. But, being compassionate, I’m here to encourage you today. Next time that Windows Update screen takes the place of the web site you REALLY wanted to look at, do us all a favor and DO THE #$&^$*% UPDATE!

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski