May 19, 2000 This infuriates me: Because Windows was not shut down properly, one or more of your disk drives may have errors on it. To avoid seeing this message, always shut down your computer by using Shut Down from the Start Menu. This little missive sums up a whole lot of what's wrong with the computer industry. It smugly assumes that the reason the computer wasn't shut down correctly was because the user is an drooling idiot who can't follow directions -- when it's much more likely that the problem was caused by yet another random Windows crash. And it's not just Microsoft stuff -- it's everybody. Users have been conditioned to expect things to go wrong, and to accept the blame when they do. That's a shameful legacy for the industry that's supposed to be building the future. ★