This week I am stepping of "soft ground".

Soft because it could, in an extreme circumstance, be libel. As of this evening, my thoughts toward "soft"ware developers and companies are not very nice . . .

A few weeks ago, after verbally assaulting my PC on numerous occasions, I bit the bullet, saved as much data as I could think of, and reformatted the hard drive.

Great ! Wonderful ! Amazing ! Problems be gone ! Almost. . . . In reality, they were just beginning.

Windows went in easily. All the drivers loaded ok. But then the applications . . . . oh hell . . . . . .

A map program - out of Registrations, but the solutions only required an email. Others resolved easily too - mainly requiring the writer to dig deeply through papers and folders - why are things NEVER where they SHOULD be ?

But MS Office ? Oh my. I emailed them (MS) a week ago . . . . and no reply. I am still getting a MS Genuine Office Notification - this is pirated, or stolen . . . . But Hang on - I own this . . don't I ? It arrived sealed in a box, genuine literature and manuals, genuine DVD . . so whats the go ?

Read the fine print and MS says that WE (the users) don't actually OWN the software . . we only own the RIGHTS to USE it. Expensive rights . . MS offered me a NEW GENUINE (I thought that was what I have?) version of Office for $1700 . . . yeow ! Me . . A simple home user. WHY would I wan't to pay THAT much for something I believe I already have ?

Maybe it is time ot look at alternatives . . . except that I know (sort of) and previously liked the MS suite . . . I still do . . . but $1700 ? I can't justify that . . . might as well be $5000 . . or maybe I just have to migrate BACKWARD to 2003 . . and hope that doesn't fail too ?

Wouldn't that just take all ? Would like other peoples thought on this. Send us a comment ? Maybe ?

Cheers ! Keep the Faith! Mine's lagging a bit . . .