What I Do For Cookies, or, Wow, You Must Hate Your Job
A couple days ago my friend and co-worker April offered to bake me cookies in exchange for fixing up her grandfather's new computer. What was wrong with it? It was brand new and chock full of terrible OEM HP software. REE-DIK-YOO-LUSS. To help explain the crazy here, I have decided to list what the strategy of HP OEM software would look like at a car dealership.
- Every car comes free with all the options that any particular person ever may or may not want, except they are all cheap, poorly designed rip-offs of the real thing designed, built and installed by the dealer. Would you like a GPS? How about Dave Smith In-Car Navigation? DVD player? Sure, straight from Knudtsen Electronics and Hi-Fi. There are even really advanced options like the Robideaux Fryer Grease to Diesel Fuel Conversion Kit, just in case you're into that.
- In case you didn't know that your car comes with all these features, they all automatically activate their singular function whenever you turn on the ignition, and you have to reach under the frame, next to the oil pan, to turn them off, individually.
- They are all ridiculously branded and designed to match the dealership's awful website color scheme so that you know they were made by the dealer and that while they aren't the real thing, the dealer really cares about your convenience.
- There is just a little something funny about each one, like the guy that designed the custom child safety seat that came with the car has never actually seen a baby. It's close, but it's still something you'd never use.
- As soon as you drive out of the dealer's parking lot, all the warning lights on your instrument panel light up saying that all these features are due for scheduled maintenance.
- If you don't like all these extra features, the easiest way to remove them is to simply gut the car to its frame and start over with the features that you want.
I think the person I feel the worst for is the poor software designer in charge of all these sad little programs that I and every other reasonable computer user are deleting. He must hate his job. Oh well, at least I get cookies.