Software Derangement

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This bizarre coincidence has brightened my Friday...

Yesterday, I was writing (for my supervisor) some tutorial questions for the 'e-commerce' tute in a Masters subject on consumer protection laws.  One of the questions involved a software program known as 'Microstuff Office'.

One of the questions, as sent to my supervisor (upsub antefiling), read in part:

John returns home and tries to install Microstuff Office ... Because of an inherent design flaw in Microstuff Office, it becomes deranged and erases all the information stored on his computer ...
I wasn't really expecting the 'deranged' part to make it into the final form of the question, and the language was in fact moderated by higher authority, but was good for a laugh.

Today brings news that a recent software update to the Mac the Intuit QuickBooks Pro has, in fact, become deranged and erased the accounting data files of its users.  In my question, Microstuff relied on the disclaimer and limitation of liability clauses in the EULA -- I wonder whether Intuit will?

Some of the meanings that dictionary.com gives for 'deranged' (or 'derange') include 'to upset the normal condition or functioning of' and 'to throw into disorder; disarrange'.  On that basis, I maintain that 'deranged' was an appropriate word in the context :)

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This page contains a single entry by Dale Clapperton published on December 21, 2007 11:29 AM.

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