Author Topic: The computing stuff rant thread  (Read 396219 times)

Kim

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #50 on: 10 March, 2014, 02:32:08 pm »
Damn you Microsoft.

In their defence, XP is twelve years old now - how long did you expect them to support it for?

About twelve years.  Then they apply the lucrative binary exponential algorithm to the extended support contract costs.

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #51 on: 10 March, 2014, 02:36:57 pm »
Fucksake, don't just keep running more instances of yourself and not making an obvious "would you like to tweak settings" in a prog which affects visibility of the screen. Had to resort to killing it in task manager and there's one instance which won't die. Had to find shitty guide online which explains it pops a small thing in the "running progs" bar where I found about 7 of you fuckers all running *terminates*.  This is why I kill windows installs every 6-12 months or so!

Assistive software, has an awful lot in common with 'educational' *spit* software.  Still beats colleagues trying to spend £££ on software packages I can find for FREE!  The cheap/free stuff is all much more limited than the professional stuff, but you gets what you pays for and when yu don't pay you have to fart about a bit. 


hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #52 on: 10 March, 2014, 02:37:30 pm »
About half the time David and I spent at the GP surgery earlier today was spent:
Waiting for my records to come up on their computer screen
Waiting for a computer system crash to be sorted by IT
Waiting for David's records to come up.

How much NHS personnel time is wasted on Windows?

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #53 on: 10 March, 2014, 03:16:18 pm »
BT you gits. You raised my hopes by having the Infiniti checker say it would be available here by end of Feb and when I checked today it now simply says "not available in your area"
After an online chat with them it seems they now estimate it will be sometime next month but I wont hold my breath.

Availability checker now says end of March. We will see.

Hooray! We've been upgraded from "NC" when I last looked a couple of months ago,  to "CS" - end of June 2014.

I should think so too - after all Openreach dug up the whole length of our lane not 6 months ago to install data connection - to the new factory at the end of the lane!  Pity we couldn't tap into that as it passed.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #54 on: 17 March, 2014, 04:35:41 pm »
Autodesk - there are units int he world other than inches. Get with the program.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #55 on: 17 March, 2014, 05:28:13 pm »
Autodesk. What more can I say? If ever there was a masterclass on making a package really, really frustrating then you take the biscuit. It is almost impossible to work out how the hell it does things.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #56 on: 17 March, 2014, 09:35:30 pm »
I spent a year or more of trying to get the hang of AutoCAD,, with almost zero success.  I needed to do a City and Guilds college course in order to make significant progress, well two courses actually, one for 2D, and one for 3D.  They then revoked my student licence for it, as I was no longer an accredited AutoCAD student (yes, you have to be an AutoCAD student, not just any old student) so it wouldn't work any more, and I used pirate copies for a bit, and then when Windows Vista stopped them working, I bought Turbocad.  It seemed as if they had studied the Autocad manual and decided to make every single command incompatible with Autocad.  I've now been farting about with it long enough I can do simple 2D stuff, but 3D in Turbocad still eludes me...

I think CAD software is designed to be non-intuitive!

(edited, so it wasn't utter gibberish)
Wombat

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #57 on: 17 March, 2014, 10:03:23 pm »
A rant of my own, rather than commenting on others' issues.

Printer setups, and printing dialog(ue) boxes.  I do not use American paper sizes, I never have, and never will, so don't bloody well flood the print size selections with 43 different paper sizes only used in one country!  How about, when setting up the printer initially, asking you what family of paper sizes you want to use?  I only want A sizes, so don't want to plough through thousands of obscure sizes only available in Japan, or the US of bleeding A, or the independent Republic of Bechuanaland upon Severn.

And Microsoft print dialogs specifically - when I want to set up a page to print on A3, or maybe even A1, why the fuck do I have to have the A1 size printer connected and switched on, for you to allow me to access that page size?  Maybe I haven't even got an A1 printer*, maybe I'm creating a document for a client who has.  Fuckwits!

* I have, actually  ;D
Wombat

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #58 on: 18 March, 2014, 10:39:12 pm »
Oh Illustrator, why do you need to put som many thousands of vertices onto the objects you export as Autocad. And Autocad, why do you make it so darned difficult, including the replacement of the 9 and 0 keys, to remove said excess verticiage? I have spent two days wondering why what should be straightforward has been a really big ball ache. Hopefully tomorrow it will be fixed and work.

"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Wombat

  • Is it supposed to hurt this much?
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #59 on: 19 March, 2014, 08:57:39 am »
Considering both Adobe and Autodesk are notorious for doing things their own way, rather than the commonly accepted way, I feel your pain...  Illustrator to AutoCAD, that'll be a whole bundle of fun.  I'm currently struggling with MS Publisher, 'cos that is the corporate Windows standard for the hobby organisation I was doing stuff for.  The magazine folk use Adobe InDesign, of course on Macs.  I last used Publisher about 10 years ago, it seems a bit different now!
Wombat

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #60 on: 20 March, 2014, 09:22:21 am »
I survived. it worked. Yippee!
Apparently life scientists think differently to the mechanical engineers. It was the first time the tech had seen anyone use different layers to determine a cut order on their laser cutter. Shame it slowly loses calibration as it runs.. But it runs and that is the main thing.

"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

David Martin

  • Thats Dr Oi You thankyouverymuch
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #61 on: 20 March, 2014, 09:25:42 am »
How hard can it be to solder a few bits together? And then discover of all things a duff resistor which failed after installation so causing grief.

But the most annoying was the magic smoke escaping from an arduino pro mini mounted on header pins to the board. Oh joy - trying to desolder that lot was an exercise in futility.  And start over, with stripboad deciding to lose grip on the strips. But I now have a PSU unit that works (albeit with no smoothing caps because they seem to keep giving me grief) and a new board on flying leads. More tomorrow when I can summon up the courage to wield the soldering iron near that dogs dinner of leads again.
"By creating we think. By living we learn" - Patrick Geddes

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #62 on: 20 March, 2014, 09:48:00 am »
Damn you Microsoft. My home computer uses Windows XP in a months time there will be no more security updates and I will need to buy a more modern OS [Seven not eight].

Alternatively, stop visiting those sites and clicking on those special offers.

Security updates, while clearly significant, are of limited value on their own and in a domestic as opposed to corporate environment not especially significant. More annoying will be the gradual degradation of functionality as software updates increasingly expect a modern o/s.

Biggsy

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #63 on: 21 March, 2014, 07:33:26 pm »
What the frack have they done with Firefox?  >:(  Removed the add-on bar and Firefox button and pissed it up.   >:(  If I want Chrome I would use Chrome.  ::-)  Making it look like Chrome won't get back users who switched to Chrome.  Arseholes.  >:(

I'll roll back to an earlier version.
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TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #64 on: 21 March, 2014, 07:58:10 pm »
What the frack have they done with Firefox?  >:(  Removed the add-on bar and Firefox button and pissed it up.   >:(  If I want Chrome I would use Chrome.  ::-)  Making it look like Chrome won't get back users who switched to Chrome.  Arseholes.  >:(

I'll roll back to an earlier version.
Umm. I'm still sticking with v17 after your rant about v18 (or it may have been v19) last year.   Security fixes? I don't need no steenkin' security fixes.  :)

It's getting a bit like M$ Word isn't it? The, "The last _good_ version was n.n* after that they just fucked it up." syndrome.

*As suits product being criticised.
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Biggsy

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #65 on: 21 March, 2014, 08:10:27 pm »
My previous rant was about an appearance change, too, but that turned out to be trivially easy to rectify.  v29 is a major buggeration of everything - no chance of making it look how I want at all.

I do like security fixes - which I suppose I won't get any more if I stick to v28.  :(
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Biggsy

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #66 on: 25 March, 2014, 06:07:20 pm »
There is hope!  Pale Moon is a pre-v29-Firefox lookalike that can import your Firefox profile, complete with customisations and add-ons.  Only a few (unimportant) extensions I've got aren't compatible.  It's supposed to be faster as well, but for me the purpose would be to keep the old look but have security updates.

"Contrary to what Mozilla has done with their redesign of the user interface, Pale Moon will continue to provide a familiar set of controls and visual feedback similar to previous versions"
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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #67 on: 25 March, 2014, 07:48:06 pm »
There is a new cafe nearby on a chilli farm. The staff are great, the food is ok, prices are reasonable and it is bike friendly, but they will insist on using digital pads for the ordering of tea, coffee and food and then again at check out. This slows the whole process down to a painfully slow level. Pen and paper and a few spikes would speed things up tremendously.
Get a bicycle. You will never regret it, if you live- Mark Twain

Kim

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #68 on: 25 March, 2014, 08:21:25 pm »
There is a new cafe nearby on a chilli farm. The staff are great, the food is ok, prices are reasonable and it is bike friendly, but they will insist on using digital pads for the ordering of tea, coffee and food and then again at check out. This slows the whole process down to a painfully slow level. Pen and paper and a few spikes would speed things up tremendously.

I first encountered that in some pub or other.  I can see why it seems like a good idea (effectively moving the till to your table for ordering), but the implementation was similarly dubious.  Too much menu-navigation to find related items, and the staff didn't seem to know their way around it.  Weatherspoons seem to manage it with their tills, so there's no reason why it has to be slow.

I expect there are real advantages of an electronic system over paper and spikes when it comes to adding everything up at the end of the day, but the customer never sees that.

TheLurker

  • Goes well with magnolia.
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #69 on: 25 March, 2014, 08:30:13 pm »
There is a new cafe nearby on a chilli farm. The staff are great, the food is ok, prices are reasonable and it is bike friendly, but they will insist on using digital pads for the ordering of tea, coffee and food and then again at check out. This slows the whole process down to a painfully slow level. Pen and paper and a few spikes would speed things up tremendously.

I first encountered that in some pub or other.  I can see why it seems like a good idea (effectively moving the till to your table for ordering), but the implementation was similarly dubious.  Too much menu-navigation to find related items, and the staff didn't seem to know their way around it.  Weatherspoons seem to manage it with their tills, so there's no reason why it has to be slow.

I expect there are real advantages of an electronic system over paper and spikes when it comes to adding everything up at the end of the day, but the customer never sees that.
Lo, LEO is reborn.  :)
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CommuteTooFar

  • Inadequate Randonneur
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #70 on: 26 March, 2014, 01:03:30 pm »
Sigh I have just spent three weeks worrying that my encryption/decryption device driver was stopping Pro Tools reading audio. All kinds of creative debugging and tracing. This morning I tried it without my driver installed. Same result, not my fault at all.

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #71 on: 26 March, 2014, 01:23:23 pm »
...a few spikes would speed things up tremendously.

I've seen service like that  :demon:

Biggsy

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Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #72 on: 28 March, 2014, 03:09:37 pm »
Some relief for Firefox 29:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/ goes some way to get back the old look after you've updated to v29.  You'll still need to manually shuffle things around as well, especially if you had any icons on the Status Bar.  Not sure I can be bothered when Pale Moon has done a better job (to begin with at least).

v29 is just a beta at the moment, but you'll be getting the full version soon if you haven't turned off auto updating.  I've tested it early so you don't have to. :)  Actually, to be fair, you might not mind it if you haven't heavily customised your browser.  Someone must even like it.
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PaulF

  • "World's Scariest Barman"
  • It's only impossible if you stop to think about it
Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #73 on: 28 March, 2014, 04:05:39 pm »
Windows 8.

That is all

Afasoas

Re: The computing stuff rant thread
« Reply #74 on: 29 March, 2014, 02:22:37 pm »
This.



And this.




Not to mention frequent instances when the display resets itself.
I'm running fairly vanilla Win8 PRo x64 with NVidia GTX 660 graphics on the latest drivers (v335.23). Latest version of Photoshop CC.

The crash seems to occur as a result of the clean install of new drivers, and last night was happening fairly consistently when I cropped/straighted/ran an action which duplicated a layer and added a curves layer for outlining. I installed the drivers whilst trying to fix the problem with quick masking at anything over 50% zoom.

I can fix the quick mask problem by switching to normal graphics over advanced graphics, but this slows things down. Not desirable.

I may just start saving for a new Graphics card but it couldn't come at a worse time.