I HATE WINDOWS

Part 41: When Windows cripples other people

2011-11-15T16:28:00.001-06:00

As I wallow in funemployment (Give me a job!) I sometimes find time to help out other people. For instance, a friend of mine works for a local non-profit. Now, before I go any further, let me take a quick second to rail against non-profit IT people. Non-profit IT people, as far as I can tell, really need to learn something about, uh, information technology. I'm sure that they are nice people, but if you manage an organization with satellite offices, you really should be able to set up a secure wireless router over the phone. It's not hard!

The second thing I am going to get out there before I start my story: buying PCs because they are cheaper is penny-wise and pound-foolish. The Times just wrote about how businesses are turning more to Apple products. The money quote:

Information technology departments, though, may find working with Apple a challenge. Historically among I.T. managers, Apple Macs were largely shunned as too expensive, and the company was viewed as not serious about making the computers blend well in corporate environments.

Basically double that for non-profits. For instance: I have a friend who works with GIS a lot, which pretty much only runs in a Windows environment. He had had enough trouble with PCs, and realized that the best computer was a graphics-laden MacBook Pro, running Boot Camp to run Windows. And he has not regretted it. I'm not sure how he got that through his IT department, but it just plain works.

Now let's get back to my friend. I went by her office to grab lunch, and she was complaining about how stressful it was to have a computer which wouldn't connect to wireless. I started troubleshooting. They'd done the obvious (restarting the router) but it was obviously her computer since it was occurring with multiple wireless networks and no other computers on these networks were compromised. The first thing I asked was for the password for their wireless. "Oh, we don't have one." Now, I doubt that was the reason her DNS lookup and wireless is all screwed up, but she said it was slow from time to time, and I went about logging in.

They'd basically plugged in a Linksys box and logged in, as did, apparently, everyone else in the neighborhood. The hardest part was figuring out which username and password combination to use; once I had I pretty quickly gave their network an appropriate name and WEP encryption (with the office phone number as the password, of course). Next it was time to see if the computer could be fixed. The long and short of it was that I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I didn't bug my dad, but there was obviously something non-trivial wrong with it. The connection would frequently cut out, especially when trying to send data (very weird). Basically, she needs to take the computer (brand new and very much still warranted) and get it fixed or replaced. With Apple, I assume even for enterprise a quick trip to the nearest Apple Store would have them fixing or replacing the machine. With Windows, she had to go through whatever IT distributor her organization uses, entailing a trip elsewhere or a wait for the mail (and I doubt they have overnight turnaround like Apple).

In any case, I asked how much productivity she thinks this cost her. "Oh, about a week." Eight hours a day, for five days? "Yup." I said that since she could still convolutedly send email (by writing it in Word and then doing something) she hadn't lost all productivity and she agreed. I said it was maybe half productivity. 20 hours. At $20 per hour (give or take, not counting the IT department's time on the phone). One random crash and she'd whittled away $400 of time, which could certainly have been used to buy a Mac which would probably be faster and last longer.

The upshot? It will probably be solved bluntly, with a full reinstall of the OS. My friend didn't have the ability to back up her data or the time to reinstall windows (i.e. the whole day). So, for now, she'll beg time off of people with desktops (she's on the road a lot) and lose more productivity with subpar equipment.

So, dear IT departments of the world: just because you don't know how to use a certain product doesn't mean your employees don't, either. Don't just buy the cheapest crap you can get your hands on. Invest in a quality product, and then you're job will be easier. And your employees more productive. And everyone wins.

Oh, and learn how to set up a goddamn wireless router. 192.168.1.1, admin, admin …

Not using Windows for a while = pure bliss

2011-10-23T21:24:00.000-05:00

Pure bliss = $8/hour = a good way to go broke

About a year and a half ago, I quit my job. It wasn't a bad job, but I was ready to not work in an office, not use a computer which was supremely outdated* (yeah, non-profits) and not deal with Windows on a daily basis. I took off to work in the mountains (for the Appalachian Mountain Club) where the use of a computer required putting a laptop on a frame pack, hoping to not break it (best idea: surround it in a down comforter and shove the whole thing in a brew bucket), carry it several miles (say, 4 miles and 3500 feet) uphill and still have very little (if any) internet on the mountaintop. So, not a lot of screen time, and not a lot of fails.

Oh, yeah, and I have a Mac. This summer I treated myself to a new MacBook Air (it's dreamy, and weighs less than 3 pounds) and I even bought a new version of Office—Microsoft's most functional product (it's a low bar). Still, Office '11 works pretty well, is slightly more intuitive than old versions (again, a low bar) and has better cross-compatibility with Windows versions than previous. (Of course, one would think MSFT would be able to actually make them completely compatible. But, no!)

In any case, I'm out of the mountains now and looking for a job. Like, maybe, a "real" job, one where you sit at a desk and use computers. Even computers with Windows. I'm willing to do so, if for no other reason than that I am running out of fodder for this blog. Oh, and a paycheck. Benefits would be nice too. I picked the perfect economy for this, right?

So, you can find my CV on my personal website, check out my other websites (tsastatus.net, birkieguide.com) and if you have any ideas, email me at ari dot ofsevit at gmail.
You can even follow me at twitter.com/ofsevit.

Thanks! I hope I can find some broken Windows crap to blog about soon.

* Apparently, my replacement made it about a week before demanding a new computer—which I was about to do when I quit and figured it wouldn't be worth it to waste my breath. It got to the point of taking minutes to open Word. Of course, it was a 2003 machine in 2010.

Part 40a: when bloggers call me out

2011-06-29T12:56:00.002-05:00

I saw that I had twelve followers. Weird. Someone must have mentioned me somewhere. Well, someone did. In this thread, someone calls me out for blaming a hardware problem on Windows. I'm way too lazy to sign up for that message board, but I will explain why this is, actually, a problem aided and abetted by Windows (or, at the very least, Microsoft):

Windows allows shoddy hardware. Say what you want, but the only hardware which runs Mac OS is, drumroll, Apples. They can be made to run Windows, or whatever else, but Apple has a lot of control over which keys are placed where. And, no, there's no single key I have to hit to turn off wireless (actually, I have to use my mouse). So I never inadvertently turn it off.
Windows does not ask me if I am sure I want to turn off wireless. This is a company who will, when you type "June …" ask if you are typing the current date, or when you type a letter will say "it looks like you are trying to …" (okay, lord be praised they killed Clippy, but still) But when a stray keystroke turns off one of the main features of my computer (since, you know, we live in the internet age), crickets.
It's done in the background, or at least in the margins. There's nothing which comes up in the center of the screen and broadcasts what is going on. Hell, when I change the brightness or even the screen backlight brightness in OS X a transparent image pops up in the center of my screen for a second. The backlight keyboard! That didn't happen on this Dell, because it didn't have a backlight keyboard.
The icon for wireless is decidedly tiny. And if it is off, it appears with an even tinier X through it. Perhaps Apple copyrighted their empty pie icon, but, come on, Windows. It looks like it's clip art from 2002, too.
There's no way to disable the key. If there were, I wouldn't be writing this. Maybe I could have just, you know, pried it off the keyboard. "It looks like you are trying to disfigure your keyboard. Can I help?"

Just for fun, here's the unbelievably funny clip about Clippy from Wait Wait, don't tell me.

And, no, Mr. Thepcguy, I'm not a Stupid User.

Part 40: when wireless goes wrong

2010-12-23T21:29:00.004-06:00

After a blissful summer away from the wide world of Windows, I have been forced to return. Rather than fight for my right to have cross-platform compatibility, I succumbed and had someone buy me a PC. Windows 7. It's sort of okay, although changing the menus in Office is really unnecessary (since "add a row" is now under the "home" menu, which makes no sense of course) and since the UI is still several years and iterations behind OS X. (For instance; in Mac OS I can use "pretzel"-tab to change programs and "pretzel"-` to change windows within a program. Windows 7: I can only change amongst all open windows. Although the nested window view is somewhat useful.)

Anyway, all was going somewhat well until, with no prior warning, my wireless connection today went completely kaput. It just ran dry. When I click on the little wireless icon, it tells me that it is not connected, and that "no connections are available."

Okay, well, I have a trusty-if-elderly (nearly four years old) Mac, and can turn to the Googles. If I search for the no connections phrase and windows 7, I get a Microsoft Help page. Oh, that's lovely. There must be a nice, easy fix for this, right? Wrong.

There are six steps, the first of which is power-cycling your computer, wireless router and modem. I haven't read the others yet. All I know is I first have to deal with the email I wrote and now have to save elsewhere (and hope the formatting doesn't get messed up) and then go through several annoying steps so my computer will, you know, connect to the internet.

It's amazing that in 2010 Microsoft has a product which will lose its internet connection and not easily get it back. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'm writing this on my Mac. Connected to the internet.

(Oh, and when you try to connect to the internet, you click the "open network and sharing center"—at least they don't call them wizards anymore—and then click "connect to a network, which takes you back to the same window where you clicked open network and sharing center. Which circle of hell is this, again?)

Update 1: Power cycled the machine. It did nothing. Except give me a few glorious seconds when Windows was off.

Update 2: The ever-so-helpful Microsoft website tells me "Update the drivers for your wireless network adapter via Windows Update, or by using the website for either the company you bought your PC/Laptop from or the manufacturer of your networking device." And how the fuck am I supposed to do that without an internet connection?

Update 3: I hit troubleshoot. It tells me that wireless capability is turned off. Why? Lord only knows. Why it went off in the middle of using the computer? Lord only knows. Can I click on the little wireless icon and turn it on? That would be intuitive. Of course not. It won't tell me how, only that there is a switch on the front or side of my computer, or a function key.

Hello? Is it 2002? Is anyone there?

Update 4: Apparently, if you hit F2—which, as it happens, is located conveniently above the 2 key—it toggles on and of the wireless. Now, why on earth would I want to be able to turn on and off my wireless with an errant keystroke? Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to, say, have a drop-down menu with the option to turn off my wireless, so that an errant slip of the finger wouldn't do it? Yes. It would. That's why the good lord created OS 10. I believe that was a feature on Apple products, oh, 9 or 10 years ago.

If anyone knows how to disable F2 as the toggle key for wireless, please let me know. I'd like to be able to turn off wireless, I guess, but I'd like it to be a bit more of a barrier than hitting one key. Maybe function keys should be left for things like screen brightness and volume; you know, things I use more than once in a blue moon.

Part 39: Really? I can't use commas to separate email addresses?

2010-04-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

So we recently upgraded our server. In addition to a bizarre method to change default printer preferences (which may well be the printer driver's fault so I won't document it here—yet), there's been a subtle change in our how Outlook works. Or, of course, doesn't work.

Let's say I want to email two people. In Gmail, I'd type in their addresses separated by commas, say, "sbrin@gmail.com, lpage@gmail.com". I'd write my message, hit "send" and go on my merry way. And that's how it used to work in Outlook. But not anymore. If I go to send an email in outlook, I can't write it to "bgates@microsoft.com, pallen@microsoft.com". Oh, no-siree-bob. If I do something that intuitive, I get an error message:

Wait, what? I can't separate email addresses with a comma? And, smartypants, since you obviously know what I was doing (i.e. that I was separating emails with commas) why can't you just make the goddamn change for yourself!

Oh, yes, Windows = productivity.

Part 38: Word/Outlook integration

2010-04-22T14:58:00.000-05:00

While we're knocking Outlook, what's the deal with the integration of Word and Outlook? Sometimes, I'm typing away in Outlook and get a message that Word needs to close, and since Outlook uses Word to edit applications, Word's crashing has rendered Outlook braindead, so carry on.

Also, it's so very well integrated that when I was editing my signature, I had a section which was 10 point Verdana italic, which refused to show in 10 point font in the actual email. Oh, yes, Word works so well I want to use it all the time!

Part 37: Can Outlook signatures be any harder to find?

2010-04-22T14:55:00.000-05:00

So work decided that we should all have standardized signatures and can we all change them. Fine, whatever, I should be able to find out where to change signatures, right? They're a pretty generic part of email, so it's not like Outlook will hide the signature in an incoherent menu which is impossible to find. In a just and loving world, it would be on a main menu. Now, of course, Windows won't show me the whole menu if I haven't used it recently (thanks), but even if I have to expand the menus, I bet I can find it, right?

Wrong.

Now, in Gmail, where I don't even use a signature, I can find the signature setting easily. I click on settings, then, oh, hey, look! It's right there! Right on the main front screen! One click! Easy.

In Outlook? Oh, boy. I had to look it up on the Interwebs. First, I go to the tools menu. There, I select options. Now, leaving beside the fact that options shouldn't be under a tools menu (since an option isn't a tool) or should be called something out, I am presented with a mess of tabs and interfaces. I got to this without the web. But I didn't see "signature" on any of the tabs, so I kept going.

Had I clicked through all the tabs, I would have found that the mail format tab contains the signature dialogue. I have no idea what all the other functions Outlook has which are so very important, but the signature dialogue is in an not-at-all-obvious place, and is much further down the information tree than it should be. Then again, other than save and print, is there anything you can do without three menus and a dialogue box in Windows?

Part 36: Restart, restart, restart

2010-04-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

I was out of the office for a couple of weeks and, apparently, Windows took it upon itself to download some update. And now that it has done so, it prompts me, every 15 minutes to restart. But it gives me 15 minutes to say no. What I really want to do is go about my business today, and restart at the end of the day when I shut down my computer. But "restart later" simply resets the clock.

Please, Windows, why can't you give me a "restart at my own goddamn convenience" button?!

Part 35: hidden formatting

2010-02-03T15:39:00.002-06:00

I had a bit of an email I wanted to post in to Facebook. I figured the steps would be copy-paste-post, right? Not so fast.

It turns out Outlook had embedded some really hidden line breaks in to the text. So I wasn't just copying the text, but I was copying the line breaks too. So when
I posted it on Facebook, it didn't look right. In fact, it had random line breaks. It looked sort of something like
this. This was a problem for me because a) Facebook only displays a certain number of lines before saying "read more" and having a link and b) more importantly this was for my work's Facebook page (it's getting
annoying, isn't it?) and it looked ugly. Even more disturbing is that if I copied the text from the email, it would sometimes paste in with a bunch of xml before it. Seriously, come on.

The workaround was to copy everything in to Notepad (one of the less braindead windows applications, since it has so few useless features) to get it in to text and then paste it from there. It worked. But it was annoying.

Part 34: Word can't open it, but Google Docs can

2010-01-15T13:58:00.000-06:00

I went to open up an attachment in which someone had filled out with text boxes (why text boxes? someone else designed the original) and found that most of the information was squeezed out of the text boxes which we next-to-impossible to drag to expand. But, rather than much around with the document in Word, I sent it to my gmail account and opened it first as html (fail) and then as a Google Doc. All of the sudden, the text boxes are gone, and all the information I need to access is easily visible.

What is perplexing is that the native software (Word) was unable to accomplish this task, while Google Docs did with ease. Google may be a huge corporation out to make a dime, but at least their products, you know, work.

Hotmail funny

2009-11-20T08:30:00.001-06:00

When you get an email from a Hotmail account, it appends a message / advert for Microsoft on the bottom of the message (note: Gmail does not do this). This one is pretty good:

Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection.

Yeah. Right.

Part 33: One problem, many programs

2009-08-27T17:08:00.005-05:00

For some reason, Word decided not to cooperate with me today. It just won't open. And since I was in the middle of writing something, this makes me angry. Oh look at what has happened!

Now, I've had programs freeze before. It happens. On all operating systems. Here's the thing: when something freezes on the Mac, it generally doesn't also freeze other programs. Like Outlook. First I got a message that Outlook used Word for writing emails, and since Word was dead, it was using something else. Then I got an active X error. Now it is frozen. So much for the typing I was doing in Word &c. Time for the three fingered salute.

Part 32: Where is Firefox

2009-06-16T11:13:00.006-05:00

Here's a screen capture of my toolbar (why I can only capture elements of the screen on a screen capture and not the whole goddamn screen, well, that's a post of a different color) from this morning:

That would all be well and good if it weren't for what was in the window above it.

This happens, uh, a lot. I am happily browsing through Firefox and then I go in to my mail and then I go to click back to Firefox and--where has it gone? If I am in a program, how can it just up and disappear from my toolbar? Sometimes I flip out--has it close itself? Is the text box I was filling in gone forever? No, it just went in to Windows purgatory, and a few minutes later it will slide out and reappear as if nothing was wrong.

Seriously, though, what's the point of a toolbar if it's not actually going to show your open programs. Why not just have the computer poke me in the eye. It would get the same amount of information across to me.

Part 31: Still writing to a CD

2009-06-04T09:38:00.004-05:00

Every time I start up my machine, a friendly little bubble pops up and announces that
This is news to me. Since I already burned the CD, ejected the CD and sent the CD off to someone, you know, a week ago. So every day, my reaction is, "I do?"

But, apparently, that doesn't matter.

"You have files waiting to be written to a CD" is something I've never seen on my Mac. You know, because once you burn the CD, it knows enough not to pester you about something you've already done.

Part 30: Copying files and answering the same question

2009-05-22T16:35:00.005-05:00

I am copying files to a CD. Now, there are two things going on here that piss me off. First of all, when I copy files to a CD in OS X, it tells me when it is full. On a Peecee, I have to guess, and make a new folder that will add it up for me. So there's that. Luckily, I know about how much data a 700 MB CD holds (about 650 MB).

But then, there's this:

This is annoying for two levels. First of all, this is completely cryptic. Files I didn't know existed will not be written, but it won't matter. THEN WHY TELL ME?!

Second, even though I continually checked the "use this answer every time" box, every time I did a new copy, it asked me the goddamn question again. You mean, there couldn't have been a "use this answer always for now and forever option"? That would have made my life a little easier.

Apparently, that's not the business Microsoft is in.

Part 29: What's in it for me?

2009-05-08T10:21:00.008-05:00

Now, whenever I start up my machine, I see this:

Oh, hooray. First of all, I've never heard of that, so I am not about to download it. (It seems legit but still this could always be a shell.) Second, why should I download it. Let's do a quick pros and cons analysis.

Pros for me: I get to know if my copy of Windows is valid. This is not really a pro. If I have a valid copy of Windows (here, I do. In other cases, [redacted]) I'm fine. It will tell me "congratulations, you have a non-pirated copy of this software" which is basically a waste of my time. I know that already.

Cons: If I have a valid copy, this is at best a waste of time. And if I don't have a valid copy, it (perhaps) is able to check that and I lose my OS (not a huge loss, believe me) and/or have to go out and buy a new one. But, there is at least the chance that I would be unable to use my computer.

So, in other words, if I run the program, the best thing that happens is nothing, and the worst that happens is my computer is thrown in to turmoil. Sounds like pretty much a lose-lose.

Some of the comments on a story about this "product" (if you can call it that) are pretty good (although generally poorly spelled with horrid grammar):

there's never really been any advantage of having a genuine copy (except for the feel good inside feeling some people get)

Actually I get that feeling downloading pirated Microsoft software.

The "genuine advantage" was double-plus good speak, perfected to an art during the Bush years. I, for one, would appreciate this change back to common sense English descriptions that actually mean what they say.

Now, just drop the telephone activation stuff and make it an online method already.

"But it already has internet activation, idiot!"

No. What I mean is when you've used up your Internet activations due to troubleshooting hardware problems, you'll need to use the phone to tell them your PID and answer questions to get a new serial number of some sort in return to activate. But why the phone? This is a disadvantage to the deaf population. We embrace the internet because it's deaf-friendly. Why on earth can't Microsoft use a webform or application that we can answer questions to and punch in our generated PID code in? Such fail.

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Okay, fail.

Part 3.1 Office 2007

2009-04-23T09:56:00.003-05:00

I've learned the best way to learn how to apply for jobs: post one yourself and read the resumes.

Well, I'm not quite at that stage. I am compiling the resumes. Here are a few hints:

1. Send your resume and cover letter in PDF format. That's the easiest and most universal. Everyone can open PDFs, on any system, and they are pretty much always compatible with everything.

2. If you wish to send a second format, send a .doc or a .rtf.

3. Do not send weird formats from open-source software. Hell, I am a huge proponent of such programs, but they have their time and places. Sadly, cross-platform resumes are not one. Create them in a non-Word program and save them as PDFs.

4. Give people options. Send a PDF, a .doc and post your resume online.

5. If you have Office 2007, good on you. MAKE SURE TO SAVE YOUR RESUME AS AN OLD .DOC FILE! I can not stress this enough. If you send it to someone who does not have the latest version, they will not be able to read it.

Now, as to why Microsoft did not make this backwards compatible, I'll never know. Nor will I understand why they didn't, I don't know, send out a patch to everyone using Word. (Find me someone who would say, "no, I'd rather not be able to open files people send me thank you" and I'll find you a fish with a bicycle.) But, no, they have a "pack" (read: "patch") you have to download yourself, and for some ungodly reason a wee extension which should be a few hundred kbytes to convert xml to an older .doc format is 28 megabytes! And you have to restart for it to take effect.

It does, surprisingly, seem to, I don't know, work.

Part 24.2 ... Why?

2009-04-23T09:52:00.004-05:00

Oh, Firefox. I don't think you are to blame. Why, oh, why does the operating system on which you run let you open but not initiate? Why does it allow you to be opened multiple times without a friendly message such as "you have already opened Firefox" or "Firefox is already running"? Why, praytell, do you initiate several different Firefox.exe tasks chewing through memory without the program starting? Why, indeed.

And why, after I go in to the Task Manager and manually end each of the running tasks, do you start up without fail? I'm not blaming you, Firefox, I am blaming Windows.

Part 28: Why is powerpoint picture-from-file so braindead?

2009-03-30T15:27:00.002-05:00

You may remember in Part 27 when we were adding and subtracting pictures in Powerpoint to resize a document.

Here is the question. A Powerpoint slide is a set size, probably 1024x768. When you want to insert a picture in to a Powerpoint slide, can you think of any conceivable reason why you'd want the image to be any larger than the slide itself? I can't, other than to, say, show a blown up part of a significant piece of a large photo, but in that case I'd probably crop it first. In any case, one would surmise that when inserting a "picture from file" it would downsize it to the size of the Powerpoint slide for easy manipulation.

Ha. Of course not. If you put in a 2000x3000px picture, it opens way over your slide, and screen! You have to scroll to the corner and downsize, and then scroll, and downsize again, and then size it to where you want it, and then move it to where you want it in the slide. Kudos, Microsoft, on making something which should take two or three steps (insert, move, resize if necessary) take eight (insert, scroll, resize, scroll, resize, scroll, resize, move). That's productivity.

Part 27: Oversized powerpoints

2009-03-30T15:24:00.003-05:00

A coworker says to me: "I am trying to send a Powerpoint document and it's too big. Any ideas on how to resize it?"

We take a look at it. It is just over 5 mb. So we remove one picture and put in a downsampled one. And it is just over 5 mb. So we check the size of the other picture. It's 2.75 mb. Somewhere, Powerpoint has found an extra 2.25 mb.

So we remove the other picture. And resave. Voila! It is now 108 kb. So we put in the offending picture, and somehow it is now 3 mb and won't bounce.

The question, of course, is where that phantom 2.25 mb came from?

Part 24.1

2009-03-26T09:31:00.003-05:00

Firefox is being weird. Once it opens, it's fine, of course. It's the opening it up part which is not bloody working.

As I whinged recently, every time (then it was sometimes, now it is every time) I open Firefox it asks me "which account do you want to use to run this program?" Uh, THE ONE I AM LOGGED IN TO, NUMBNUTS! I say okay to the dialogue. And more often than not, Firefox doesn't start.

The first time this happened, I opened Firefox again and again and again, and finally decided to use Safari for Windows. I like Safari, I use it on my Mac, but the Windows version is a wee bit buggy; I prefer Firefox on Windows. I'll make do with Safari (the other option is far less pleasant in my vIEw) but would like for my Firefox to, I don't know, work?

So the next time it happened (after my start-up) I tried to open Firefox three times after the dialogue (to no avail) and then I three-finger-saluted my way in to the Task Manager. There, lo and behold, there were several Firefox "tasks" running. Of course, I had to end each separately (why a single program can be opened multiple times is a quirk I will never understand), and once I did, tah-dah!, Firefox started up.

So that's my daily routine, now. Start Firefox. Say yes to the dialogue. Start it again, go in to task manager, kill the Firefox tasks, and then, actually launch Firefox.

I. Hate. Windows.

Part 26, cont.: They did me again

2009-03-10T09:37:00.003-05:00

I think this needs little further explanation (mainly because I can't make any sense of it):

dwwin.exe DLL initialization failed.
The application failed to initialize because the window station is shutting down.

Except, the window station (what? is this English?) is not shutting down, which is the entire problem.

The system cannot end this program because it is waiting for a response from you.

Oh, that's nice. It's my fault. Meanwhile this program has not been open for hours and only needing a response from me because it failed to close properly or completely and has been hiding in the background, ready to rear its ugly head now.

Adobe acrord32.exe application error
The instruction at "0x5ad71531" referenced memeory at "0x00000014" the memory could not be "read"

Cute, tell me about some random line of code and random bit of memory. This is entirely unhelpful. If you had a countdown timer (like, oh, I don't know, my Mac) that just shut down 120 seconds after being told to, come hell or high water, I wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit.

If my time is worth $20 per hour, and I spend 3 minutes a day dealing with this, and I work 250 days a year, that's $1 per day, or $250 per year, or $750 over the lifespan of a computer (assuming it is amortised over three years). Can someone please explain how it is more efficient to save a hundred dollars on a PC just to have staff waste hour upon hour of time trying to make the goddamn system work?

Part 25: Dude, you're getting a Dell. And it sucks.

2009-03-09T09:49:00.001-05:00

I may have blogged this before but sometimes when I shut down my computer, it doesn't. I say shut down, it asks me if I am sure, I say yes I am sure, and go on my merry way. And then, it doesn't. It has something to do with not properly shutting down Acrobat (I'd grab a screenshot but once I say okay to that dialogue it, presto, shuts down) but I wind up leaving it on all night (or, in this case, weekend) and then having to restart in the morning.

And today ... it didn't even shut down properly. I said yes to the stupid dialogues. And waited. And took a phone call. And waited. And went to fill my water bottle, and waited. All that was splashed across the screen was a big image that said "DELL" as if to remind me of a computer brand that, given the choice, I will never buy. But, seriously, do you want your brand name to be displayed for minutes (and if I hadn't manually shut down, hours) while people ponder why their machine to work? Shouldn't they put up a big apple instead?

Part 24: Wither user?

2009-03-09T09:47:00.002-05:00

When I start up Firefox for the first time after restarting, Windows gives me this nonsense. I've logged in, but it asks me if I want to run this program as what I've logged in as. I think it's a ploy to get me to use IE. (NEVER!)

Part 23: What the Firefox?

2009-02-05T12:30:00.003-06:00

Firefox wouldn't respond, so I selected it on the bottom tab and closed it.

Then I clicked on a link to reopen it, and several things happened, none of them intuitive:

1. Firefox didn't open.

2. Windows opened an explorer dialogue, asking me where I wanted to save the link. (Excuse me? I want to view the bleedin' link!)

3. Windows popped up a cryptic error message, informing me that

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.

Okay, so I stopped the Firefox process. It disappeared off my task bar. But it was still going on, somewhere, in space. Had I probably wanted to, I could have Ctrl-Alt-Deleted my way to the task manager, and from there tried to end the process, which generally just creates "end task" "applications" which are "not responding." I've been down that road. So the other option is to, what, restart my computer? Sure, that might work. But more thank likely, I'd enter the Catch-22 of the Windows universe, and be told that I can not shut down my computer until I end Firefox.

That seems like backwards logic to me...

*****

Update: It still won't open. I opened the task manager. It shows no task for Firefox. Lovely.

File this under "faint praise"

2009-01-23T12:57:00.005-06:00

I've done my best to stay far, far away from Vista. My work machines still use XP, and I'm fine with that (as opposed to Vista). I've loved the Mojave ads with people saying "hey this doesn't really suck" and then being told that it's Vista. (Oh dear, the Mojave experiment site linked above is bloated and takes forever to load. What's new?) If your ad campaign is "hey look this great product we have actually isn't as bad as you think" something has gone wrong.

Well, today Pogue reviews Windows 7. It's not a new Windows OS, it's basically Vista with some of the inexorably horrid parts stripped. Pretty much the whole article is made up of grafs saying things like "You know that really awful feature of Vista? Well for $150—or a free beta if you download today or tomorrow—you can get rid of it!"

Such as:

Trouble is […] the much-despised, Orwellian-named User Account Control […] was way too suspicious, demanding your name and password even when it was just little old you making innocent changes (like setting your computer’s clock). In Windows 7, you can tone U.A.C. down — eliminating the warnings, for example, when you, the human, are the one making changes.

Oh, yay, a security feature that is probably mostly theater (it works great until someone hacks your password, too) is dumbed down.

Even in the test version, you can feel that a lot of things are faster: starting up (40 seconds on my three test machines), shutting down, reconnecting to wireless networks, copying files and inserting flash drives, for example. It’s no Windows XP

Tremendous. Three years on and it's still slower than its predecessor.

As Microsoft puts it: “If it works in Windows Vista, it will work with Windows 7.” That’s not great, but what else can Microsoft do?

Still not backwards compatible.

And these are the best things he can say about them. The article's title, "Hate Vista? You might like Microsoft's sequel" seems a bit too laudatory.

Part 22: HUNG

2009-01-09T09:38:00.002-06:00

Follow this timeline, if you will:

Thursday, 5:20: Start-->shut down-->yes, I want to shut down. The computer begins to shut down. Sometimes, it will hang at this point and tell me that another program has not closer properly and two dialogues later it will begin the shutdown process.

Thursday, 5:21: Seeing no issues (although the computer, as usual, is taking forever to shut down) I turn off the screen and go home.

Thursday, 5:22ish: Apparently, it decides not to shut down.

Friday, 9:02: I go to turn on the computer to find that it hasn't shut down. I can't get it out of the cycle, so I say "OK" to the dialogue and let it begin the process.

Friday, 9:03: I go off to the mail room and lunch room.

Friday, 9:05: I return, and find the computer with a soothing, empty blue screen, which would be great, except that there's nothing productive I can do with a soothing, blue screen.

Friday, 9:06: I try moving the mouse (it moves). I try Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Nothing. I try it again. Nothing.

Friday 9:07: I crawl under my desk and unplug the machine.

Friday, 9:08: I plug it back in and push the power button. It starts.

Friday, 9:09: I log in and begin my day.

Now, you'd think that an energy efficiency organisation would employ an operating system which would shut down (and not draw power all night) and that it would be worth my time in increased productivity not to spend ten minutes making my computer work. Ha.

Part 21: Control-alt-delete to log in

2008-12-24T09:46:00.004-06:00

When I start up my Mac, it boots to a login screen. I type in my password (in the past, I never even had to do this, it just booted to the desktop, and if I ever find the need to do so I may set it back to that) and it goes to my desktop.

On the PC? It boots to a screen that says to hold down Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Once I do this, it allows me to enter my password. Once my password is in, it goes to the desktop. Now, I sometimes wonder why it needs this extra step; why it makes me do the three-fingered salute instead of just letting me type in my password. So I clicked "help" today for more information. I found that:

To log on, hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys, then press the Delete key. This key combination is recognized only by Windows, so pressing it before logging on ensures that you are giving your password only to Windows.

This applies only to your Windows or domain password. Passwords associated with Web pages or specific programs will not require you to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Oh, where to start.

This key combination is recognized only by Windows

No shit, Sherlock. This is a Windows machine. I am booting Windows. I am going to use Windows. I am being forced in to dealing with Windows. Do I have a choice, Mr. Gates? I of course chose Windows because it is such a secure platform.

pressing it before logging on ensures that you are giving your password only to Windows

Oh, goodie. I'm sure that it would be next to impossible for someone to write a script that could be contained in a virus that would, I don't know, spoof this page and be activated by Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

And what if you turned on your machine and it didn't ask you to salute, but rather just gave your a password screen. Would you flip out and think it had been sabotaged? Or would you enter your password and go on your merry way?

Passwords associated with Web pages or specific programs will not require you to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete

Because most of these programs are not written by Microsoft, and therefore employ normal logic in their processes.

Well it seems as though you can turn it off. Done. But OH NOES it might kill my computer:

"Disabling the CTRL+ALT+DELETE sequence creates a 'security hole.' The CTRL+ALT+DELETE sequence can be read only by Windows, ensuring that the information in the ensuing logon dialog box can be read only by Windows."

Riiight. Whatever.

Part 20: Tab-delimiting whether you want it or not

2008-12-23T15:10:00.005-06:00

Sometimes, I have data I want to put in Excel that's not in terrific shape. For whatever reason (generally: I didn't create it) fields are separate by a variety of methods: commas, spaces and tabs. What I want to do is put it in to excel, search for multiple spaces, replace them with a symbol (perhaps an ampersand) and then use the "text to columns" feature to get the text to line up properly in columns.

Yes, that is what I want to do. Excel, however has other ideas. I paste the data and it says (Is it the paperclip? At least seems to have been mercifully killed off.) "oh, look, I see tabs, they must want it tab-delimited" and it tab-delimits it. Which would work great, if it were tab-delimited. But if that were the case, I could just as well put it in to rows and then to a text to columns and tab delimit it myself. But no, it takes one step forward and at least three steps back.

So my data is all mangled. Some rows had three tabs and were delimited in to three columns, some had five and were in five, some had none, and were in none. Oh lah-dee-dah. That didn't work, so I went back and tried a "paste special." Assuredly, if I chose to paste in "text" it would, you know, let me paste text, without the formats. Oh no, the columns remain.

That's one step back. The next step back is to open Word. Why Word? Well, even though it is part of the same product suite, it seems to have been written by an entirely different team of chimpanzees. I paste the data in to Word and it doesn't break in to columns, probably because Word doesn't have that capability. I then find all tabs and replace them with spaces, so that every column is now delimited by multiple spaces.

Now, I can paste this in to Excel, and it doesn't break in to columns (thankfully it doesn't recognise it as "space delimited" and throw in a bunch of blank columns). I search for two spaces and replace it with a semicolon. Now I have strings of semicolons (e.g. ";;;;;"). That's easy enough, I run a series of "find ';;' replace with ';'" until I have each field separated by a semicolon. Then, I do text-to-columns, semicolon-delimit and Voila! I have my data in the format I want.

That was simple, right?

Part 19: Menu madness

2008-12-18T12:16:00.003-06:00

Why, oh, why, does Windows collapse menus? Sure, I don't use every setting on a menu every time. But the extra time I spend wondering where oh where the options have gone before I realise that half the options on a menu are hidden certainly makes up for it. Please, let me just see every menu in its entirety every time.

There's probably a setting to change this but it would probably take fifteen minutes to find.

Part 18: Closing documents

2008-12-17T17:03:00.002-06:00

Every so often, and by every so often I mean on an almost-daily basis, I have several Excel files open. In Windows, several Excel windows sort of cascade in to one main window, that is to say that there is the program window and several documents opened inside of it. It makes life easier in that you can minimise them all at once, but I'm not sold on how it works. (In OS X the windows open separately, that is to say that you can close one of them at a time.) It is not necessarily bad, it's different. It would make a lot more sense if this protocol was used for all applications, but of course it is not.

But here's where it gets bad. If I want to close the file I am looking at, I hit the wee "x" in the corner below the main red "x" to close it. That's fine. That almost makes sense. But let us say I want to close the whole program. I hit the red "x" and it asks me if I want to save the top-most file. And then it asks me for the others.

Now perhaps I have seven files open, and I get to the fifth one and realise, "oh, I don't want to close them all." So I hit cancel. I assume that it will take the rest of the files I have closed and do with them what I told it to do (save, don't save) but no...once you hit cancel it reverts to its first state, with all the files open! Then you have to go through and re-save/not save them all again. Fun!

Part 17: Save as PDF

2008-12-08T16:55:00.003-06:00

When OS X came out in 2001 it included something that was, at the time, a nifty feature. In the print dialogue you could select, for any document, "save as PDF" which would, not surprisingly, save it as a PDF.

At a time when cross-platform compatibility was not what it is now (it was maybe slightly worse then, it still stinks) PDFs were relatively universally viewable (as they still are). But it's still quite useful, and I use it often.

Today, I learned how to create PDFs on Windows. Since there is nothing built in to XP (Which came out, ahem, a year later.) you have to use third party software. In this case, it has two pop-ups whilst it saves as a PDF unless you pay.

As my coworker put it "You'll get a bunch of pop-ups because it's free."

Has vista remedied this? Or, because Acrobat is not a Microsoft format, have they ignored it?

Part 16: Presenting with notes

2008-12-08T16:47:00.003-06:00

Setting up projectors is hopeless. I think a clip from an article sums it up well:

A functional Presenter View has been included in Microsoft's PowerPoint 2007 ($95 upgrade at Amazon, for PowerPoint alone). Microsoft finally gave professional speakers software that allows us to have private, online notes synchronized with each of our slides.

But before you go running to install that product you should know three very important things: First, if you are a PowerPoint 2003 user seeking to get this feature you will be saddled with the significant cognitive overhead of having to learn PowerPoint 2007, with very marginal benefits for the vast majority of those who already know and are good at using PowerPoint 2003. PowerPoint/Office's 2007 ribbon interface is quite irritating to learn for PowerPoint 2003 users (there are third party plugins to get the classic 2003 interface but they don't help all that much). Second, remember that Microsoft doesn't allow PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 to exist on the same computer. They force you to install only one or the other on your machine. Third, don't think you can use PowerPoint 2007 on your laptop (for display) and your familiar 2003 on your desktop (to create and edit your presentations) without the following limitation. If you create anything in PowerPoint 2007 on your laptop, even using the 2003 compatible file type, it often won't display properly in PowerPoint 2003, and sometimes vice versa. So you if you install PowerPoint 2007 on your laptop to use its Presenter View you really shouldn't use your laptop to make or edit slides (unacceptable for most of us), or as I said, they won't display properly in PowerPoint 2003 (you'll get random font, size and italics changes when you try to import slides from your 2003 into your 2007 slide decks, lots of fun).

Bolds theirs, italics mine.

Where to start? Well, first it takes Microsoft years to figure out something which should be intuitive: that people want to have notes on the computer and slides on the projector. Trying to set it up in Office is hopeless, even when you are projecting on the computer and the screen it refuses to detect the second display.

Second, the updated version of their software was so braindead and not the least bit backwards compatible, so installing it results in a cascading litany of issues; enough that it is not even worth it.

Third, even this workaround doesn't necessarily work.

I only spent an hour trying to set the computer up to try to do this today. After failing miserably, I sauntered off, glad that it wasn't me making the presentation.

Part 15: Comic sans

2008-12-06T22:02:00.004-06:00

Comic Sans, perhaps the only font with a website and movement to ban it (which I fully support), was created by Microsoft. Or, in other words, Microsoft unleashed this evil on the world.

Reading things in Comic Sans makes my eyes hurt. For serious.

Part 14: Insert...expletive here

2008-12-02T16:18:00.003-06:00

Often in my typing, I have need to leap for the "backspace" key. It happened twice typing the last sentence. When I do, once in a while, I'll hit the "insert" key on my keyboard. All of the sudden, I'm typing over something I'd already written, and once I realise that I have to undo it or retype it.

This feature may have had a function in, oh, the '80s, but since the advent of the mouse it is much easier to drag over the part you want to delete rather than type over it. I mean, this function has been obsolete for twenty years, an eternity in computing terms, yet not only does Windows still support it, but the keyboards are designed to put the insert key half an inch from a big key that is often used (and generally flailed at).

Part 13: Reply with attachment? No way, Jose.

2008-12-02T15:34:00.001-06:00

I get an email from a vendor. They want the email replied to with the attachment they sent.

There is no way in Outlook to easily "reply with attachment" it seems.

No, seriously.

I hate windows.

the vendor responds

I like my mac laptop better then any windows device.

Part 12: Requires mouse handling

2008-12-01T16:37:00.001-06:00

Someone was trying to move the toolbar which had relocated itself. Once I couldn't figure it out (I tried right-clicking it which got me nowhere) I googled it.

http://www.xp-tips.com/relocate-taskbar.html

I love the parts like

Moving the Windows taskbar is quite straightforward. However, it does require reasonably precise mouse handling. If you are new to computing and still developing your mouse-skills, coaxing the taskbar to move where you want it might seem a little difficult. If you are not yet confident with fiddly mouse manipulation, I would suggest that you postpone using this tip until you gain more mousing experience.

As opposed to, say, a Mac, where you do go to properties and do it that way. And it does not require mouse handling.

my dad responds

I showed this to our [house]guest, who works for the folks from Redmond. He just shrugged.

Note to Windows: File indexing speeds searching.

2008-10-24T15:19:00.002-05:00

When I need to find something, anything, on the Mac, I type anything in to the spotlight doohickey and it finds all documents which have anything in the name OR in the document, and since it is constantly indexing it, it finds them in seconds.

On a PeeCee, well, if I drank coffee I'd have time to get a cup.

Part 10: Hook up a projector...and pray

2008-10-21T17:04:00.002-05:00

One of [my coworkers] was starting a presentation. Well, he was trying to get the projector to be detected. One of the times Windows goes most braindead is when you try to plug it in to a projector. I mean—wow.

He couldn't figure it out. I know that the basic technique is to go in to displays and basically "start clicking stuff." I did. After a couple minutes it started to work (I had no idea what I did but unlike, say, an Apple, there was no button which said "detect displays"), but a few seconds later, you could no longer mouse on to the other screen (no way to, as the Mac puts it, "mirror displays"). So then I had to go in and do it again, and it worked. His presentation loaded and showed up on the projector screen and I said to him "are you doing ANYTHING else but showing this presentation?" The answer was no, which is for the best. And they had a plate of cookies—I'd told him that if I figured it out, I wanted a cookie. And I did.

my dad responds

If you have Windows set up to spread itself over 2 screens, it gets confused when you hit the keys on a laptop to also share with a projector.

But then, Windows is just plain confused...and Mac does a better job of running Windows than Windows does. The new version of VMware does multiple snapshots and virtual machines, which is all I'd need for work. Our tech guy in Europe uses a Mac, in fact.

Oh, yeah, and my Mac always figures out the projector the first time. It does need a dongle, though.

Part 9 (aka Part 2 redux): ASCII can bite me

2008-08-20T11:44:00.003-05:00

Why, to get any symbol like a bullet (•) or em dash in windows is there no easy key stroke like there is on a Mac? Am I expected to memorise a bunch of ASCII codes to type with the alt key held down?

my dad responds

Even then I can't get them to work predictably. There's a program called charmap in Windows whose help page is useless.

Part 8: Outlook not so good

2008-08-18T10:01:00.001-05:00

Outlook has now downloaded each message that I missed in the past week five times and shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

I will now light myself on fire.

[This may have been our braindead mail server, but when in doubt, blame Windows.]

Part 7: Let's just call it "Window"

2008-08-01T15:11:00.003-05:00

Let's say I'm in the folder "My Computer". Then I click on My Computer on the start menu to get another folder. And it brings me to the same damn one. Suppose I maybe wanted to view them side by side and then navigate different places? Why call it "windows" if you can only have one? It's Window! NO S!

Part 6: Keyboard shortcuts braindead

2008-08-01T15:10:00.001-05:00

If I want to create a new folder, control-n does nothing. Nor does it open a new window. Nothing.

Part 5: Downloading pictures without ease

2008-08-01T15:09:00.002-05:00

I plug in a digital camera. It randomly downloads the photos somewhere. It is then faster for me to plug back in the camera and figure out where it hid them than use the braindead search feature. [On a Mac, I can either use iPhoto or manually download them myself.]

Part 4: Email threads (or why GOOG >>> MSFT)

2008-07-29T10:07:00.001-05:00

Suppose I am having an email conversation as follows:

Ari to David
David to Ari
Ari to David
David to Ari
Ari to David

And perhaps then Ari wants to send another email to David without having received an interceding reply.

In Gmail, Ari clicks on "reply" and it's smart enough to figure out that Ari wants to reply to David.

In Outlook, Ari clicks on "reply" and it's so braindead that it thinks that Ari wants to reply to himself!

Part 3: XLSX my tuchus

2008-03-11T13:47:00.002-05:00

Someone in the office wants to save excel spreadsheets on a different drive. They right click the files in explorer and choose "save as" and then it only lets they save it as an Excel 2007 file, with an .xlsx extension name. Other people who try to open them with older versions are thus up a creek. But, when you choose save-as from explorer, you can't save it as a good, old .xls file. Why? Who knows. But for a company which spends millions of lines of code making their OS backwards compatible, this is horrid. I used it to make the point that when we next upgrade our computer systems we should have a real upgrade to a real operating system. I'm just glad I'm not using windows. Did you see the bit in the NYT about Microsoft execs inside emails about how Vista was not nearly ready for market?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/09digi.html

And this

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0226/050.html

is a great pan of Vista. Which I hope to never have the pleasure to use.

my dad responds

I saw the Times article, well done. The Forbes article sounds like you
could have written it. Our product has to support Vista in our next
release. I cringe at having to support our support of Vista.

That change to file formats in Office 2007 (not just in Excel) is a
real pain. Most people here still haven't upgraded, and I wind up
having two copies of everything. MS was under pressure from the
European Community to move to open formats, but you can't convince me
that anyone is going to adopt their new ones just because they're in
XLS. OS X is so far ahead of Vista that it's like the lead Toyota has
in hybrids.

Part 2: ASCII WHY?

2008-02-14T22:49:00.003-06:00

When I want to type a cents sign (¢) on a Mac, I type option-4 (option-#) and it pops right up. If I want to type a jolly pounds sign (£), it's option-3 (option-#). If I want a Paragraph marker (¶) it's option-7. Sure not all of the shortcuts make sense (option-E then __ for an accent) and some are kind of roundabout (the aforementioned accent, the option-U then __ for a diaseris) but they are all there. When all else fails I hold down the option key and the shift-option and scroll across the keyboard until I get what I want.

¡™£¢∞§¶•ªº–œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπåß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…Ω≈ç√∫⁄€‹›ﬁﬂ‡°·‚—

Look at all that good stuff!

Now...in Windows, there is no option key. There is an alt key that seems to be pretty much useless. To get one of these symbols, you have to figure out (using google in my case) that you have to hold down the ALT key and type a three digit ascii code that has nothing to do with anything. At least in html you can type & and get an ampersand. Not in Windows. Nope.

I hate windows.

my dad responds

In Word there is a whole screen that you can get to insert a special
character, and it even gives you a hint of the keystroke combination.
Talk about shooting fleas with an elephant gun...

Part 1: Scaling GIFs

2008-02-14T13:57:00.001-06:00

I put up a new map and shrunk it down using html commands. It's a GIF. The Mac renders the shrunk-down image fine. Windows? Good luck. Good grief.