Usability Not Detected

Are the streets of Redmond, Washington overflowing with psychotic vagrants? Are thousands of men and women, driven from their senses by difficulties with simple computer tasks, waiting at the security entrances to the Microsoft campus, waving baseball bats, shouting, smashing bottles of scotch and wearing explosives on their chests?

I close my eyes. I picture developers, project managers, and 'Windows Evangelists' peering up from their cubes at the approaching sound of gunfire, as Hattie McPherson of La Jolla, CA picks her way though the building, leaving a trail of dead and dying in her wake as payback for the 'My Pictures' folder filled with images of her grandchildren that was rendered suddenly, inexplicably useless because of an automatic Windows update.

My 'Texas Tower Moment' came over the weekend, when I was doing battle with a "Bluetooth" wireless connection. (And for the record, the last thing I will say before the SWAT team places the red laser dot on my forehead will be "Known incompatibility with some VIA chipsets?!") You see, I inherited an iPAQ Pocket PC, the Windows flavor personal digital assistant. The kicker is, I actually like the device quite a bit, which is why I decided to try out the wireless capability. But a maddening nest of problems cropped up with my desktop operating system, leading me though a maze of prompts and wizards, as the two devices tried but failed, spectacularly, to communicate with each other, like a college freshman couple after a few drinks.

It shouldn't be more complicated than getting a wireless phone to talk to it's base unit, but without a team from NASA and the combined engineering might of MIT, Caltech and their marching bands I don't think it can be done. Yes, I've Google searched it out the wing-wang. Yes, I've read every FAQ, tips, and 'Knowledge Base' article. Yes, I know Apples and Linux are superior, but I have neither a fat pile of cash for the first nor the desire to code my own device drivers for the second. No, I'm not buying a bus ticket to Redmond yet, but I'm on my last freaking nerve with these Microsoft characters.