Check out the Atari Artworks museum. I just love market rendereings!

I had to install Real Network’s RealOne player last night. I still feel so dirty. I just knew there would be all sorts of dirty little tricks in the installer. It tried to associate every single possible media type with the player, but beyond that, there were no other options. After the install I dug around the preferences and didn’t find anything weird. I looked on the task bar, in the Start Up items folder, nothing there and in the registery, nothing there. Was I bloatware free? Bah humbug! This morning, I turned my monitor on and there was a little RealOne Messages box in the bottom right. WTFF!? There was no option to turn it off only for the headline checking frequency. “Once or twice a month” but no “never”? C’mon!
This is why I like Microsoft products over AOL Netscape or AIM or Real’s bullshit. NO HIDDEN BLOATWARE OR ADVERTISEMENTS! Even the Quicktime player is better! You don’t have a choice with MS (since it comes with Windows) but atleast it doesn’t get in your way and force to look for little hidden links or programs.
RealOne’s UI is really pretty at least.