The Best of the Worst?

Best waste of ink?

  1. And your total is: $50.00, now let me repeat that: Fifty dollars and no cents.
    And don't forget the 0 cents, get it right and you'll get a 0 cent tip (or would that be a 0 cents tip?). Look, if we're going to go to all that trouble for nothing, why not just make it $49.99? Sure, you make one less penny, but what do you suppose all the computers think about so many useless numbers floating around? Oh, and what about all those printers printing out endless lines of meaningless zeros, I think they could use a break. Think about it; $49.99 takes about the same amount of ink as $50.00, sure, you lose a penny, but you give the printer the peace of mind that it's accomplishing something. And of course we have to spell it out for those who can't trust digits; "And 0 cents", "And 00/100ths dollars", and nothing to the right of the dot, period.
    Don't forget the wasteful dot, we save another drop since we don't need that stupid dot in there either. And then there are those printers that put that slash through the Ø to make sure we know there's nothing there. Just think how much we'd save by shortening it to just $50, Fifty dollars, that's it, just Five Zero. Not only do you save some ink, you make an extra penny.

Best Bigsleep comment...

  1. You updated your page and it broke Internet Explorer!

    Sorry, but Microsoft doesn't pay me enough to fix their browser.

Sometimes the "logic" escapes me...

  1. My Technics CD player

    The remote has a button for ejecting the CD tray, but no power on/ off button.
    Some people must really have to think about that one, I noticed it right off.

MS Windows makes people "dumber"

  1. Desktop Shortcuts

    Sometimes I am asked about a computer problem, and when the problem is explained to me I fail to comprehend the problem. This problem is often caused by them doing something, or clicking some pop-up box or "wizard" that apparently disables some program. And I usually fail to see the problem, and so I usually don't give the right solution, and I'm going to try to explain why.
    The real problem lies in the fact that MS tries to hide the file system and awkwardly tries to create a friendly interface for the novice computer user. While that is perfectly fine, the problem lies in the method. The "Desktop" seems, for many people, to be a place where most often used programs seem to reside, and if it isn't there then there seems to be a problem finding it. Now I have to think back to the very first time I saw Windows 95, there wasn't much on the Desktop, but I wanted to open something, so there was the Start button, but surely I didn't want to "start" anything, I didn't want to mess anything up. Now that seems really silly to me now, but I have to think back to that state of mind because that is the root of the problem, though I may fail at explaining it here.

    Now MS seems to think that the file system is not a place that the average user really wants to be messing around in. For the most part that's true, but then, a part of the file system is actually used as the User Interface. However this UI is not a critical part of the file system, in other words the Desktop and Start Menu are not really a part of the file system, but simply a link to it. While these "Shortcuts" are labeled with little "arrows", it's never really explained what these little arrows means, and in successive versions of Windows it seems to become even more unclear. Also it's in no way clear at all that the Start Menu is nothing but Shortcuts.
    The file system even becomes more and more ambiguous as there are successively more and more shortcuts to shortcuts, and even more "system shortcuts", making it quite unclear what part of the file system is actually real.
    So in MS's wisdom they attempt to protect the system from novice users, but inadvertently create an unnecessary sense of fear in the user that the user thinks they have destroyed their system. Imagine the horror when someone has somehow deleted everything on their Desktop, thinking their computer has been erased. Or a very strange phenomenon I witnessed once, where the Desktop was full of 100s of "shortcuts to shortcuts to shortcuts...".

    So for those who need to know, the Desktop is not a place where an application "lives", it is a place where you set things (like notes), or shortcuts (like remotes) so they are easy to reach. Just like a real desk top where your keyboard, pencil and paper sit.
    Breaking your TV remote doesn't break your TV, and deleting a Desktop Shortcut doesn't mean you have to reinstall the program. Just look in the Start Menu for another "remote" shortcut and make a copy of it.
    Learn the file system and don't let MS make a dummy out of you.

  2. Hidden file extensions

    This probably should be #1, but it's pretty obvious that hiding file extensions makes people dumber than a rock.
    Thinking that a virus in an eMail is an image simply because of the icon or the fake .jpg extension, is a good enough example.

  3. Spaces in filenames

    Egad, filenames are not descriptive comments. A filename should be a "word" and a space separates two words. OK, so I used quotes around "word", well if you didn't use spaces in a "filename" then I wouldn't have to use quotes.
    You could use spaces in a shortcut to the file (hopefully you've read #1).
    You can create folders and organize your files into descriptive directories. Oh, that would mean learning something about the file system.
    You could use a program that uses 4dos descriptions. This gives you a description as long as you want, in a location that doesn't consume so much space in the window, such as the status bar or in a tool tip. These descriptions are placed in a separate plain text file, so you can easily edit the description file itself. Unfortunately 4dos descriptions aren't very common (too simple?), I've seen a few programs such as ACDSee use it.

Scams don't deserve any rating