Well, not any more…not since I paid Microsoft to obtain the privilege of using my own data again.  I’m pretty pissed at MS right now.  It feels as if I’ve been held for ransom.  The story…

We purchased Mardi a new laptop 2 months ago.  It’s sweet!  HP-Hdx18t and it rocks! Well, it came loaded with MS Office 2007 Home and Student edition, which in most cases, would suffice.  However, MS doesn’t include an email client with the Home and Student edition (there’s MS Mail that comes with Vista, but it’s a revamp of Outlook Express.  Come on MS, really?).  Shame on us for not recognizing this.  We are accustomed to using Outlook for our email needs at home, but I also use Thunderbird for personal email and I thought this might be good for Mardi. Well, at the time, that didn’t fly…Outlook was the way to go.  Rather than paying full price for Outlook as a standalone product, I installed a 60-day trial edition in hopes that we could find a more reasonable cost solution.  After this, all was well in the cosmos.  Mardi had her email, all her email history, PST files, contact info, etc. were intact.  I was a hero! 

Yesterday, I went to a zero!

You know it’s going to be a bad phone call when your wife starts off with “I have a problem with the computer.” And of course, the hardest thing to do over the phone is troubleshoot computer problems.  I mean, I feel pretty comfortable with my abiliities to deal with computer issues – and we both have a mastery of the English language (unlike most computer and software support reps).  I really feel for phone support technicians.  I mean, adding a discouraged and confused user on top of the typical non-mastery of the English language and you’ve got issues!  There has to be a growing population of depressed customer service reps in India.  But, I digress.  Apparently, the 60 day trial ended yesterday.  Yes, we’d received the “warning, your trial is expiring” emails, but really, who pays attention to those?

The “good will” account at the Bank of Mardi was being emptied by the minute.  No more high scores for Jonathan.

So, in my mind, it’s time to evaluate Thunderbird again.  Great product and it’s FREE…yes FREE!  That’s a heck of a lot better than $109 that MS wanted for Outlook.  Mardi was sold on this idea.  Score one for Jonathan.  So, off I go installing the latest version of Thunderbird (v3) which, by the way, really rocks.  It’s so much better than v2.  Anyway, Thunderbird installs like a charm.  It seemlessly pulls in Mardi’s IMAP account at Netaddress.  So far, so good.  Next step, import data from her old Outlook PST file.  Here’s where the gears of progress came to a grinding halt (much like the career of Tiger Woods, but with a lot less lasciviousness).  I could not import any data – NONE – from the PST file into Thunderbird.  What gives? 

Well, according to Microsoft, once your trial expires, you’re screwed!

Reduced Functionality mode  After the grace period, if you have not entered a valid Product Key, the software goes into Reduced Functionality mode. In Reduced Functionality mode, your software behaves similarly to a viewer. You cannot save modifications to documents or create new documents, and functionality might be reduced. No existing files or documents are harmed in Reduced Functionality mode. After you enter your Product Key and activate your software, you will have full functionality for the programs and features that you purchased.

What the heck?  (Yes, dear readers, I know I could use today’s cool and hip vernacular and type “WTF”, but really, that’s not very polite, is it?)

It is so comforting to know that while I can’t access any of my data and use it outside of the limited version of Outlook, and since we can’t send and receive any IMAP based email, at least “no existing files or documents are harmed.”  It sounds like a bad Jean-Claude Van Damme movie…”We have your daughter sir, and she is unharmed and safe.  Please pay the ransom to obtain full access to her again.”  Really, that what it seems to say to me.  It’s freaking payola I tell you!  Ransom!

I was stuck.  I couldn’t even use the Registration Key from another unused personal copy of Office 2007 to activate it.  It appeared that “the man” was getting the best of me.  A $109 payoff was on the way to MS.  Until, I remembered a great deal that we had through our corporate MS Office Enterprise license where employees could get MS Office at a much reduced rate.  The clouds parted and the sun’s rays shown their warmth down on my downtrodden soul.  Well, not really, it’s freaking cold here right now.  But again, I digress.  Problem solved.  Within 15 minutes, I had a new license with a full complement of MS Office goodies.  It was a cheap solution thanks to our corporate parent.  Mardi was again up and running.  “Good will” account restored.

The principal of this, however, is all wrong.  How can a company hold your personal data hostage like that?  Talk about screwing the customer.  I left Thunderbird installed.  I may get so mad at MS that we dump it altogether in the future and head over the open source universe.  Until then, MS has, to use a term from my buddy Spud, my “stones” in a firm vise as long as they hold my data.

Moral to this story, make sure your data is safely and securely yours, and not held in a proprietary software database that can, at the whim of the developer, lock you out until you renew or buy another license.

Lesson learned.

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