I finally understand why Donna had to deal with cancer and why our finances have been extremely tight for what seems forever…. I haven’t been forwarding all those chain letters I get in my email. They warned me. I guess I should have paid better attention and forwarded them on.

Well, I’ve found proof that software isn’t the only place that companies scrimp and cut corners in an effort to wring every dollar out of the consumers. How? I’m wet. From the knees down, I look like I was wading in a pool. This is due to a simple act of fertilizing my lawn using one of those “just connect this container to the end of your hose and fertilize and protect in one fell swoop” products. The problem is that they didn’t use a good quality process to ensure that something as standard as a hose fitting worked properly. It barely held, trying to tighten it just caused it to “hop” a thread, making it looser. So, I spent 15 minutes spraying my lawn while the host-to-bottle junction poured water all over my legs and feet. Yippee.

I just don’t get the mind-set of “cheaping” out on (or screwing over) the very people who keep you alive… but we all know that software companies have been doing it for ages. If I did that to my customers, then I’d be out of business…. I guess if your market is 2 billion, you can afford to ignore the 100 million that you’ve pissed off.

While working on a printer for a representative of a large Christian organization (that shall remain nameless) the other day, I was trying to explain the benefits of using something like OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office. My reasoning was along the lines of cost, security, access, and information preservation, but I was rebuffed by his comment that they get a major discount on MS Office because they are a non-profit with a lot of people. “It only costs us around $100 or so”, he says. Here’s the thing…. they have over 120,000 people working for them. All of them have MS Office.

So, let’s see just how dedicated we are to reaching out to people…. that’s $12 MILLION dollars that could have been used for outreach, but it was an “acceptable” amount of money to just throw out of the budget - every two to three years - because it’s software that “we’ve always used”. Now add in the $40/year spent on anti-virus software, another $4.8 MILLION dollars. Oh, let’s not forget the client access licenses for the servers, plus the cost of the server operating system, plus the cost of the hardware upgrades needed for every operating system upgrade, just so 95% of the people can do their web browsing, email and documentation……. It just boggles the mind that a Christian organization that is “focused” on reaching out can just blow that much money.

Of course, everyone does it - even small Churches. It just looks worse for that organization since they have so many people. I just wonder how many more people could be reached if all Christian organizations would take a little time and come up with an IT infrastructure that showed as much financial good stewardship as they put into all other areas of the budget.

Obviously, there are some situations where money must be spent on some particular IT or software solution. But blindly paying for something is just such a waste… there are too many people to reach.

……. sometimes I feel that I’m shouting at the deaf ……..

Chain mail is a wonderful thing. It’s a light, flexible armor, and protects the wearer from many types of attacks… that’s why they used to wear it in medieval times during battles. However it wasn’t that comfortable so it wasn’t worn all the time, and we’ve moved on from it today.

Hold that thought….

Chain mail is a wonderful thing. It usually is an email you get from some friend, relative, or acquaintance that is designed to make you feel all mushy, gushy and overall warm and loved. However, when you get a lot of them, it becomes a waste of time.

You see, in both cases the designer (first case), and the sender (second case) have your best in mind, they want you to feel secure and safe (and/or loved and important)…. but really, if you get too much of it, it just chafes your butt.

I just don’t understand why so many businesses and organizations keep paying for crappy software. There really is no excuse. There is plenty of software out there that is stable, secure, and close to - if not entirely - free. I can understand using a specific software application do to some specific functionality, but most people wouldn’t even notice that they are running something different, as long as you stuck the name Microsoft on it.