MUSE > M$FT

When I bought my new computer last year, one of the bundled pieces of software was Microsoft Encarta SE 2004. And I liked it. It was thorough, and the multimedia features were nice. Since then, I'd discovered the wonder that is Wikipedia, and Encarta fell into slight disuse, but I faithfully updated it every month or so.

Well, I went to update it again today, the first time I've done that in a while (probably before Thanksigiving), and it turns out that there are no more updates for my version of Encarta. If I want the new articles on tsunamis, or the 2004 election, or anything that's happened in the past couple of months, I need to buy the new version of the software. Not even an update - I have to purchase a whole new version of Encarta. I guess I shouldn't have been so naive as to expect a Microsoft piece of software to function fully beyond a few months, especially since MS was giving it away. Still, in this new era of my own personal computing experience (finally switched to Windows after being an Apple user for nearly 20 years) and the implicit hope that MS wasn't actually out to screw a new consumer of theirs so soon after joining the team, I have now wisened up.