Dear Facebook:

Your chat has changed, but not in a useful, warm, or fuzzy way.  Simply because I don’t throw electronic livestock at, post pithy responses concerning, or play potentially copyright infringing games with a given friend doesn’t mean I don’t want contact with my friends.

Please allow me to control my own online social life rather than “improving” my ability to contact those I’m obviously capable of finding on my own.  It is the people you’ve made it difficult to find that I joined Facebook to keep in contact with.

Grumblingly yours,

U. Don Tknowme

Dear Google Maps:

Thanks for the subtle humor leveled at me when I attempt to get directions to Hawaii, USA from Utah, USA.  I’ll need some training before I tackle step 24: “Kayak across the Pacific Ocean.”

May I suggest your directions for the same route by bus include a Yellow Submarine ride?

Both thumbs way up,

Guy Smiley

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Dear Amazon:

First, came ebook leasing. Now, you’ve brought us etextbook rentals. What’s next, rent-2-own?

Perhaps you will consider some sort of plaid sport coated artificial intelligence when you introduce used ebooks into the marketplace.

Whyno T. Ownthem

Dear Skype:

Your quick switch from group phone conversation to group chat during technical difficulties saved us much consternation and bother.

Perhaps you would consider showing Adobe Connect how group communication is done? (We won’t even speak about what you could do to improve group coursework with Blackboard.)

At your service,

U. Hadm’ Back

Dear Klingon Assault Group Language Academy:

Thank you for your Klingon/English translator (but not for your particularly long name). A comment regarding my note to the Klingon Language Institute made me aware of the technical savvy your site offers.

Strangely, I had to use your translator to understand a comment in Klingon defending the other site…
Live long and prosper,

MajQa'!

Hs’oj Nosnhoj

Dear Google Voice:

I hear you now block unwanted phone spam; who knew email spam blocking would come before phone spam blocking.

What can you do about the credit card offers cluttering my USPS mailbox?

Eagerly awaiting your response,

Pre. Qualified

Dear Klingon Language Institute:

Your website gave me pleasant nostalgia for the early days of web browsing. Perhaps the warlike Klingons whose language you champion do not see the use in frivolities lavished upon more modern websites by dishonorable humans.

Viewing your site doubly blessed me, for I was able to cast off my erroneous assumption that all Klingon language enthusiasts come from tech savvy and/or computer programmer stock.

Qapla’,

Hs’oj N’osnhoj

Dear Omeka:

I lost a small piece of my heart and a gaping piece of my stomach when my site, which features you, stopped letting me login as admin. I loaded, installed, babied, tweaked, HTMLed, PHPed, and yelled at you.

Now that you are working again, I have forgiven your sudden betrayal, mostly. There will be no “next time.”

Grudgingly,

Whod O. Uthinkuare; MA, PreMLS

P.S. If you insist on a “next time,” do not leave the cause a mystery. I warn you, I will not be worked over again by a pompous mass of text and symbols.

Dear Google Voice:

Kindly remove the large note explaining your new feature? I think it must be a middle-aged note because (1) it isn’t new, I’ve already tried it and (2) it’s larger than necessary.  Don’t make me or it suffer any longer, please add an “x” to the top right corner like everyone else.

Seriously,

Outta M Yway

Dear Google:

Permission granted to continue developing image search via picture. It knew more about my vacation spot than I did (which was astonishing), and showed me others standing in just the same spot (which bordered on creepy – please stop following me on vacation).

Cautiously paranoiac,

Opt I. Mystic

Dear Firefox 5

Mozilla is henceforth forgiven.  “Pin as App Tab” options save fingers from excessive movement and oft frequented sites load but do not dominate. Please incorporate browsing in a zen state for Firefox 6.
Tranquilly yours,
I. Browsebetter

Dear Firefox 4:

Using Bing.com as your default search engine betrays what I considered a necessary and entertaining competition between Mozilla and Microsoft.  Please discontinue this sudden and frightening fraternizing.

Willing to forgive,

Y. Bing

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