After All, Who Cares?: October 2006

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

And they do it again

Heard Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Media Player 11 is out of Beta? Yes it is.
My reaction(s) to this piece of news item: Wow! Let's see what it offers! Has to be cool!

So I do a "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google search for "Windows Media Player 11", from right within my favorite browser: Mozilla's Firefox (here).

I reach Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Media Player 11 homepage and guess what... I am unable to find a download link!

I find my way to the download link. Thank to the lord and the site designer, it is on the very next webpage I open

I look at the screenshot and can't help saying: "Cool... Awesome".

I start the download of the application and while the download completes, I decide to read the "System Requirements"

I start reading the table from top to bottom, both the Minimal and Recommended configuration: Operating system, Processor, RAM, Free hard disk space, ... !!!
There it says, recommended amount of "Free Hard Disk Space: 60 *ucking GBs!"

I wonder, what on Mother Earth are they going to do with 60 GBs of hard disk space? and what comes to my mind for Microsoft(R) is:
Oops! ...I Did It Again!

I did not install the application. What if it starts hogging my system, like the resident OS ;-)
Looks like I learned from my past experience.

Monday, October 23, 2006

To Install A Software (on Windows)

Update: Bought the book last weekend :)

I tried to give this post a title similar to "To Kill A Mocking". Just in case you didn't know, I do not have this book, neither have I ever read it so if you are planning to present me a gift in near future, now you know what to buy.

Anyway, coming back on track, this is yet another post dedicated to the most widely used operating system in the world today, Microsoft Windows XP (what a shame!). So here I was, reading the review of a software called "Paint.NET" at TechCrunch. The review, among so many other things, says that it is a good software for PaintShop users. What the review does not say is, it should be named "Pain.NET" for all the pain you go through in installing the software, thanks to the software's dependencies and more than that to Bill's Microsoft.

Step 1. You download the installer of the software, Pain.NET from the home page.
Step 2. You try to install it. It displays the most annoying thing in the world, a message box! A message box that says, "You need Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. Press OK to download it from Microsoft's website". You press OK.
Step 3. You download Microsoft Framework 2.0 installation binary from Microsoft.com
Step 4. You run Microsoft Framework 2.0 installation file hoping that in another few minutes, you'll be able to try out the "great tool", Paint.NET and what you encounter is another dialog box, which says "Setup has detected that you the following prerequisite programs are not installed: Microsoft Windows Installer 3.0"
Step 5. You shout a few swear words and proceed to download the Microsoft Windows Installer, again from Microsoft's website, but the ordeal is not over yet. You are asked to download another exe which validate your copy of Windows. WTF! Just let me download it and program it to not get installed if it detects my system is not running a genuine copy of Windows.
Step 6. You would be stupid to carry on beyond this point. Microsoft has already made a fool of you so many times in the past 10-15 minutes that you should show Windows a finger and go out to a friend's house, collect your (or his) favourite Linux distribution and install it on your fu'ed up box still running XP.
Step 7. If you still decide to stick to Windows for some reason beyond your control (like in my case, I am not allowed by my employer to run any non-Windows OS), you run that damn validation-key-producing software, get your copy of Windows validated, and install Microsoft Windows Installer 3.0 (like I did).

Still haven't been able to install Pain(t).NET since all other installations are going on. Paint.NET better be damn good!

In hindsight, I think I should not read and follow all the reviews as religiously as I do.