Kelly Smith | Made in Seattle

By now I’m sure many others noticed that TechCrunch bought FuckedCompany. This is just brilliant thinking by Mike Arrington. He got lucky and caught a trend on the web2.0 train and now he’s realized that this fragile bubble may have just as much upside on the way down. He’s planning on resurrecting FuckedCompany to start to create a dead pool of web 2.0 He states:

“The market moves in cycles, and its clear that we are at the tail end of the current boom (disregard recent statements I’ve made to the contrary). Thousands of startups launched in the last year and a half, and well over a billion dollars was invested in them. Even in good times, 90% of startups fail. But recent events make me believe that even a 10% success rate might be optimistic going forward. ‘

He goes on to say “With the combination of these two companies, we can now effectively cover a startup from the idea stage, through the hype and funding stage, and then cover its inevitable bankruptcy and liquidation as well.”

Geez. This is pretty brutal.

Go positive. Go negative. Just go whatever editorial direction it takes to make a buck??

He closes with this:

“Entrepreneurs with new ideas will always have a way to reach potential users and customers. They just won’t be able to do it here any more.”

Here’s my advice to tech entrepreneurs in this regard.

Forget this crap.

Focus on building a company that is done well and meets customers needs in an already existing market. Do it better than anyone else. Charge a fair price. Don’t spend a dime more than you need to. Be in it for the long haul. Don’t confuse your online hobby with an online business. It could be a business. But may not be. It usually isn’t. Hobbies are for fun. Work is work and you can enjoy that too. TechCrunch was never the reason for a single entrepreneurs success. Except for Mike Arrington.

After running Microsoft Office 2007 beta for the last 6 months I needed to upgrade to a legit purchased copy. Before I could install my newly purchased copy I was told to uninstall all previous traces of the beta install first. So, I did just that via Microsoft’s Add/Remove feature.

Still, I couldn’t install the legit copy because I continued being told that the Office beta was installed on my PC. Of course since I removed it using the Add/Remove control the app(s) weren’t showing up there so I now was forced to figure out where the remaining traces of the app were living. Let’s forget for a moment that I should even have to bother doing this search and destroy in the first place. After all, if there is a Add/Remove dialog control in the Control Panel for adding and removing applications shouldn’t it either Add or Remove the application? I mean, if Microsoft spent time truly removing apps when I ask them too then maybe people’s PCs might run a little better that if you instead leave fragments of crap everywhere on your harddrive and throughout your registry.

Anyway, I still needed to solve my problem so I came across this post by Microsoft.

Error message after you remove the beta release version of a 2007 Office suite or program and then try to install the original release version of a 2007 Office suite or program: “Setup is unable to proceed”

Now, I don’t expect you to read this whole thing. But let me just give you a snippet of the article because its just too damn funny.

Step 2: Remove the beta release version of 2007 Office Windows Installer files and registry entries
Remove the installation files, and stop the 2007 Office services
Note These steps require that your user account has Administrator permissions on the computer.
1. Click Start, click Run, type installer, and then click OK.

This process opens the Windows Installer folder.
2. On the View menu, click Details.
3. On the View menu, click Choose Details.
4. Click to select the Subject check box, type 340 in the Width of selected column (in pixels) box, and then click OK.

Note It may take several minutes for the subjects to appear next to each .msi file.
5. On the View menu, point to Arrange Icons by, and then click Subject.
6. Determine whether there are any .msi files whose subject is “Microsoft Office product_name 2007.”
7. For each .msi file that has the subject “Microsoft Office product_name 2007″ in the Windows Installer folder, follow these steps.

Important Do not close the Windows Installer folder.
a. Click Start, click Run, and then type msiexec.exe /x.
b. Drag the .msi file that you found to the Open box.

After you do this, the Open box should contain the following text:
msiexec.exe /x Path_to_msi
c. Click anywhere in the Open box, and then press END.

The pointer moves to the end of the path.
d. Press SPACEBAR, type NOREMOVESPAWN=1, and then click OK.

The Windows Installer will try to remove the 2007 Office program or component.
Repeat steps 7a through 7d until you have removed every .msi file that is associated with a 2007 Office product or component.
8. Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
9. In the Computer Management dialog box, expand Services and Applications in the Console Tree pane, and then click Services.
10. If Office Source Engine is running, right-click Office Source Engine, and then click Stop.
11. Close the Computer Management dialog box.

Now, this isn’t even the whole Microsoft post on this subject.

And people wonder why using a PC isn’t easier? Somebody should cut and paste this “support page” and send it to Bill Gates or Steve Balmer or whoever is supposed to care about this stuff and say…”this is why we run the risk of becoming extinct. Shipping hard to use software was fine for the first 20 years of computing. It won’t be considered acceptable for the next 20 years of computing.”

C’mon Microsoft. You don’t deserve the $300 for this software. You should pay me for my time to get your software installed on my machine. And don’t try telling me that it is because I had a beta version of your software on my PC either. I don’t expect beta software to work perfectly. I do, however, expect it to uninstall if I ask it too.