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Thoroughly disguisted by the clutter on my desktop, I decided to delete all of it. I selected everything, deselected a few things I wanted to keep, and hit command-delete (the keyboard shortcut for Move to Trash).

Yes, WxFPP_EN is indeed my Windows XP CD, left over from a failed/aborted attempt at installing Boot Camp. And Mac OS X really is asking me if I want to delete it immediately. Clicking Delete caused this error to appear:

Error -61 looks familiar, so I looked it up: wrPermErr. Yes, that’s right: the Leopard Finder is actually trying to delete files off the CD.

Okay. Bad enough. But at least it didn’t crash, right? I click OK:

After all of that my desktop is still a cluttered mess.

Apple, if Finder stability is one of your goals ur doing it wrong. Hitting command-delete on a volume shouldn’t actually try to delete the files form it. This is laughably bad.

Audio MIDI Setup is a pretty moldy corner, really. Click to see it in motion:

Even the question and button names at the end are worded in a way that conflicts with generally accepted Mac standards.

About a year ago, I filled out a customer comment card for Red Robin. It gets me some email newsletters, but few enough that it doesn’t really bother me. I saw no real increase in spam, so I don’t think they sold my email adress to anyone.

The card did ask for an address, which I filled out dutifully. And, of course, this was a Canadian restaraunt. I’m a Canadian citizen. My adress is a Canadian address.

So, naturally, Red Robin is now sending me information on a contest available to US citizens only.

Congratulations, Red Robin. That’s how easy it is to lose someone’s good will. Nothing but nothing says you simply couldn’t care less about not abusing your email list than sending out an email like that.

A lovely quote from the Visual Studio 2005 documentation (found through searching index for /W4):

Level 4 displays all level 3 warnings plus informational warnings, which in most cases can be safely ignored. This option should be used only to provide “lint” level warnings and is not recommended as your usual warning level setting.

Not recommended is actually pretty strong, but I can see why Microsoft might say that. But the very next line goes on:

For a new project, it may be best to use /W4 in all compilations. This will ensure the fewest possible hard-to-find code defects.

So it’s recommended, then? Or would recommended be too strong a word?

It seems likely to me that these paragraphs were written by different writers, and whoever made the second change didn’t read the first writer’s work.

I decided to take Microsoft up on their offer of a free toaster. A few screens in to the installer, I see this:

Cool! So I get to click some of these options, right? I click Use recommended settings:

That’s odd, I muse. That option must be incompatible with the others for some reason. So I turn it off and try the next option, Install definition updates only¹.

At this point, I turn off the option and try the third option, Ask me later. I know what’s going to happen, I just can’t quite believe it. Nobody’s this stupid, right? Wrong.

And there you have it. When Microsoft first chipped the Windows logo in to cave walls, they must have chipped a check box under it.

I feel almost guilty pointing out Microsoft’s stupidities. It’s a bit like kicking a puppy. A puppy that when you stop kicking it will pee on your carpet, round the corners of your furniture with its teeth, bite your friends and dry hump your leg, but still a puppy.

1. Who writes these option names, anyway? Terribly complicated! [↩]

Microsoft offers a variety of exciting offers through “Windows Genuine Advantage Offers.”

I’m leaning towards the toaster.

Best quote yet on Leopard’s translucent menu bar:

If anyone happens to meet the UI designer who thought a transparent menu bar was a good idea, please slap them once for every Leopard user (two million slaps and counting…)

To be fair, some of those two million users probably have hardware that doesn’t support the translucent menu bar. Their menu bar is just a really ugly muddy grey.

Come to think of it, slap him for those users too.

Subtitle: The Ugliest Thing You Have Ever Seen in the Mac GUI

I think I can get off my horse now. This says everything I want to on the subject, only much more elegantly. And with, like, pictures and stuff.

The new iPhone Dev Center forces a challenge response system. This is a problem at the best of times, but it’s especially bad when the available questions are so lame.

What is the name of your hometown?
Google will give you this.

What did you study in college?
Google will give you this. Or you could just guess. It isn’t really a mystery.¹

What was your first job?
Google will give you this.

Favorite pet’s name?
You can’t find this on Google, but you could ask any of my friends.

Name of oldest sibling?
Google will give you this.

I’d rather lose access to an account forever than have someone else get into it. This kind of system needs to remain optional. So whatever’s in the iPhone Dev Center? I won’t see it. The only impact on me that the reorganization had was locking me out.

1. Hint: A lot of other software developers probably studied the same thing. [↩]

This is like when the carpet cleaners call you to do a survey and ask how often your carpet is cleaned, and would you like to have it cleaned next Tuesday?

Because we all know having 20 women a month is what life is all about.