Good and Bad Experiences Associated With Computers and the Internet
Yesterday I wrote about my bad experience with Microsoft trying to get a piece of Microsoft software to work but things are not always bad with dealing with companies on the Internet. I once had a very good experience with Adobe. I have an expensive piece of Adobe software known as Dream Weaver CS-6. I use it to create the code for my website. I purchased it from a reputable store and when I tried to install it the program key wouldn’t work. I contacted Adobe the authors of the software and a large software company in their own right. They told me even though the software was purchased from this famous store they had the program key listed as one of a batch which was stolen. I told them where I purchased it and a representative said don’t worry we are going to give you a new program key which works and they did. It was a very pleasant experience for two reasons. The first was I didn’t have to wait long for a representative and the second was the way I was treated.
There is a program which is freeware and very popular called Infanview. It has to do with photos. It is brilliant and millions of people use it. The author has been creating updates for it for many years. One day I decided to contact the author about this photo manipulation software and suggested it might be useful to include a few basic drawing tools which could come in handy and before I knew it they were there. This program is one of the best tools for photos you can get and the price is certainly right, free.
One thing I found out years ago about the internet is it is very easy to get bullied on it. I remember a time where there was an Amiga computer site which was very popular. People used to talk about the machine and express their opinions on different functions and such and one day it seemed like a gang of people decided to bully one of the participants. The poor guy only had said he thought there was room for improvement in a particular area. Instead of a debate these people decided to curse him out calling him every foul name in the book. He said something like there was no call for them to treat him that way but this just made it worse and they just kept it up. He went back on for a few more time but the pounding was just too much and he left the site and I don’t blame him. I went through something like this myself when I decided to play cards online not for money just for fun. There were teams of players and a table had four players. Two players were on each side. I admit I might not be the best Rummy player but it seemed like every card I played I was being criticized. I was being told I should have played other cards which by the way were not in my hand. When I thought about it I realized I was playing with a bunch of kids who were only there to heckle the players. That was when I decided this wasn’t for me. I also figured out they knew each other and were on the phone to each other telling what cards they held.
The internet is a great for these types of kids because they can cause a lot of trouble and no one knows who they are. Then there are the adult bullies who wreck people’s lives. I have seen some real horror stories about them and sometimes they bully someone so much they take their own lives. We have all seen cases like that. It is a shame that a device like the internet which is capable of so much good is also capable of being used for so many crimes. I guess we have to blame human nature.
When the internet was young I was assigned to create a computer department where I worked. I was one of five people doing this and we were one in each borough of New York City. We have a central command over us which had a judge in charge who had a political type under him and then there was us. I remember the day when I was called to a meeting and the person under the judge was conducting it. He was telling us how great this system was going to be because it was an internet type system linking the entire state of New York. He went on to say the new mainframe computer was going to have 8 million bytes. I raised my hand and said this couldn’t work because that was far too little memory and the system would crash when it went online. He used nice terminology but the bottom line was he was saying I didn’t know what I was talking about. I never mentioned the fact I was proficient in computers having taking them in college. The mainframe went online and immediately crashed when everyone tried to log on. He hated me after that as if it was my fault and the judge called my boss and told him not to promote me. I was promoted anyway.
Computer companies, software companies, the internet are all subject to policy, those who use them and good will. Sometimes you are lucky and actually get people interested in helping you when you have a problem and other times you might get someone who just wants to get rid of you. I have found one of the most annoying things is when you are on a chat help window and you have to type what the problem is and when you get an agent the first thing they ask is what is the problem. Obviously when you get someone like that they can’t be bothered to read what you wrote and they are probably not going to be very helpful. In conclusion, the internet and companies are no different than life in general, there are good people and sometimes not so good people just as there are good companies and not so good ones.
