Doublecross III: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Yes, it’s the greatest invention since Snake Oil. Windoze! For the past 24 hours, not including the battle I’ve had with the Wal*Mart Music downloads and the Microsoft people, my system all of a sudden decided that it would not even try to get online. I was at the mercy of my operating system. I thought at first it was my cable modem, because I could stay online for about 12 minutes and then nothing would work, including email. So I called the neighborhood friendly tech support, who happens to still employ English speaking people, even though you have to press 2 for English... 1 is Spanish. Go figure.

After holding for one hour and 10 minutes, I finally had the opportunity to speak with Shawn, who read from his script that I was pretty much dumber than dirt and I had screwed up my system because I was dumber than dirt. However, I enlightened Shawn that I had probably been dealing with these things longer than he had been on the planet, but he would not back down. I’ve always heard the customer is always right, but these folks practice what is known as the customer is always a dummy.

In my business, I have a sign that states, “If I don’t fix it, then you don’t pay.” There is no charge to check a system. That’s cheating. I know of a few places here that will take your computer, let it sit for days and not touch it, and then when you come to check on it, you are charged $75 or more just because it’s been sitting there for a while. That’s not right at all. I figure one can pretty much decide the problem with a PC fairly quickly and then call the person back and explain the problem and what it will cost, and then let the customer decide. I don’t like surprises when it comes to spending money, and I feel most folks feel the same.

Anyway, after getting off the phone with Shawn, and thanking him for his “support”, I decided what the best solution would be. Since I had everything on the drive backed up on CD’s, I would wipe the drive and start fresh. And it was time consuming, but it was also a piece of cake, as everything is working as it should, considering the OS I’m running.

Now, after having changed hard drives on this system, and my other drive had the music I downloaded from Wal*Mart, I decided to test the media player. Guess what? Since I had already downloaded and received a license from MS for this song on “another computer”, which was the same system, same components, same OS, but a different hard drive, I couldn’t get another license nor play the song. So, for the heck of it, I went back to the Wal*Mart download site, paid 88 cents for the same song, and presto, it played.

So, I say to you, if you are thinking about purchasing music from the Wal*Mart music download gig, forget about it. There’s no way you can record them on a CD and then play them, as the license will not allow. If this ain’t a sham, there is no such thing. Imagine, the monopoly here with these two companies in bed together. I’d feel safe to say that Bill Gates probably owns lots of stock in Wal*Mart. If not, he should. Take my word for it here...be ye careful about this music thing. It’s not what’s it’s cracked up to be! You too, will be Doublecrossed.