tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:07:21 +0000So much crappy software in the world...http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)Blogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-6359258217962010010Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:45:00 +00002008-08-24T09:50:51.104-05:00Recently the following message appeared in Firefox: What's new in your [Google] Toolbar Search smarter with instant suggestions as you type Bookmark frequently visited pages and access them from anywhere Add buttons to the Toolbar to search your favorite sites — view available buttons Share web pages via blog, email, or SMSActually, the latter was not so "new." In fact, the main reason I http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/08/google-toolbar-small-irritaing-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-601659912250110058Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:04:00 +00002008-06-25T08:49:11.532-05:00LinuxSo, the other day, we were having some network trouble and our servers were unreachable off-site for about 5 or 6 hours, so I decided this might be a good opportunity to run a file integrity check on the hard disk drives in one of the linux servers that had a lot of data on it. In windows systems, you can run "scan disk" and it will defragment your hard drive and there are also built in tools http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/06/be-wary-of-file-integrity-checkers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (clayster)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-7263454055073373892Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:07:00 +00002008-06-01T20:19:30.182-05:00Time CapsuleDHCPAppleI just bought an Apple Time Capsule this week (and, boy, did Apple ship it fast! Received it three days after I ordered it!). I bought it mostly for its ability to automate back-ups to its own hard drive, but also thought it was cool that it is a router containing the next gen of wifi ("N"). I ran into a confusing bit as I tried to set up its DHCP, however, and thought I'd include the solution http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/06/not.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-3194727648729460894Sat, 31 May 2008 10:45:00 +00002008-05-31T05:58:38.645-05:00Every once in awhile, we here at the Institute for the Elimination of Crappy Software (IftEoCS) come across non-crappy software upon which we feel the need to remark. The Mozilla Firefox browser is one such piece of non-crappy software. The staff of the IftEoCS has been using browsers since NCSA Mosaic came out in 1993. Hell, we've been using them since they were all text. We've been using them http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/05/non-crappy-browser.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8184325730969802712Wed, 28 May 2008 20:03:00 +00002008-07-26T18:33:52.443-05:00DNSYahooDon't you hate it when a company you like, whose services you've recommended to friends, suddenly turns on you? And don't you hate it when they do it with a smile on their lips as if they're doing you a favor? I had been a fan of Yahoo (sorry, I refuse to add an exclamation point to it) Small Business' domain service for years. In fact, I have eight domains listed there and I've recommended it tohttp://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/05/yahoo-domain-service-turns-to-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-2748394778783029773Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:00:00 +00002008-04-04T09:55:20.377-05:00When is an "update" not an update? When Apple tries to install its crappy Safari browser under the guise of it just being an update of previously installed software. First of all, I do not have Safari installed on my Windows machines. And, on my Mac machines, I use it as little as possible. Lately, however, Apple Software Update keeps firing off on my Windows machines with an annoying window: http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/04/crappy-sneaky-apple-safari-update.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-2922551196761336123Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:03:00 +00002008-02-18T09:20:14.432-06:00I'm getting used to the Mac OS X interface on my new computer. I swear I am. But there is one thing that Windows handles much better than Mac and that is window (small "w") management -- that is, how windows are displayed on screen. My main beef is with the Mac method of "maximizing" the window in which you're currently working. On Windows XP, if you click the maximize button, the window fills http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/02/crappy-window-management-on-mac.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-6081253946199671121Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:14:00 +00002008-01-12T06:40:13.671-06:00In the past, I've had good luck with DirecTV's customer service, but a bizarre series of billing errors has made me change my mind and I must now characterize its customer service as crap. Due to these billing errors, almost $800 of incorrect fees were added to my account. Yes, you read correctly: $800! The short version of this story: My HD DVR unit was defective. Let me rephrase that: My http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2008/01/directvs-customer-service-just-as.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-7414005189076935073Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:37:00 +00002007-12-10T09:42:29.537-06:00More crappy customer "service", this time from Comcast. This time it was my fault, to start with. I accidentally missed a payment one month. And I've been trying to make up for it, but Comcast is not making it easy. There's been some confusion because their "final notice" crossed my check in the mail. I called during the weekend, but couldn't get through to human. So I called first thing Mondayhttp://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/12/more-crappy-customer-service.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-1246470931286175705Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:03:00 +00002007-12-08T20:24:30.869-06:00...Service. (I could have included "Service" in the title, but I couldn't resist all the "C's" in "Circuit City's Crappy Customer.") Circuit City frequently annoys me. Usually, it's just some little crappy thing that builds on another little crappy thing that builds on another... You get the idea. Before you know it, you're drowning in Circuit City's crap. One frequent problem I've had there http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/12/circuit-citys-crappy-customer.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-1986395980789656913Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:04:00 +00002007-10-30T20:26:19.641-05:00For quite some time, I've been a fan of Adobe Premiere Elements (APE). It's the best low-cost solution for editing video on Windows and it's just as good as iMovie. Even does some stuff that iMovie cannot do. Since APE is relatively inexpensive -- compared to the full, professional version of Premiere -- I've happily upgraded it each time a new version came out. So, when version 4 appeared http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/10/uh-oh-premiere-elements-may-have-turned.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8363442239717955676Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:20:00 +00002007-08-30T09:49:48.937-05:00AdobeFireworksDreamweaverMacromedia... er... Adobe Dreamweaver is one program I use almost every single day. Aside from Firefox, it is my most-used application. I love it. Except when it acts crappy. In the many years I've used Dreamweaver, there have been some encounters with craposity. Usually, this occurs when I've upgrade to a new version -- which I do with religious fervor. Most recently, I upgraded to versionhttp://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/08/i-love-dreamweaver-except-when-it-acts.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-7839310883474758888Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:59:00 +00002007-10-30T20:37:10.867-05:00We recently had a Rinnai water heater installed at our home--at a cost of $2,600 (considerably more than a conventional water heater). It's a tankless heater, which means that instead of constantly keeping a tank of hot water at the ready, it virtually instantaneously heats water when a request for hot water is made. The principle is a great one and Marysia is quite familiar with their use in http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/08/are-tankless-water-heaters-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-7534042400118832785Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:06:00 +00002007-08-08T10:25:12.773-05:00A couple of weeks ago, I reluctantly acquired an iPhone. My wife and I were forced into a new phone purchase by AT&T (ah yes, the return of a monopoly!), which discontinued the TDMA service and killed off our old phone. We were perfectly happy with it and with the super-low $30 plan we were on, but AT&T (the former Cingular) required us to both buy a new phone and, if we were to stay with them,http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/08/crappy-aspects-of-iphone.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-1575389891974175941Tue, 24 Jul 2007 13:38:00 +00002007-07-24T09:21:37.552-05:00virusYesterday I encountered software that goes well beyond "crappy" to the truly shitty level. It's a trojan-style virus named Virtumonde. I'm still not 100% sure how it weaseled into my system -- especially considering I keep this WinXP box patched and updated and run an anti-virus program (Avast) and WinPatrol (which checks for system modifications). Nonetheless, yesterday while I was browsing http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/07/beyond-crappy-to-shitty.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-4124867291598439424Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:39:00 +00002007-07-14T08:52:39.329-05:00Every once in a very long while a company's customer service surprises you in a good, non-crappy way. Radio Flyer, the maker of "little red wagons" since 1917, recently proved this to me. We bought my son one of their Deluxe Steer & Stroll Trikes. These are pretty cool as they allow the parent to "co-pilot" the trike, steering it from behind. This feature has helped us steer Ian out of http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/07/radio-flyer-not-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-606899711578915309Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:01:00 +00002007-07-10T13:03:19.082-05:00There really ought to be an acronym for crap like this: Slashdot Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox: Posted by kdawson on Monday July 09, @07:11AM from the nice-while-it-lasted dept. BanjoBob writes 'MusicMatch Jukebox has been a bundle of great MP3 and music management applications in one package. Apparently, it is the end of life for this wonderful MP3 player, ripper, catalog, CD player, http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/07/proposal-iosybwgfyo-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-17069426593408477Wed, 04 Jul 2007 21:36:00 +00002007-08-10T09:34:36.529-05:00FireWireMAudioFirst, a disclaimer: I am not a professional musician or an audio engineer. But I have worked in radio for over 30 years. So, I think that it is not just my incompetence that has made my experience with the M-Audio FireWire 410 audio interface a hair-pulling-out nightmare. For those not familiar with the FireWire 410, I should explain that its function is to provide a hardware, FireWire-basedhttp://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/07/m-audio-firewire-410-confusing-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8608498050471887210Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:12:00 +00002007-06-23T20:18:51.250-05:00To them that say that Mac OS is one operating system -- unlike Windows -- that never crashes, I present Exhibit A below. I had put my MacBook to sleep and then tried to wake it again. It refused to wake up. After a hard re-start (pushing the off/on button for a few seconds), it did come back to life, but told me my Mac had panicked. So much for Mac OS X being crash proof. Anyone who tells http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/06/macs-dont-crash.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-396396554852650532Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:51:00 +00002007-06-15T16:12:22.941-05:00MacMacallyAppleBluetoothI've got this MacBook, right? And it's got Bluetooth built in, don't you know? But I don't got no Bluetooth devices. So, while I was out in Phoenix recently, I impulsively bought a Bluetooth mouse at Fry's: the Macally model BT53 BTmouse. What a piece of crap. First, it's frustrating as hell because it puts itself to sleep at a moment's notice and you have to remember to click a button to http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/06/crappy-bluetooth.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8698835503824181191Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:54:00 +00002007-04-26T07:45:39.666-05:00The blog, Walking Like Giant Cranes, has prompted folks to address the crappiness of Mozilla Firefox on the Mac. It asks: "What sucks about Firefox on the Mac?" ...and it gets plenty of answers. Personally, I've found Firefox to be pretty tolerable on the Mac--much better, at least, than Safari. Update: While looking at this issue I found out about Camino--a browser based on the same http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/04/what-sucks-about-firefox-on-mac.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-6553045621368253851Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:47:00 +00002007-06-21T10:14:41.363-05:00MacAppleSwitchI'm certainly not the first person to ask the question, "Are Macs crap?" Many, many, many articles have been written comparing Macs to other operating systems. And compare/contrast articles proliferate each time a new version of Windows comes out--as has happened recently with Windows Vista. So, I don't know that I've got anything unique to add to the debate. However, on 19 April 2007 I http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/04/are-macs-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8703040247952338170Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:45:00 +00002007-04-17T07:41:12.101-05:00We here at Crappy Software HQ know we aren't the only ones who recognize crap when we see it. PC World recently polled its readers for their choices of annoying tech products. Some things are annoying by their very nature. But when the annoyances stem from stuff you've paid for or products you rely on to get things done, that really takes the cake. Unlike PC World's "25 Worst Products of All http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/04/20-most-annoying-crappy-tech-products.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-8711670289898625969Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:58:00 +00002007-02-19T07:03:45.420-06:00DRMFair_UseDMCASteve_JobsOn legal grounds, the biggest threat to fair use in the U.S. is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). But on practical, logistic grounds, the biggest threat to fair use is digital rights management (DRM) run amok on music and video media. That's why many of us sat up and took notice when Steve Jobs (somewhat hypocritically) called for an examination of DRM and suggested the possibility ofhttp://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2007/02/battle-over-drm-macrovision-jobs-daring.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15762495.post-116212228914835965Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:42:00 +00002006-10-29T06:35:16.590-06:00Before installing FF 2 on my Windows XP box I'd heard of "improvements" in tab behavior that I suspected would annoy me (e.g., "close" buttons on individual tabs instead of just one; which at least can be un-improved through about:config). However, what I didn't expect is that there would be new bugs in the tab implementation that would affect how I read Slashdot's daily "headlines" email on http://crappysoftware.home.comcast.net/2006/10/firefox-20-slashdot-gmail-crap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Butler)