Just upgraded my web browser

...to Internet Explorer 7. So far, it seems to suck less than the previous version. The tabbed browsing, RSS reader, and default search utility features seem like they could be quite useful. Let's just hope the good folks at Microsoft have worked the major bugs out. (And let's hope that I win the lottery tomorrow, while we're at it.)

I always dread software upgrades. Maybe this one will actually turn out to be worthy of the name "upgrade," but as you can tell, I'm not overly optimistic. At least this one was free. Most of the time, Microsoft charges you hundreds of dollars for stuff like this - all so you can have the opportunity to see just how many new ways they've managed to come up with to make your time at the computer more complicated.

For example, I could really do without ever having another version of Microsoft Office. Word has way too many bells and whistles already, in my opinion - most of which I never use and never will use. Thank goodness for Notepad and Wordpad.

One of my pet peeves when it comes to Word is the fact that spell check and grammar check are on by default. Grammar check is much worse than spell check...at least using spell check generally improves your writing. Add in Word's AutoCorrect "feature," and it's enough to really send my blood pressure through the roof, especially when I'm sure that I've turned all unwanted annoyances off a hundred times already. I mean...gently suggesting that "Hey, you might want to reword this, capitalize this, or check your spelling" is one thing, but correcting someone's writing without asking their permission is just downright rude.

And don't get me started on that damned paper clip.