tewha.net

Hey, Facebook, can we talk?

I’ve tried to talk to you about this before, but I haven’t really gotten anywhere. You just didn’t understand the problem. It’s not you, it’s me, but…

No, wait. I promised to be truthful here. Look, it is you, alright? And I’ve been patient, but it’s time for you to change.

The problem

Take for granted that I appreciate that you need to make money. I’m sure it’s really difficult, you being… well… Facebook and all. Wait, I think I’m being sarcastic here. That isn’t helping, is it? Okay, well, let’s just say I do appreciate that you need to make money.

But I hope you also appreciate that I have a duty to guard what comes in front of my eyes, and into my house.

Look, if you’re going to show advertising, someone needs to be responsible for deciding if it is appropriate or not. I’d like for it to be you, but if you’re not going to do it, I’d like to have the tools to do it. Specifically, I want a way to banish a specific flyer from my account, and from the accounts of those in my family.

Examples

Let’s look at a specific example:

This isn’t up to my standards. I don’t want to see it, and I don’t want my family to see it. I mean, I’m glad someone’s giving you money, but this is not only a scam, but it’s also an assault on my eyes.

Oh, but it’s just one flyer, right? Well, no. Let’s look at another:

I mean, I know when I am looking for a t-shirt, the very first thing I do is try to imagine what it would look like wet, plastered against a nice rack…

Oh, wait. I’ve slipped into sarcasm again, sorry.

Conclusion

Look, one of us has to change. And it isn’t going to be me. It just isn’t. I’ve got a family to think of, and I don’t want to explain the presence of images like this on the screen to my wife. I don’t want to explain to my boy why his daddy’s looking at that in a few years, either.

For now, I’ve found a CSS hack that disables all your advertisements. Sorry; I didn’t want to do that, but you didn’t give me much choice. When that hack breaks, we’ll see if you’ve improved, or if it’s time for me to move on.

I don’t hide in the bushes leafing through porn I found in someone’s trash can. I don’t oggle the lingerie section on the Sears catalog. I’ve grown up. Please join me.

One thing I’ve been meaning to try for a while is web development.

Inspired by a coworker lending me Getting Real by 37signals, I’ve had another look at some of the applications I’d previously considered too big. The reason I considered them too big was not because they are really that big, but because everyone considers a “sellable product” in this category big. Is it, really? Have I been accepting as truth an invalid assumption?

I think a web application with fewer features (but a better design) would not only be useful, but might even be better. Starting with few features and growing the site more organically really appeals to me.

After enumerating the major components of the application, I set down to drawing some screens. I tried doing this on index cards at first, but I found using HTML helped me visualize it more. So I tried just mocking up HTML files, soon discovered that a little PHP (not much, just a sprinkle) made it easier to build the screens and keep them consistent with each other.

I’m having fun. This should keep me busy on weekends for a while.

Thinking of getting a cat? Think again.

There are basically two types of cat owners in the world:

1. Those that keep their cat indoors.
2. Those that think that’s cruel to little Muffles, and export their problems to their neighbours by letting their cat out at night.

If you fall into the second group, please think again. Your neighbours don’t appreciate their kids’ sandboxes being pooped in, or their car’s paint being scraped through every night. We’d really rather you got rid of the cat. Because you’ve become something horrible: yet another irresponsible cat owner.

“Oh, but my Muffles wouldn’t sleep on someone else’s car! She only sleeps on mine because it’s close!”

I can see tracks between your door and my car. I have caught your cat in my garden, on my steps, and deflowering my tulips. You admit your cat sleeps on your car, and I’ve seen her on mine, but you expect me to believe that your cat has some concept of personal property that keeps her off my car?

Get real.

Take care of your own problems, and stop making them mine. You may love Muffles, but if Muffles keeps wrecking my house, yard and car, I hate your cat with a passion.

Or, as Jack might say, I am using the word hate to describe your cat. Hate. Can I be honest here? I don’t like channeling Jack.

How can you tell if your cat is wrecking other people’s houses, yards and cars? It’s a really simple test: Do you let it out at night? What do you think it is doing, reading Shakespeare in a book club? If it isn’t destroying your stuff (and maybe even if it is), it’s destroying your neighbour’s stuff.

Joel on Software on Vista: “I’ve been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system — it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes. Whenever anyone asks, my advice is to stay with Windows XP (and to purchase new systems with XP preinstalled).”

A couple random thoughts, which could never really be expanded into articles, but I just had to say:

• “Congratulations to Diane, who helped a customer save ten dollars in the baby department. To find out how you can save ten dollars, ask one of our retail associates!” I hate you, Sears!
• Walmart (Abbotsford, Sumas exit) has a Christmas aisle.

Point of sale Reviews , price and ratings on over a hundred point of sale systems. http://pos-wizard.com/point-of-sale-software-reviews/

According to this story, instant noodles aren’t cheap enough. Maybe they could fix the flavor instead of the price?

Andy Brice takes on five star ratings for downloads. He’s won 16 awards so far and had his software posted on 218 sites. The catch? It’s just a renamed text file.

I have always, always hated applications that give a “Tip of the Day.” The reason is simple: It’s either telling you about something obvious, or something that you don’t need. The odds of it telling you something you actually need to know on a particular day are astronomically against. So tips of the day usually don’t push my button.

This one, on the other hand, did:

Let that sink in for a moment. In KDevelop, an IDE, you can debug. I know, it’s earth shattering. Further, you do it by choosing commands from the Debug menu.

I hope I haven’t lost you…

This is the stupidest tip of the day dialog I have ever seen.

I hate Windows XP’s appearances. They offer two basic appearances: Windows 2000-like, in any color you want (with many stupid restrictions in how shading is done), or Windows XP-like, in blue, silver or bile.

Today I noticed for the first time an option in XP for downloading themes online. I pretty much know what to expect of this, but click it anyway.

And, actually, Microsoft failed to meet even my modest expectations as my browser displays a 404 error. Oh, sure, it’s a complicated one that disguises its true identity (Microsoft’s gone to great lengths on that front), but it still isn’t what I asked for.

Anyway, a few clicks later and I’m looking at a list of XP themes.

I can only imagine at some point, something like this came up: “Windows looks awesome by default, and is so highly configurable! We should find a few ways to, you know, really show it off!”

I’m trying not to use foul language on this blog, so you’ll have to imagine a storm of profanity here. Instead, I’ll leave you with this thought: this is the best they could come up with. No, seriously, a multi-billion dollar company, and this is the best they could come up with for their then-flagship product.

You all suck! You need to be deported to a country without electricity.

Let’s face it, deploying an application on Windows is never fun. We’ve been using WiX, which is about as unfun as one can possibly get. I actually think the exact number is slightly higher than this, but I’ve gotten used to saying “1,200 lines of XML to install 7 files.” Not a big deal, until you have several components needing separate installers.

(As a coworker points out, adding XML to a problem means you have two problems: The original problem, plus XML.)

Visual Studio 2005 has a much better installer system built into it, though, called Windows Setup.

The first few times I tried it, I quickly moved on because it popped up a installer dialog. It turns out I just needed more patience: After several minutes of waiting, it asked for the Visual Studio CD and installed the components it needed. And that was that. The installer popping up to build an installer wasn’t a daily stupidity, just a one-time thing.

The tool is a joy to use, using Visual Studio editors and the property inspectors. Better, it deals with dependencies in a way that only someone with direct access to the idiot that designed the system could manage. I still don’t fully understand what the installer is doing, but I find that I don’t really care: It works, and works well. I can’t imagine going back to WiX at this point.