Microsoft stinks!

I don't ordinarily like to badmouth Microsoft. I'm not one of the religious zealots waiting for every stumble that the company makes and eagerly pointing out every spurious patent application that they file. I realize that MANY people use their products and get work done on a daily basis more efficiently because of the products. I also realize that Microsoft is constantly applying the best talent they can to innovate.

However, I've had three experiences recently that just bug me to no end and further entrench me in the OSX/Un*x faithful.

1. My company uses Oracle financials for accounts payable. I went to use the web-based expense report submission yesterday and it took me well over half an hour to enter in 13 receipts and submit the stinkin' thing. The reason was because I started using Firefox, and it turns out that the UI only works for IE, and even then it does some weird stuff. The fact that their browser is antiquated and out-of-date with regard to standards and yet still the defacto standard encourages companies to build UIs that only work with IE further entrenching the mediocre product (no tabs, live bookmarks, search integration, etc.). IE 7 better be an awesome product because 6 sucks.


2. Still using the expense reporting application I needed to print something but didn't have a printer I could use. So I went to save the page and e-mail it to myself. Unfortunately it was in a proprietary format and my only save option was "Microsoft Document Image" format. I saved it as that and mailed it to myself. I loaded the document on another XP machine that I have access to and guess what. It was incompatible! Microsoft's products aren't even compatible with themself. This is reprehensible. So I saved it from the MDI viewer into a TIF, mailed it again, and then printed it.


3. Last, my computer has taken to opening "Microsoft Narrator" every time I login and I get an annoying 1980's computer voice reading me the UI. There is nothing in my start menu (global or user-specific) or Run section in my registry. There also appears to be no way to turn it off from the Speech, or Accessibility options in the Control Panel. So every morning I have to shut the thing off manually. Annoying.

The only problem I ever seem to have with my Mac is an interaction with CodeTek Virtual Desktop and Firefox but at least the CEO is writing me personal updates