Microsoft Must Die! Long Live Google!

A few days ago I downloaded the new Picasa3 Beta (FREE) from Google and have been lazily reviewing its improvements. Yesterday, unbidden, Microsoft's goodie page opened and there was a product called "Collage- Maker"for $20.00. I decided it might be fun. So I started to download it. In order to download it I had to download something called "digital wallet" which required credit card info, email verification, etc. etc. The Collage software was 7.8 MB- not too big. But after I downloaded it, I got a message that I must download .Net 3.0 from Microsoft or it wouldn't work. That was a 50 MB download! Hours later, I started to use it and my first attempts said some of my picture files were not big enough. Wouldn't work.Then the light came on- Picasa2 had a collage maker that was nothing to brag about but since Microsoft had one out now perhaps the Goggle Picasa3 one was improved. It was, works flawlessly, is simple and once again FREE. The whole Picasa3 download took a couple of minutes.

Here, in words as succinct as I can make them, is my message to Microsoft: I am no longer paying big money for products that need to be fixed or updated when you sell them. Although I know how to navigate my computer and the web, I see no reason to have to do this in order to use your products. What I want is to install them and have them work, out of the box or after a download. You know, the old radio concept: turn it on and it works. You have no right to monitor my computer without my permission. For some reason-perhaps experience, I don't trust you but I do trust Google-they have never let me down. You, Microsoft, are so afraid somebody might get something for free that your licenses and products are onerous. If I want to use Collage Maker on another computer, I have to download, pay get a new license, register my computer, etc. I can download Picasa3 for free on as many computers as I want-no hassle. You, Microsoft, are like the Catholic Church ( or IBM, or Polaroid, or Kodak). You got in on the early franchise when the product was new and vibrant and are spending the rest of your life enforcing arcane rules and protecting the orthodoxy. The world is moving on and you haven't had an original idea in years.

That said, the above fun collage of the Anniversary Cruise was created in less than five minutes using Google's Picasa3 Collage maker.