Mike,
It is so hard to work with computers because computing environments are extraordinarily complex and unpredictable. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, too many things that can go wrong. Every single computer is different, like a snowflake, and every single computer will likely respond different in a different scenario. If you want a reliable computer, you'll need a hard-wired computer, a computer that permits no customization, a closed box, a machine that won't even allow you to receive e-mail or add programs. A facist, totalitarian computing environment rather than a free environment. "Include me out."
Your basic inference is that of most people who haven't worked/don't fully understand computers and computer technology and the industry, and that is: "it would be easy to make this stuff better, the computers companies are doing a shitty job, they should fire all their engineers and get new ones, it would be so SIMPLE, why don't they do it better, they're out to get us, they don't understand, blah, blah blah."
But that kind of lament is just plain wrong, incorrect, unscientific, just dumb. It's just "venting." Do it if it makes you feel better, but it's not anything like the truth.
The truth is in my first paragraph. We are at a certain stage in the "evolution" of computer technology. Computers are no longer single-celled slugs, but they are not yet MEN either. They are, what, Cro-Magnon Apes? Okay, we're at the Cro-Magnon stage. Deal with it, because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that will "evolve" a cro-magnon ape into a homo sapien overnight! God can't do it, so Ted Turner sure can't do it. Ted, a Brown Dropout? No way, take it from a Brown graduate.
Do remember also that neither Ted, AOL, or the boys at Time Warner are in the business of making operating systems (or for that matter, wirelss networking equipment). So that leaves you with Macintosh or Linux. God help you in such a scenario. None of this crap is any different with Macs, because they are COMPUTERS. One of my most excruciating experiences was setting up a Mac wireless network. Deciphering the Rosetta Stone on my coffee break wouldn't have been any harder.
My advice to go to Microsoft to get the MN-500 working was very good advice. Don't you have faith in the guru, Mike? Or do you think you know better when it comes to what is good computer advice and what isn't? If you did, then that would make YOU the guru, and you are not. One, it worked -- the MN 500 is working now. Two, they have MN-500s in front of them, which was more than I had at the time. Three, they know the product very well -- they designed it. Finding the right tech support number isn't ordinarily hard; I'm not so sure why you had any trouble with it. Of course, gurus are also expert at navigating through annoying voice mail systems, but give us a break Mike, what big company doesn't torture its customers with voice mail nowadays?
Microsoft, also, is currently overloaded with a historically unusual and huge number of tech support calls. Why? Because 10 million users got the blaster worm. Why? Because 10 million users didn't update their Windows.
Someone compared Microsoft bashing to blaming builders and architects for the fact that graffiti gets sprayed all over their buildings and makes them ugly (you could say the same for people throwing rocks through the windows). Microsoft builds the buildings, and they are (I beg to differ) excellent buildings. Hacker/weenie/sociopaths spray the graffiti.
We all must "deal with it," until somebody (Brown Post-Grad?) figures out what to do about hackers, weenies, and sociopaths.
SS
10:01:49 AM 
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