Everything new is bad

[zdashamber]

So, although a2macgeek's suggestions on my last post about email programs were wondrous, even once I was able to use my own SMTP server it still required authentication on send that Eudora 4.0 couldn't handle. So I downloaded Eudora 6.2. With great trepidation I backed up my Qualcomm folder. It took awhile, since I back up on the CDs full of photos I burn, and naming photos takes awhile. Also, I was pale and weak with the fear of losing 7 years of mail to some screwed-up installion program.

Tonight I updated Eudora. It came up with all my mail, arranged the way I left it. Also: fugly baffling windtunnel icons where once crisp square readable icons lived. And without the friendly psycho mail dealer art that graced the "getting my shit together... program almost ready..." screen. If I go to paid mode, do I get art? I mean, c'mon.

I saw something on the Eudora site about skinning the fugly icons, so that's not a vast trouble now, but... Ad mode, which it puts you in by default. I poked around a bit, sent myself some gibberish mails... And it put little red squiggles under the gibberish.

Who on this planet thinks little red squiggles are a good idea?!

The guy at Microsoft who said, "Hey, let's interrupt our customers while they type with nasty comments on their perceived inferiority... I know, red I-don't-understand-that-word squiggles!" ought to have been gutted, then shot. The guy who said, "Sounds great! I bet we can get all the other software companies to do it, too!" gutted, staked out in the sun, and dripped with melting popsicles. The guys who did it to Eudora: kicked out of a car going 35 mph. I still have some fondness for them for the 7 years of goodness.

But... The only way I could find to shut it off was to go to Light mode.
It warned me: You'll be missing out on our "moodwatcher" that will let you know if you're about to send a mail that sounds like a flame!
Me: WHAT?!

Why are these things considered features?!

What's wrong with the world, that "oo, I can be an asshole, and replace perfectly good plaintext with teal fonted HTML shit, and perfectly good smileys with images that gunk up hard drives and report back" are the features, that are on by default, that are advertised?

In Light mode, aside from the shit icons (I mean, these icons are so bad that you can see the grey squares they rest on, because some dumbass didn't even recognize that the greys don't match), it's nearly what I want out of a tool (TOOL, goddammit, what, do I buy hammers that suggest to me places they could put nails?): except it axed the spellcheck entirely.

Great. Are my choices "squiggle and big brother" versus "no spellcheck"?

...God.

What language do I need to learn to write my own programs?

Comments

random bitch about new/old children's games

[(Anonymous)]

New "Othello" game boards are smaller and the little rolltop things for the plastic pieces don't work for shit. They used to have this satisfying little click and the pieces fit in them perfectly. New Parcheesi sucks ass for various reasons.. the board folds up in 4 pieces, the pieces are cheap-ass plastic, there's no dice cups, the rules are on a little slip of paper instead of printed on the box lid. Don't get me started about the checkers with the little grooves so they can stack, but the grooves don't actually function.

What next, they make "connect 4" out of cardboard and string?

Re: random bitch about new/old children's games

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

Word, anyonymous repeating guy; word. I had to go on eBay when I wanted a copy of Risk, since the new ones all have pieces that are molded statues which take up space and fall over. My parents talk about the good old days when Risk came with little wooden cubes for pieces and you could build an actual crenellated wall along your borders.