The computing stuff rant thread

[Aidan]

So now I am left with a choice of buying a new laptop which is either Windows 8 ( which I hate with a passion) or going Apple and paying over the odds for a shiny that will need extra software to run my favourite programs Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhhh

No, ypu can buy "professional" laptops (certainly from Dell) with Windows 7 Pro on them as standard, or with a "downgrade" licence from 8 to 7.

FWIW we use Dell at work - a large multinational - and have relatively few hardware problems.  The E6440 i7 with SSD I have is fast and quiet.

Nope, no chance I'll ever buy another Dell. If it wasn't for their fuckwit "you've got to use a genuine charger" thingy I wouldn't need a new laptop in the first place! .  A google says this is a common occurrence.

[rafletcher]

So now I am left with a choice of buying a new laptop which is either Windows 8 ( which I hate with a passion) or going Apple and paying over the odds for a shiny that will need extra software to run my favourite programs Aaaarrrrggggghhhhhhh

No, ypu can buy "professional" laptops (certainly from Dell) with Windows 7 Pro on them as standard, or with a "downgrade" licence from 8 to 7.

FWIW we use Dell at work - a large multinational - and have relatively few hardware problems.  The E6440 i7 with SSD I have is fast and quiet.

Nope, no chance I'll ever buy another Dell. If it wasn't for their fuckwit "you've got to use a genuine charger" thingy I wouldn't need a new laptop in the first place! .  A google says this is a common occurrence.

Common for people writing on t'internet - a self selecting sample. My Dell at home has the same charger (though on it's second battery) after 8 years. At work there isn't a prevalence of failed chargers either. YMMV of course.

[ian]

Indeed, there's no group for people whose Dell chargers haven't failed...

I've been using mothership Dells since the Jurassic, never had a charger fail, nor anyone I've worked with.

One of my Dell's self-immolated though (battery fire). Which was fun.

I have an E6430. Not bad, but not nearly as nice as my Macbook.

[TimC]

I have five Dell laptops in my house - an old Studio XPS of my own, and four Inspiron laptops for the kids. Two of them have had chargers fail - bit of a pisser, and way above the proportion that should be expected. However, both were replaced with £10 Chinese chargers from Amazon, and both work fine.

[Biff]

[Mr Larrington]

The person who designed the trackpad on this 'ere Babbage-Engine (Asus X102BA) wants polishing with a cheesegrater before being pickled in brine   The whole pad can be used for both the clicky function and moving the cursor, and there's nothing to show where right-click ends and left-click begins.  OK, there's a line on the bit which would have been clicky-only on the old one but it cannot be felt with the naked fingertip.  So if you breathe while trying to do any kind of accurate clicky-Stuffs the cursor is not where you expect it to be when you look at the screen again chiz.

Plus the cursor appears to be affected by gravity

[Gattopardo]

Oh the laptop needs a thin hard drive and that my 160 isn't....arrggghhhhh

so cheap as possible 2.5 thin hard drives.

[Mr Larrington]

Webshites operators!  If I decide that I prefer the desktop version of your shite over the mobile one, then that's my choice.  It's none of your fucking business how I view your shite, whether I'm using an iPad, a lapdancer, a Cray II or fucking carrier pigeons.  So when I carefully edit the url in the browser wossname bar to remove the bit telling the shite that I don't want the mobile version, don't fucking put the bastard thing straight back again.  It cannot be difficult to use biscuits or something to store my preferences and have them take precedence over yours, you Big Brothery ratfucks

If I want that level of nannying I'll go to the Mega-Global Walled Garden Corporation of Menlo Park, USAnia, not Wikipedia oops what a giveaway.

[Afasoas]

Hai Microsh4ft.

Thanks again for bestowing your latest cacophony of updates upon me .. I'm honoured that you'd think such a wretched soul is worthy.

But do you think, pretty please, that you could refrain from once again overwriting my boot partition?

Ta Very Mooch.

[tiermat]

ASP.Net

You are shit, that is all.

[Pickled Onion]

Does anyone still use that?

[TheLurker]

Oh god yes;  Not only the .Net variant.  I still see ads. and get slave trader spam for _classic_ (classic? hah!) ASP jobs.  It may not be much fun to work with, but ASP.Net is soooo much better than its predecessor.  If you want vile, try WPF.  Trying to chase down exceptions that appear to bubble out of nowhere because of buried (and untraceable) property change notification events; that and trying to fathom some of the "clever, clever" XAML* bindings that people create. _Shudder_


*Write once read never.  Ick.

[Feanor]

<oldfart_mode=on>
Does no-one code to the native win32 api according to Petzold anymore?

[Mr Larrington]

If you can't do it in FORTRAN it's probably not worth doing it at all

[tiermat]

Unfortunately I have had it dumped upon me.

Despite being taken on as a Linux/Java server support person, the majority of my time is spent either fixing bugs in the aforementioned pile of shit, or designing forms is Adobe LifeCycle.

Additional rant. Windows update for Win7. We don't use media centre, we have no intention of using, or any interest inusing it. So why the merry hell do the latest batch of updates 1) force an update of said media centre and 2) that update stops media centre from starting properly, which prevents the wireless connection from getting an internet connection(sounds implausible, but disabling the service fixes the issue!).  Useless bunch of wankers.

[TheLurker]

Additional rant. Windows update for Win7. We don't use media centre, we have no intention of using, or any interest inusing it. So why the merry hell do the latest batch of updates 1) force an update of said media centre and 2) that update stops media centre from starting properly, which prevents the wireless connection from getting an internet connection(sounds implausible, but disabling the service fixes the issue!).  Useless bunch of wankers.

M$ have had some serious issues with patch quality over the last year to two years.  I don't think there have been six months together over that period when they haven't had to pull a cripplingly bad patch for one or other or their OSs.  You won't be surprised to hear that I wait at least a week (often longer) before applying patches after a Patch Tuesday; having kept a close eye on The Register in the interim in case there's a bad one in the batch.

[tiermat]

Additional rant. Windows update for Win7. We don't use media centre, we have no intention of using, or any interest inusing it. So why the merry hell do the latest batch of updates 1) force an update of said media centre and 2) that update stops media centre from starting properly, which prevents the wireless connection from getting an internet connection(sounds implausible, but disabling the service fixes the issue!).  Useless bunch of wankers.

M$ have had some serious issues with patch quality over the last year to two years.  I don't think there have been six months together over that period when they haven't had to pull a cripplingly bad patch for one or other or their OSs.  You won't be surprised to hear that I wait at least a week (often longer) before applying patches after a Patch Tuesday; having kept a close eye on The Register in the interim in case there's a bad one in the batch.

Not like one of our customers, then, who have their public facing web server set to automatic download AND install for patches...

[Afasoas]

If you're organisation is using WSUS to collate/distribute Windows Updates, I think you can disable updates for Windows 7 Meeja Centre.
I have a feint recollection of doing exactly that in the last couple of weeks.

[TheLurker]

Additional rant. Windows update for Win7. We don't use media centre, we have no intention of using, or any interest inusing it. So why the merry hell do the latest batch of updates 1) force an update of said media centre and 2) that update stops media centre from starting properly, which prevents the wireless connection from getting an internet connection(sounds implausible, but disabling the service fixes the issue!).  Useless bunch of wankers.

M$ have had some serious issues with patch quality over the last year to two years.  I don't think there have been six months together over that period when they haven't had to pull a cripplingly bad patch for one or other or their OSs.  You won't be surprised to hear that I wait at least a week (often longer) before applying patches after a Patch Tuesday; having kept a close eye on The Register in the interim in case there's a bad one in the batch.

And they've done it (yet) again.  If you can be arsed; google KB 2918614.  Does unhelpful and weird things to some Win7 and Win8 installations.

ETA.
TFS API.  What a badly documented appalling unintuitive mess.   Sorry; too late in the day so not enough energy to rant _properly_.  Please assume that your correspondent is both beetroot complexioned and incoherent with rage and likewise foaming at the mouth.

[Mr Larrington]

Dear Mega-Global Fruit Corporation Of Cupertino, USAnia,

Please do not pollute my iTunes library with that sanctimonious twat Bonio without so much as a by your leave.

kthxbai

Disgruntled of E17

[Dibdib]

Dear Mega-Global Fruit Corporation Of Cupertino, USAnia,

Please do not pollute my iTunes library with that sanctimonious twat Bonio without so much as a by your leave.

kthxbai

Disgruntled of E17

Don't upgrade your fruitpad to iOS8 then. I just opened the Maps app and all the streets have no names.

(Mine's the black Craghoppers softshell, ta)

[Vince]

To the git who decided to remove the mouse from my desk last night. Thanks you wasted about an hour of my time this morning, include the following conversation with the hell desk.

Me: Can you tell me how to get e replacement mouse?
HD: You have a mail problem?
Me: No, I need a new mouse
HD: a problem with outlook?
Me: No, my mouse has gone missing
HD: please hold
HD: You have an email problem?
Me: No. I have no mouse, pointing device, hardware for switching between windows.
HD: I'm not getting you
I hung up in frustration amid laughter from co-workers

[David Martin]

Was it funnier in Dutch?

[Vince]

The Dutch word for mouse is muis and is pronounced the same as English. But regardless, it is an English speaking hell desk

[barakta]

Software for dyslexics. Can you SAY IN WORDS that you work on a fucking freemium model where you get A and B for free but if you want to try C and D you have to buy one of the pay-for versions... And compare the free, cheapass and expensive versions properly??

No. You have a "download here to try A or B or C or D or E" and it all looks free cos you've hidden the pricing underneath your blingorama website of shite!  NOT helpful!  I don't know if C and D features are helpful unless I pay for them and I won't be able to pay for them so we probably won't be able to recommend it for a student. So you can't find out C and D aren't free until you download and it refuses to work.

Oh and asking for upper, lower case, numbers AND fucking punctuation in the password is extremely annoying as the error for creating account doesn't actually say this, it just flashes "nope" at you and it's only when you hover over the password text entry field it deigns to outline its demands (not made clear it's not just a suggestion). And NO I'm not logging in with fucking farcebook!

And everything is online subscribe by month model these days which makes running a tech loan pool for students REALLY hard fucking work.