I have a public service announcement.  My daughter Jordan now has her driving permit (Congratulations!)  If you are driving in Northwest Los Angeles and you see a blue Volvo station wagon, you have been warned.

Have you ever wondered what the makers of kids' software are smoking?  This morning my daughter Megan was watching Dora the Explorer on Nickelodeon, and she saw an ad for a game on the Nick Jr. website.  She came running into my office to go online and play the game.  That's when it started.  Twenty minutes later she was happily playing the game, and I was back to work.  What happened in the meantime was not pretty.

We launch our browser and go to www.nickjr.com.  We immediately see Dora, and click on her.  A new window opens, and we get a dialog box telling us there is a new version of Flash available.  Forget Flash, we just want to play the game, right?  I hit Cancel and on we go.  Except we don't because next we get a message telling us we need a newer version of the Shockwave plug-in.  So be it.  Click the "Upgrade" button.  Now we get a 5MB download, then nothing happens.  Oh, yeah, I have to go find the file and double-click it to install.  Okay, found the file, double-clicked it, installed, all cool.  Now we can play the game!  Nope.  Now we get a gratuitous message welcoming us to Shockwave.  Okay, welcome it is, click okay.  Now I get a registration form!  Man, I want to play a game here, okay?  Register me another day.  Sheesh.  Hit cancel.  The browser goes to shockwave.com!  Seriously, what are these people thinking?  We're trying to play a game here.  Back at the Nick Jr. website we now get a message in the browser window telling us 3D Groove is being downloaded.  What?!  Okay, whatever.  Now we can play, here we go...  Close, but no cigar.  After the download completes we get the following message: "3D Groove SX is compatible with OS X in Classic Mode only".  I am not making this up.  Now, I happen to understand this message, but how many parents are going to deal with this?  Okay, so I quit the browser and relaunch in Classic mode.  (If you're not a Mac aficionado, feel free to use this example the next time a Machead tells you how much simpler Macs are than Windows.)  You know what happens next, right?  Yep, now we have to upgrade our Classic version of Shockwave.  Which isn't that easy, because after you download it, where the heck does it go when there's no Classic desktop?  After a little searching with Sherlock I find the Shockwave Installer, install it, and now we're going to be happy, right?  Noooo - now we get the registration dialog again.  Hey, I don't want to register, I want to play the game.  Onward...  And we get the 3D Groove is being downloaded message again...  And this time - finally! - the game starts.  Man.

The sad thing is, this is no exception.  Software is still too hard to use.  Especially if you're a parent.