Some Products Easy; They’re Just Not Made For People

June 14, 2002

by Andrew E. Carlan, Esq.

Norton System Works is unexceptional. All the big software companies led by Microsoft spend millions developing software and tens of millions exaggerating.

The first step; buy a computer. Most computers end up on closet shelves. We can’t get ourselves to throw them out, but we will never have our intelligence so insulted again by total strangers or be so bored as to be unable to concentrate. Now what’s the problem?

Computer set-up could be so easy that it helps inflate Uncle Lionel’s "computer savvy" before his grandchildren. But why would Dell or HP want to encourage end user independence anymore than Mercedes Benz’s white-coated "automotive doctors" are eager to cede clinical judgment to mere drivers?

Computer makers usually pre-load the scanty software improperly. They alter the common code just enough to make them incompatible with standard versions. But that’s no big deal. Most new computers don’t break down during the thirty day warranty just like terminal cases of black lung disease don’t. Computers, like black lung victims, are more likely to wear out than to malfunction.

I learned that when my computer went on the fritz two weeks after the warranty expired. Remember, running a computer takes about as much stamina as hiking the highest outcropping on Long Island. Of course, that’s if you don’t mind Doubleclick sleeping between you and your spouse.

Inherently, putting it together is a snap. You group the peripherals. How many can there be? You’re not going into competition with CNN. There are three, maybe four plug-ins and a switch you can’t forget to turn on.

Now we get to the problem. It is never yours or the computers. Every computer comes with a 3,000 page manual. In fact, the cheaper and more poorly made computers come with the biggest manuals. Thanks to corporate lawyers, half of the material is under eight point type. It warns against plugging in A before B, etc. Come on, I plug in things in any order and nothing happens. I plugged in my toaster and the computer identified the brand, the food vs.. preservative content (1 to 5) and the cost of one size. It even told me the bread had absolutely no nutritive value.

But there is a bomb lurking in each package. Japanese native speakers write the manual. Students who flunked out of the Army’s Monterey Language School translate it into English. The school itself is dysfunctional. That’s why a nation that can take the Olympics to Salt Lake City and steal millions can’t find one reliable citizen or mole who can translate Pushti into English. That’s why we fought the Afghan war without being able to ask "where is the nearest Motel 66?" That ends the computer project.

If you didn’t tell a child of five, he’d think it was a puzzle for a pre-schooler. "Fetch me a child of five." Growled Groucho Marx as he sweated putting his $75 computer together. It just had to be plugged in. But the extension manual, written this time with a Bulgarian dialect never so much as mentioned the necessity for an ISP...

Non computer products show this disdain for their customers. Cosmetic firms spent millions to hire Henri du Bouef de Charlemagne to design chic packaging costing eight cents a piece. His idea was to persuade women they are as strong as men, like circus weight lifters. The company’s consumer testing lab brought in a Houdini. He created ten layers of packaging that defies opening without a sharp instrument. If the packaging is plastic, the customer cuts her hand puncturing the steel-reinforced cardboard with her husband’s jackhammer. If it is made of glass, she throws it against the wall, injuring her child and having it removed from the house by reviled Social Services.

I just found out the same is true with Scope. A girl is coming over in 20, maybe 40, but no more minutes. How long does it take to open such a popular product? The instruction on the cap is as clear as defined by a member of the Academe Francaise. "Squeeze the cap and turn." It even has arrows on the cap and the rim of the bottle. I lift weights twice a week. It was only after the girl left because of my halitosis that through sheer tenacity, I got it to open.

Dell thoughtfully configured my sister’s machine not to conform to any humanoid standard. It can only be repaired during tourist season in the Azores. It got hit by the Klez virus. I followed Norton’s brilliant directions. If there is an ambiguous word or construction in English they found it. It took three hours to watch the first of 10 disks of Symantec’s "proprietary" rescue set to seize up. There was nothing to figure out. It was designed to frustrate and support an ever-growing computer disservice industry.

I called Dell. The representative answered, "Isn’t that coincidental, I flunked out of the Monterey Language School, too. We were trained like dogs over and over to answer only one question. Name, Rank and Repair Number."

I decided to throw the manuals and the warnings out the window. They hit a neighbor who had a concussion and bled to death on the spot. I spend the next three hours making my sister’s Dell Computer virus-free and Dell free. It’s a toss up which improved the performance more.

The morals of this story are two. Ignore ANY communications in writings including filling in warranties. The other is their fast-track greed. It’s the quickest trick to buffalo hundreds of innocent, decent people. The idiots at Norton Systems thought I was registering my System Works 2001 for the first time. They don’t have a record. Never register anything. I am a Jehovah’s Witness. I never registered for selective service. Why should I register with Sy Mantic. So both of my sisters and I have 367 free days of Live Update all because I always tell these people as little as possible.

The key to getting rid of the harshest home computer guardian since the British quartered in private houses in Boston in 1775 is to ignore Norton’s Anti-Virus quarantine. Dell advertises as if it ranked with Einstein relative’s theory. It’s quicker to go into safe mode. There you can delete files you know are part of the hoax. There I scrubbed out Dell Windows and its help and hinder files. My sister’s 10 gig hard drive now has less junk on it then my 1.5 gig. It runs fast. I could never figure out why a machine rated that fast in all the magazines Dell advertises always run on the local track.

So everything’s o.k. now. I didn’t get home until 6 am. I’m sending my sister a bill for $1000, but I know what is going to happen. She will send me a bill for all the meals she’s cooked for me and make me sign a settlement.