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From: Mark Fowler Date: 16:42 on 27 Mar 2007 Subject: Invalid License "You are running OmniGraffle 4 but this is a license for OmniGraffle Professional 4"
From: Mark Fowler
Date: 13:39 on 08 Nov 2004
Subject: FOAD iTunes
The iPod "Klegg" is linked to another iTunes music library. Do you want
to change the link to this iTunes music library and replace all existing
songs and playlists on this iPod with those from this library
No Yes
I see this dialog *every* *single* *time* I plug my iPod into charge on my
work Mac (i.e. the one that doesn't have my music collection on it.)
Where's the sodding "never" option then? Is it totally *inconceivable* to
the people in Apple that I might have more than one computer? Or does
this totally blow their pea sized brains?
Urge. To. Kill. Rising.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 12:03 on 08 Nov 2004 Subject: iPhoto crackfuledness So like most photo software iPhoto allows you to play "slideshows" of your photos, which is apparently touchy-feely speak for "show my photos in fullscreen". Most software provides a function to go onto the next photo after a set period of time. Which is nice I guess. So does iPhoto. But it doesn't (as far as I can see) allow you to turn this off for an album and just go to the next picture when you press a button. Wait just a gosh darn minute here. What the hell is the point in this? What if I haven't finished talking about my photos yet to the person I'm showing them to? Of course the computer MUST be right, and I the mere user should stick to the computer's schedule for showing MY pictures. Far be it for me to be in control. Because in real life lectures we see this all the time. The lecturer sits at the front and waits for the computer to change the slide for him and he talks for exactly the same length on each slide and is *always* done speaking on one slide after a set time. Oh wait, I'm talking crap. This is truely insane. It gets worse. Not only can you not disable the autotransition to the next picture for an album, but Apple will only let you display the pictures for up to a minute. For absolutley no apparent reason, Apple has chosen to force the user to accept an arbitary limit on the length of time the pictures can be shown. Why? Is there some secret flaw in the apple hardware that means that if it shows a static image for more than a minute it bursts into flames? Will a rampaging monkey horde spew from my drive bay? Will the computer summon a dark lord from the never-regions of hell and set it on the task of hunting down Steve Jobs' firstborn. I seriously doubt it. FFS Apple, I expect better. Mark.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 15:21 on 09 Sep 2004 Subject: Every Bit of Presentation Software In The World Ever Look, I hate to point this out, but all presentation software sucks the big one. They're either: * Script based (Magicpoint, Axpoint, HTML based soltions), hence not WYSIWYG, hence hateful as when presenting I need to tweak things to look right and get an idea of what I'm doing while I'm editing it not spend my life FIDDLING WITH DELIMITERS * Have either no sense of global sytles (or in the case of Powerpoint, very broken ones.) Look, right, I want to type on the screen. When I want to enter a bullet point I want to hit the keyboard shortcut for "bullet point" style. When I want to write code examples I want to hit the keyboard shortcut for "code" style. And I want to be able to change these all in one go later. How hard is this? Does any software do this? No. Powerpoint doesn't (it's just got some really broken 'edit master slide view' mode that lets you change their styles but give you no consistant way to switch between them or define new styles) Keynote doesn't (and keynote's hateful anyway as it doesn't have free viewing software.) Open Office is a PILE OF RANCID POO that goes CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK and doesn't actually display at all reasonably on my mac. Of course it's possible that I've overlooked how to do this with my software, but in that case it's hateful too for being so bloody hard to use. GAH. Suggestions (for once) really welcome. Mark.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 23:01 on 29 Jul 2004 Subject: Mac OS X Command-Tab switching Okay, which idiot decided that moving a mouse over an icon was a significant act? I often find myself moving the pointer to where I expect a window to appear as I command-tab between applications. Of course, if you run over the icon for any application then guess what the switcher does? It moves the focus to that application, meaning I get totally the wrong application popping up. If I click on it, it means I want it to have focus. If I move over it, it means *nothing*. Moving the mouse with no buttons pressed shouldn't do anything. STUPID STUPID STUPID. Hate and more hate. Mark. P.S. Lightswitch X got this right. (But I don't have it installed everywhere for the reasons explained in why I hate software that you have to enter licence codes for rant)
From: Mark Fowler Date: 11:00 on 06 Jul 2004 Subject: Return of the Lozenge Remember http://trelane.hates-software.com/2004/04/23/a13b7744.html ? Remember when I said the lozenge was a bad idea. I found something worse: Not having one. Having been forced into accepting the worst GUI design in the world, I've at least learnt the convention and can actually deal with it. Which is why I was so surprised to find that when I recently started to use Safari - one of Apple's own applications, nay not a little app but a flagship application that ships with the OS itself - that it doesn't have a lozenge. Oh no, you now turn the toolbars and off from the menubar. Hello? Nice standard Apple. So I was wrong, there is something worse that bad GUI design. It's inconstant GUI design. Bah.
From: Mark Fowler
Date: 17:25 on 26 May 2004
Subject: Preview.app and opening files
Look moron, the pdf file on disk has changed. If I double click a file
and it's already open you can do one of two things:
1) Bring the window that contains the old version to the front and
reload it from disk and show me the new version
2) Open a new window and show two versions - the already loaded version
and the new version - at the same time.
What I don't want you to do is pop the frickin' window to the front and
show me the *old* version, leaving me to spend half an hour debugging the
script that created the file trying to work out why it hasn't changed the
output.
FFS.
Mark.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 13:19 on 23 Apr 2004 Subject: Most stupid GUI design ever (On a Mac...what else) Since no-one else has posted it, here's one that bit us the other day. Find someone who's not used a Mac before. Give them Apple Mail, let them open preferences and then get them to accidentially click on the lozenge as it's where the close button would be on a Windows laptop (and it, like other mac window controls are, are not labeled.) This will close the toolbar. However in preferences dialogs the toolbar isn't extra helpful buttons - it's the *only* way to access the other preference panes. And the dialogs are stateful. Meaning if you quit Mail and re-open it again then you'll get the same dialog back without the toolbar. Unless the user was paying a lot of attention they'll probably never be able to get at the other preferences. You'll be lucky if the user even *knows* there's other panes there - you've certainly lost any visual indication that they even exist from the screen. It took me a good number of months to work out that the lozenge opens and closes toolbars or that opening and closing toolbars was even possible (essentially that's a notion that doesn't translate from X11 window managers at all.) Having the *only* way to access controls to be able to be optionally disabled and hidden is truely insane. And it's not just that preferences pane - it's all of them all over the whole OS. That's just nuts! Mark.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 11:46 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: terminals again. Somehow I've managed to configure my terminal so that when I ssh to another box and user vi or emacs (but, not when I use bash) the cursor keys don't work. How is this even possible?
From: Mark Fowler
Date: 00:00 on 23 Mar 2004
Subject: Software you have to register.
I'm pissed off with software that you have to register or remember a key
for. It's not that you have to pay for the software or it stops working I
mind - I'm quite happy to pay for the small amount of software I use -
it's that I have to enter the code.
Entering the code isn't the problem when I buy the software and first
install it. It's three months on when I install the software on my new
computer and now have No Idea (tm) where the code is.
For example, I like synergy, a little app that monitors iTunes allowing me
to pause it from the menu bar/with a keyboard short cut and will pop up a
little dialog telling me the name of the track when the track changes.
This costs 15usd for five licences. So all my macs are theoretically
licenced, but can I find the code in my email? No. I supose I can email
them, but it's too much hassle.
I have the same problem with UltraEdit. I have a licence for this, but on
the odd occasion I need to use a Windows machine and install it, I don't
have the code to hand. When I come back to use the machine a month later
the trial version will have expired and I'm well and truely stuffed.
Maybe this is why free (as in beer) software does so well. It's not that
people mind paying for the software so much, it's that they mind having to
a) Go though the process of actually paying for it (which takes five
minutes out of their life that could be more productivly spent
sorting the recycling, hovering the front room, or eating pie)
b) Spend four hours finding the code that was sent to them from some
totally bizare email payment system (that bears no resemlemence to
the product bought) every single time they need to reinstall the
software.
Mark.
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