Look Out Outlook

Back in my younger days, when I was single and had no care to be respectable, I had a joyous relationship with Hotmail.

So much so I had several Hotmail email accounts.

If I wanted to sign up to a web site or a subscription that I wasn’t sure was entirely kosher I would use one of my Hotmail addresses. When I was laundering money for the Triads I put all communications through my Hotmail account Wishywashy@hotmail.com. When I was gun running for Serbian gangsters deals were done via AK47sRUs@hotmail.co.uk. And when I was maintaining several mistresses simultaneously and patronizing a local escort agency I found totalesxclusivityguaranteed@hotmail.com really useful.

*sigh*

Those were the days. I’d log on, log in and frequently be surprised by the various communiques that were often or not waiting for me (frequently not).

And then things changed.

Not so much the getting married, having kids and becoming a 'law abiding citizen' thing. More the Hotmail mutating into Outlook type of thing.

Suddenly me and Hotmail or (if I must use its Snickers name rather than its Marathon name) Outlook (if you insist) became estranged. Suddenly our theme song changed from Dennis Waterman’s “I Could Be So Good For You” to Cliff Richard’s “It’s So Funny How We Don’t Talk Anymore”. We no longer had a thing going on.

Communication between us utterly died until now we barely even make eye contact.

When I try and log in these days all I get is the “I’m sorry, I’m not available right now” brush-off. Sometimes I only have to type the Hotmail address into my browser and I’m cold shouldered to the point where the log in page won’t even load. Outlook just isn’t putting out for me anymore.

See, Hotmail was fine when it was just an email client. When all I wanted was to send crapola and receive spam. We both knew where we stood and neither of us got ideas above our station.

But now Outlook wants to be the conduit through which I CONNECT to the entire effing internet. It wants to hook into my social networks and my own home computer. It wants me to diarize my life solely through its jealous online portal. It wants to store all my contacts and personal information inside its covetous cloud. It wants me to invest more time and energy into it than I’m willing to give. It wants to own me [man] and I didn’t ever come to Hotmail to be owned.

And I could just about cope with all that; I could just about shrug off all the irritation and irksomeness it causes me…

…if just once, just once the damned thing would load up properly first time and allow me to send just a simple sodding email without crashing on me.

Because that’s all I want:

An email account that sends and receives emails.

An email account that works.

Because the Serbs are getting impatient and the pimps are after me for welching on a deal. I’ve got urgent business to attend to Goddamnit!

Held To Ransom

I’m feeling a bit emotionally hijacked this morning.

I feel like an old friend has stabbed me in the back. Or worse, slashed the buttons off my best coat with a flash of his blade like the Scarlet Pimpernel putting down some damn Frenchie.

In the bigger scheme of things this is no big deal but it has got my goat: Blogger has changed the layout and functionality of its Dashboard.

Some of you will be shrugging. Some of you may not have noticed any difference. Some of you may like the changes.

I don’t like the changes.

Worse, I can’t click on anything without Blogger informing me that my browser is incompatible with the new Dashboard, some functions will no longer work and I might like to try installing Google Chrome instead.

I don’t want to install Google Chrome.

I’m sure Google Chrome is a lovely browser. I’m sure it would make love to my computer and make it come all night long. But I use Internet Explorer, like Internet Explorer and am familiar with Internet Explorer. And further, I don’t like having unnecessary bits of software installed on my computer chogging up the registry and increasing the potential for foul-ups. Having two browsers installed goes against the grain.

I feel like Blogger – owned by Google, of course – is trying to bully me into using its own software. This is not on.

Persuade me (if you can) by all means. Sell it to me. Bribe me. Make me come all night long.

But don’t bully me. Don’t mug me. Don’t hold me to ransom.

Because that makes me dig my heels in even harder. That makes me flex and exercise my rather muscular stubborn gene.

At the end of the day this whole thing is a cynical exercise in overly ferocious marketing. What annoys me most is that if you check your blogging stats via the Dashboard (if you can get yours to work now, that is) you will see that Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser that the majority of people use when logging into and using Blogger.

And yet Blogger / Google has seen fit to deliberately disregard the lion’s share of its own user demographic and create an interface that doesn’t work properly in Internet Explorer.

If that isn’t a slap in the face I don’t know what is.

So what do I do?

Go against my principals and install Google Chrome? Dump Blogger and switch to Wordpress? *shudder*

Stop Blogging altogether?

(I’m going to ignore all of you who are currently screaming, “yes!”)

No.

I’m going to moan about it on my Blog via Internet Explorer.

Screw you Blogger. You’re not the only one who can rip off coat buttons with a flick of a dandy’s foil.


Addendum:

I couldn't even publish this post via Internet Explorer. The compose and edit functions don't work. So I have had no choice but to install Google Chrome. I now feel like, not only have I had the buttons slashed off my coat, but I have also had my balls cut off and shoved into my mouth.

Fuck you, Blogger.


P.S. My thanks to you that have pointed out that you can revert to the old Dashboard by clicking on the cog icon on the top of the Dashboard. Alas, this icon does not even appear when viewed in Internet Explorer... therefore one has to install Google Chrome just to revert to the old Dashboard and then carry on using Internet Explorer.

Damned sneaky. Damned underhand.