My Crow, Soft

1991 - I would have been sweet sixteen - was around the time of my first frustrations at using a poorly designed and unnecessarily complicated  Operating System (OS); Windows had entered my life.

In the intervening years I've become familiar with a range of software created by the programming bods from Microsoft. I've also become familiar with economic terms like price fixing, monopoly and anti-trust. It seems as though having the lion's share of the bulk of the PC software market has led Microsoft into practices that, at best, lead to poor software and at worst lead them to creating substandard software as part of a business model to keep end users waiting for endless upgrades and 'new' applications.

Stella, giving her opinion on Microsoft's business practices.

That said, I have used Microsoft's word processing and spread sheet software as a student and in my professional life, and I have found Word and Excel to be up to the task in hand. For writing essays, doing some basic (and not so basic) statistics, reviewing and changing someone else's work, producing newsletters and bringing the comic sans font to my attention Microsoft software has been good. My ire is saved for the Windows operating system. I have gazed upon the blue-screen of death too many times...

The infamous and much feared BSOD

I would advise anyone who is looking to purchase a new PC, or who wishes to get the most out of their current PC to look into using Ubuntu as their OS and to get hold of Linux shareware equivalents of the regularly used MIcrosoft software. Libreoffice is an excellent replacement for Microsoft office.