From The WTF Were They Thinking Dept.

On July 22, 2005 ZDNet UK reported that On January of 2004 Microsoft tried to patent the Smiley face. Can you believe that how do you patent three characters on your keyboard. What are we going to do from now on... "I am so sad :-) (r)." Actually they have not patented the smiley as we know it. They have patented the encoding and transfer of CUSTOM smilies or an arbitrary image. :*-( While they probably wont use the patent against anyone it still seems to bug me that Microsoft had this much time on their hands. Hey how about they spend more money on their programmers and less money on their lawyers. May be that's why the made Windows XP... Haven't you noticed that is just a face sticking it's tongue out so much that it is grimacing.

These punks can just kiss my ass ( | ). It's not like it's not bad enough that they control the minds and souls of every pimple, pale faced virgin that thinks they want to be a hacker... :-( Really... Is it not enough that that they are donating thousands of computers to inner city schools. You might think that donations is a good thing but it is not. You are not looking it thought their evil eyes. >:-) They are just doing it so people get used to using Microsoft products and are thus Dependant on it... Hook them while they are young... :-O Just like the Catholic Church and the Tabacco Industry. They are just not telling anyone. :-&

The only reason why Microsoft has some strange control over the computers in the world is because people do know there are different things out there that one can try.

If you are using ................ Try Using
Microsoft Office ................ Open Office
Internet Explorer ............... Firefox
Windows Media Player ............ Winamp (music)
Windows Media Player ............ VLC Media (everything)
Outlook ......................... Thunderbird
Windows XP ...................... Linux
Windows Shell ................... LiteStep

In all cases these programs are free... As in beer... Not like Microsoft Office. In all cases these programs are more secure... As in a keg of beer. In all cases, except Winamp, these programs are open Source so that means that there is an army of people out there in the world trying to debug the program and making sure the program does not have any nefarious things running in the background. Like the way Windows Media Player by default allows websites to track where you have been on the Internet. Or the way Internet Explorer keeps ports open that allows websites to randomly install programs with out your consent.

So thats my rant... If you would like to see where you can get a look at the patent here is... if you continue to like using the programs that you are using please feel free. At the same time... please feel free NOT to call me when you are having problems. :-P.


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