Pet Peeves

It's one of those days where small things are getting to me. Maybe venting will help.

• People who think Facebook is an e-mail application
• Websites that require you to use Windows or Mac when things work fine on Linux
• Not being introduced to a friend's new partner, and the ensuing awkwardness
• Cell phones that miss calls when fully charged and in an area with service

November 14, 2007 (link)

Vista Rant

Luckier than most, I hadn't really been exposed to Vista. Until today. You see, at work we have this nice sort of lounge area with an Xbox 360, a media centre PC and a TV. I occasionally go hang out on the couch and watch something on the media centre while doing code reviews or waiting for a long build.

Recently they upgraded the media centre thingy to Vista. It's not like it was super great with the XP version, but wow is the Vista version ever crappy. Things it did to me tonight within a 1 hour span:

• Popped up a notification asking me if I wanted to reboot the machine because updates had been installed. If you're a regular reader, you know that I absolutely despise notifications that distract you from what you're doing, especially when what you're doing (watching a movie) is something that you generally don't want to interrupt.
• In said notification, the "yes" and "no" buttons were blue. The selected button (you're using a remote, remember, not a mouse - so you have to choose a button and press OK on the remote) was almost indistinguishable from the unselected one. It does not take a rocket scientist to tell you that's horrible UI.
• After I said "no", it proceeded to reboot the machine anyway a few minutes later. Or maybe I said "yes" but just couldn't tell the buttons apart. Either way, it's bad.
• After restarting, the media centre application thing started back up. But it didn't have focus, so the remote didn't work. I had to hook up a keyboard and push Alt+Tab to make the remote work again. It also didn't resume playing the movie that was rudely interrupted to patch Microsoft's security bug du jour.

This just makes me wonder if anyone at Microsoft ever actually sat down on a couch and tried to use this stuff. It's so obviously godawful that anyone who spent an hour or two actually trying to use it should have deemed it unshippable in its current form.

November 20, 2007 (link)

Corrections

Joel, in his efforts to pimp Fog Creek software, overlooks Google's Chelsea office at 111 8th Ave., which also gets a walk score of 98. I think Joel's been to our Chelsea office, suggesting this wasn't just an error of ignorance but one of purpose.

Anyway, if you are looking for work in New York, definitely consider Fog Creek. Sounds like they're a nice place to work. But Google's Chelsea office is no slouch, so keep Google in mind too!

Avery claims that because there is a rumour about something Google-related, that means "Google pre-announces yet another thing". It does not. There are false rumours all the time about Google; that doesn't mean Google is announcing or pre-announcing anything. If I start a rumour that VersaBanq is giving everyone $100 for trying AMSE, does that mean you're actually doing it?

Admittedly, he says it's outsiders doing the pre-announcing, but the title is highly misleading, and so is the terminology. "Announce" implies something official, but rumours are hardly official. I also fail to see why it's surprising. There are rumours about most large tech companies, from Microsoft to Apple to nVidia to AMD.

Back: October 2007

Next: December 2007