Stipulations: I am not an American, I live in New York.
There seems to be a cultural acceptance in the USA of the practice of Nickel and Dime-ing, co-paying and demanding tips from the population until death (or poverty!) takes them away from the open palm. I suspect that the average citizen has been worn down to the point they just pay up. Over and over again, nickels, dimes and more commonly, one dollar bills are handed over for no valid reason. Sigh.
I get a mobile phone service for $59.00 a month including 2 lines and about 600 minutes. A good deal it seems. My bills average $82.00 a month. Huh? The deal was for $59.00 - what gives? Examining the bill shows additional charges of a dollar or two here and a dollar or two there for taxes and fees and co-pays on each line (see AT&T or WirelessGuide). Searching the net shows that some of these so called taxes are 100 years old and have been cancelled. And several seem to be just plain made up by someone smoking crack. The phone network provider gave me 2 choices, pay up or pay up and pay an additional $150.00 to cancel the service! They said the additional fees were not of their doing. Yeah, right!
The power bill has them too...like a dollar to allow you the choice of power providers!!! In my building in New York there is only one, so why pay extra for the choice between them and, well, um no one else!
Buy a flight ticket, pay a fuel surcharge, an airport fee, a booking fee and a federal tax. Why can't they just give me the price when they already know the how much fuel they will use and at what cost (many purchase fuel future contracts so that they know the fuel price long in advance!) and which airport the plane leaves from. More dollars....
Order delivery from Amazon, get a delivery fee on the web and a surcharge when billed. More dollars....
Use another bank's ATM, $1.50 (yet my other non-US bank does not charge this)...
Use a credit card overseas, add 1% (again, non-US cards do not carry this charge!)...
Receive a mobile call, get charged...even for the spam ones...
Send a text, 10c, receive a text, 10c, add a picture to the text, 25c...
Free wi-fi, na-aaahhh....
Write a check, money goes out on day 1, in to the receiver on day 7, they get 6 days interest on the float (I use free wires from my non-us bank instead - instant!)...
Eat a meal, tip, leave your coat, tip...
Six people eat a meal, tip gets included on the bill and you're still supposed to leave a few dollars...
Take a taxi, tip...
Walk in to a hotel, tip, enter your room, tip, sleep, leave a tip on the bed...
Got a doorman, gardener, manicurist, tip....
My wife goes to a salon, gets her hair washed, tip, dried, tip, colored, tip, cut, tip, and then still has to pay for the haircut!
Gaaah! I want to stop being nickel and dimed and dollared to death. Give me a price and stick to it! No more! No less! No muss! No fuss! Leave me and my rapidly depleting wallet alone!
The hiltmon has left the website....
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Why I use a Mac
I read Paul Kafasis' article on why he uses a mac, and although his article is insightful and funny, his reasons are different to mine.
I work in corporate IT, programming in C# on Windows XP (bored yet?), supporting a network of windows servers. I spend all day programming, troubleshooting or maintaining systems. At least once a day, one of my users has a problem with an indecipherable error message, a virus, popups, or just trying to do something thats denied by default on windows XP.
At home, things are different, My wife and I both use Macs. I never have to deal with the same issues as I do at work. I just use it, it just works. Its why we have Macs at home.
Most of my friends and family have windows computers (I have converted a few to the cause!). I watch how they use their computers and when I show them the Mac way, they love it, and then continue using windows.
For example, almost all have photo libraries. Without exception, they save their photos in a folder structure that is set up manually. Several have Picasa installed but still use the folders. There is no tagging, no search, and all their picture file names are incomprehensible. I use iPhoto, it manages the files for me, I tag and name the pictures and I can search with ease. Thats is why I use a Mac.
For music, most of my friends use folders too, a few with iPods use iTunes.
None of them have experienced a video chat yet (and more than half have webcams!).
When I show them RSS (built into safari or even more impressively I show them NetNewsWire) they start drooling, they still type in web addresses over and over again to get their news. None use tabbed browsing.
For email, they all pay extra, a lot extra for Outlook. Outlook drives me insane (yes, I use it at work too). It reformats emails by removing line breaks at random, blocks access to many attachments, and has warnings all the time about html email formatting. And whomever decided to make MS Word the default editor for emails deservers to be spayed! Its slow, ugly, expensive and the PST file format is proprietary. On the Mac, I use Apple mail, its single purposed, fast and does not get in the way of reading and writing email. Thats why I use a mac.
I also watch my friends when they are just puttering around. They seem to spend a lot of time doing maintenance, moving files, renaming things, reorganizing, or just plain trying to find stuff. And waiting, waiting, always waiting while they search, looking at an hourglass as the anti-virus slows them down. I spotlight, and thats why I use a mac.
I really have no need to delve into the following stuff, the 'Get-A-Mac' ads from Apple or the blogosphere cover them adequately:- spyware, malware, trialware, nagware, interceptware (like the Dell DNS interceptor), anti-virus, anti-spyware, memory protectors, Genuine Windows Advantage (people buy Vista knowing that they can be locked out of their own computers by Microsoft - don't get me started!), DRM, running as an admin by default - are you nuts! My 2 year old work laptop is barely functional with all that installed. My 4 year old powerbook G4 flys better than when it was purchased (I am writing this on it now flying over the Caribbean sea!) That's why I use a Mac.
Oh and it is darn pretty Paul.
So why don't they switch? The excuses range from 'I am used to it' (I say switching is easy) to "I need more buttons on the mouse!' (You can) to "Its more expensive!" (Not!) to "But I need X software" (which they either never use or there is a Mac equivalent!). I make no excuses, thats why I use a Mac.
The hiltmon has left the website...
I work in corporate IT, programming in C# on Windows XP (bored yet?), supporting a network of windows servers. I spend all day programming, troubleshooting or maintaining systems. At least once a day, one of my users has a problem with an indecipherable error message, a virus, popups, or just trying to do something thats denied by default on windows XP.
At home, things are different, My wife and I both use Macs. I never have to deal with the same issues as I do at work. I just use it, it just works. Its why we have Macs at home.
Most of my friends and family have windows computers (I have converted a few to the cause!). I watch how they use their computers and when I show them the Mac way, they love it, and then continue using windows.
For example, almost all have photo libraries. Without exception, they save their photos in a folder structure that is set up manually. Several have Picasa installed but still use the folders. There is no tagging, no search, and all their picture file names are incomprehensible. I use iPhoto, it manages the files for me, I tag and name the pictures and I can search with ease. Thats is why I use a Mac.
For music, most of my friends use folders too, a few with iPods use iTunes.
None of them have experienced a video chat yet (and more than half have webcams!).
When I show them RSS (built into safari or even more impressively I show them NetNewsWire) they start drooling, they still type in web addresses over and over again to get their news. None use tabbed browsing.
For email, they all pay extra, a lot extra for Outlook. Outlook drives me insane (yes, I use it at work too). It reformats emails by removing line breaks at random, blocks access to many attachments, and has warnings all the time about html email formatting. And whomever decided to make MS Word the default editor for emails deservers to be spayed! Its slow, ugly, expensive and the PST file format is proprietary. On the Mac, I use Apple mail, its single purposed, fast and does not get in the way of reading and writing email. Thats why I use a mac.
I also watch my friends when they are just puttering around. They seem to spend a lot of time doing maintenance, moving files, renaming things, reorganizing, or just plain trying to find stuff. And waiting, waiting, always waiting while they search, looking at an hourglass as the anti-virus slows them down. I spotlight, and thats why I use a mac.
I really have no need to delve into the following stuff, the 'Get-A-Mac' ads from Apple or the blogosphere cover them adequately:- spyware, malware, trialware, nagware, interceptware (like the Dell DNS interceptor), anti-virus, anti-spyware, memory protectors, Genuine Windows Advantage (people buy Vista knowing that they can be locked out of their own computers by Microsoft - don't get me started!), DRM, running as an admin by default - are you nuts! My 2 year old work laptop is barely functional with all that installed. My 4 year old powerbook G4 flys better than when it was purchased (I am writing this on it now flying over the Caribbean sea!) That's why I use a Mac.
Oh and it is darn pretty Paul.
So why don't they switch? The excuses range from 'I am used to it' (I say switching is easy) to "I need more buttons on the mouse!' (You can) to "Its more expensive!" (Not!) to "But I need X software" (which they either never use or there is a Mac equivalent!). I make no excuses, thats why I use a Mac.
The hiltmon has left the website...
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