Don Wilson thoughts and ideals of an internet magnate

I normally run XP on my desktop but decided to install Vista alongside it so I can use either when I want. Long story short, I can’t access neither XP nor Vista. So, I get to reinstall everything and give it a try again — never give up or you’ll never get what you want.

This is why I wonder if I actually know what I’m doing with computers… at all. This isn’t the first time I’ve managed to completely screw over my computer, haha. I’ve done far worse.

One of the first times that I messed up one of my computers was when I was much younger and much less knowledgeable. I was running an old Windows 2000 machine, probably the best machine I’ve ever had (relatively speaking). It was a crappy 450mhz machine when the norm was 1GHz. The computer ran as if it could run for ages.

Being somewhat overly satisfied with my working computer, I decided to install some odd version of linux and see if I could get it working. A problem or two arose and I found myself with, what seemed to be, a completely ruined machine. When you tried to boot it, the screen would spit out an error message with “No operating system found,” even after freshly reinstalling Windows with my “rescue cd.”

Frustrated, I took my only computer to CompUSA and had them look into the problem, which eventually cost over $100 to repair.

With my knowledge as it is these days, I would’ve laughed in their face had I been offered that kind of price.

I think back on events like that in my past and become even more pissed off when my computer isn’t working now. I’ve got all of these tools at my disposal and I still run into stupid problems all the time.

I intend on writing up a good computer management blog post in the near future to help people manage their computers better, just as my friend did a while ago.

Here’s a daily life lesson on helping improve your overall computer experience.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it quite like this before.

As you can see, I grouped my folders into alphabetical groups, A being Archives, B being Business, C being Computer files, and so on. Then, once that is done, you Right Click > Arrange Icons By >  Show in Groups. Then, at the top of the folder listings, click the “Type” column header and you’ll be brought to a nice, organized group of folders that you can find a group of files that you need in absolutely no time.

I enjoy life so much because there are always adventures to live through around the corner. Something new is always coming up.

However, I’ve always been nervous about doing something out of my little comfort bubble, preventing me from experiencing fun things that “normal” people do all the time. Even meeting distant family and friends who I haven’t seen for a long time can be burdensome and cause me to worry about something so trivial. When it actually happens, it turns out to be enjoyable and I laugh at my self for worrying over it.

I’m working on breaking out of that bubble and growing up and out of it. I’m starting to not care what people think about what I do, because when it comes down to it, no one really does. Considering how much time I spend thinking about myself, I have little to no time to think about other people that are not close friends or family. I’m sure most people around me are the same way, and for whatever illogical reason, I can’t come to grip with that fact.

So, this is more of a personal entry to express my opinion on my inability to be myself and willingness to change that. I don’t expect anyone to understand any reasoning in it, let alone agree or share the same experiences. Who knows, maybe someone does have the same experiences as I do.

Upon investigating designs for my privacy section of socialne.ws, my upcoming social network (more on that later), I ran across this today.

No user should have to try to sort through this cluttered text.

Keep yourself active is overwhelming yourself with stuff to do.

Deny outside influence from changing your habits.

Worry about what you can’t do, not what you need to do.

Keep a personal unit test with at least fifteen items and take it every day before noon. If taken after noon, mark all questions as a fail.

This is my fourth or fifth time being banned - awaiting response from the support staff to see what the reason was this time.

Apparently opposing view points in comments are unwelcome, be it from other digg members digging your comments down or the digg support staff automatically banning you without prior notification. It would at least be slightly helpful to send the banned person a notice as to why (s)he was being banned.

The reason why banning people is so impersonal is because there is no public face when dealing with abusive users. It’s almost like doing business deals under the table so the government doesn’t know about it. Only this time, the website users is the government watching over the company, making sure it doesn’t abuse it’s users irrationally.

Surely it would be a great idea to come out with a website similiar to ResellerRatings.com - however, instead of rating online retailers, you rate your personal experience with a website and their “social services”. Maybe then, when these untold stories are made public, these companies will think again before silencing their “abusive” users.

Update

Your account has been banned (again) for trolling comments. Your
account will not be re-instated.

–Digg Support

… to which I responded …

Thanks for being very ambiguous.

Don

I’m not too sure what “trolling” means. Why an online company supposedly worth tens of millions would use such a childish statement is beyond me.

Oh well, at least it’ll give me a chance to get away from them and give reddit, mixx and newsvine a chance. Hopefully one of them support opposing commentary to their mainstream comment base.