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[ Page 20 of 76 ]
From: A. Pagaltzis Date: 22:53 on 15 Mar 2007 Subject: Where "always" means "come hell or high water" Alternative title: How to turn what Works As Expected into an aggravation So we all know that Firefox brought tabbing to the masses, right? And users love it, or so we're told. Well, it's not a lie; for the most part, I don't hate it. Or at least until a few months ago, I found no reason to. Then came Firefox 2. You see, I like to enable the setting "Always show the tab bar", because I use both tabs and multiple windows a lot (a window is a thematic group of tabs), and I don't like the jumpiness caused by the tab bar appearing or disappearing. I like things to stay in place. And that works fine and dandy. Except that in Firefox 2, "Always show the tab bar" apparently means "even if you have to rescue the browser window from destruction to ensure that the tab bar can continue to shine in all its glory." That is, the Ctrl-W shortcut now has the same demented behaviour that the close-tab button always had: when there's only one tab left, Ctrl-W closes the tab AND THEN OPENS A NEW ONE WITH THE HOMEPAGE!! RAAAAHHH! DIE!! Die, dammit, and get outta my face! Really, it's very hard to excite me past my usual "grumpy crank" level of annoyance, but the past couple of months, even though I only used Firefox 2 lightly (my main machine is still at 1.5.x), the frustration caused by this deranged behaviour has driven me batty. You might say it could be justified on the grounds that it aligns the behaviour of Ctrl-W with the close-tab button. And I agree that making similar gestures behave similarly is a good UI principle, who DOESN'T want closing the last tab to go away?? Who ever preferred the close-tab button's behaviour? If there really is such a clientele, this NEEDS to be configurable. Yes I know preferences are costly. I don't advocate their willy- nilly addition either. But turning off the "Always show the tab bar" setting CAUSES CTRL-W TO ALSO CLOSE THE WINDOW WHEN YOU CLOSE THE LAST TAB. !!@)@*#&&!^!&!&!!!!!!! What dimwit ever thought that conflating these options in a single preference in this manner was a sane thing to do!? It took me AGES to realise why the damn Ctrl-W shortcut no longer worked as I expected it to. Googling for close to two hours or so in total turned up no solution, but did turn up the hint that A COMPLETELY UNRELATED-SEEMING OPTION controlled this behaviour. So I finally caved and turned off the "Always show the tab bar" option in order to regain my sanity, even though now I have to live with jumpy window content that keeps jarring me out. Good grief, Mozilla people. Way to completely arbitrarily make a nuisance out of something dead simple AFTER YOU HAD ALREADY GOTTEN IT RIGHT. Thanks a whole steaming heap,
From: Michael Leuchtenburg Date: 08:18 on 14 Mar 2007 Subject: Firefox 2.0's printing So here I am, trying to print out a couple of chapters from a book on a website. The website uses a default font of around, oh, 10pt. Firefox is happy to override this for display on the screen, which requires all fonts to be at least 12pt, but when it comes to printing, it's rather unwilling to listen to me. I change my default font size to 18pt and, lo and behold - nothing changes. Not in the print preview, anyway, and I'd rather not waste paper exploring Firefox's brokenness. So, I size up the font a bit more with Ctrl++. And, lo and behold - nothing changes. Next, I go into the print setup, and uncheck "Shrink To Fit Page Width". This time, I'm ready, and as expected - nothing changes. Back into print setup. I increase the scale to 125%. And hey! Suddenly the print preview is showing roughly 125% the size of my default font. Of course, that's now 18pt, so 125% the size is a bit too big, even for printed reference material. I try lowering it a bit, to 101%. Back to the previous tiny 10pt font. 110%? No good. 120%? Nothing. 125%? Back to huge-land. 121%? Nothing. 122? 123? Aha! 123%! The magic number! The number which makes everything change! I've tipped over into the other path in some mysterious decision tree deep within Firefox's no-doubt unruly bowels and, lo-and-behold, the text is enormous. There was a time, back with Firefox 1.0, when the print previewer would allow you to set the scale and print with the desired scale, upon finding the right size. Now, of course, not only do I get to play the "which percentages actually make things happen" game, but I have to dodge in and out of preview and setup in order to try things out. Oh, and to make things better, the print preview isn't an accurate picture of the way things actually print. That would be way too fucking easy, wouldn't it? And we can't have users actually getting what they want. That wouldn't be nearly hateful enough.
From: David Cantrell Date: 23:28 on 12 Mar 2007 Subject: Mounting disks under OS X I have some disks which go to sleep if you don't use them often enough. Yeah, they wake up if you poke them, but waiting for them to spin up is annoying. So I wrotea little cron job to periodically poke them by touching a file. This is a Mac, so they get mounted at boot time in /Volumes/$diskname. Those directories don't really exist until it tries to mount the disk. When it mounts the disk, it first creates the directory (which must not previously exist), then says "wakey wakey Mr. Disc rise and shine it's a glorious day here in Dave's flat!". There's enough time between it creating the directory and the disk waking up that sometimes my cron jobs that run every minute get a chance to go "ooh, somewhere I can touch a file!". Then when the disk has stretched, yawned, scratched its arse and so on OS X goes "oh noes, teh file is in ur directory!!! lolcats!!!" and so creates another directory called "/Volumes/$diskname 1" and mounts it there. Without bothering to even make a cute honking noise like what every other error seems to. At which point all my other fucking cron jobs go wrong, backups don't happen, dogs lie down with cats, blah blah blah. Bah. So now the cron jobs check that there's actually a filesystem mounted before doing anything.
From: Earle Martin Date: 11:10 on 12 Mar 2007 Subject: Nero's obnoxious modification of your Start Menu The Windows XP machine that I have at home came with Nero, a utility for burning CD-ROMs and DVDs. It is, overall, an excellent piece of software, and I have yet to have any problem with using it. However. I'm one of those people who doesn't like having an eight-levels-deep Programs folder in my Start Menu crammed with dozens of disorganized items. I've sorted mine out to sub-folders called Accessories, Applications, Games, Internet, Multimedia and Utilities. Nero, being a utility, goes under Utilities. As you might expect. Every time you run Nero, it creates a "Nero" folder in the Programs folder of the Start Menu. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. There's no option that I could find to stop it doing that. THANKS A FUCKING LOT, NERO, YOU STUPID WANKERS. P.S. Here is some bonus Nero hate! http://iamyouruser.blogspot.com/2006/12/neros-nuts-i-want-to-kick.html
From: Denny Date: 15:32 on 07 Mar 2007 Subject: RPM: Random Package Manglement AKA: the story of how work's main database server got an unexpected MySQL upgrade last night. So I get fed up with mysql_setpermissions not working on our CentOS database server. "Time to get that fixed", I think. Firstly, a quick recap of the error message; apparently it bombs out for lack of the perl DBD::mysql modules. "Easy!" I think, and try to install it from CPAN, before remembering that this always fails due to lack of the MySQL devel libs. Hrm. So, on to plan B, install those libs or the perl module itself from RPM packages. Secondly then, a quick look at what's already installed on the box: [root@d01-olg ~]# rpm -qa | grep -i mysql MySQL-server-standard-5.0.21-1.rhel4 MySQL-client-standard-5.0.21-1.rhel4 MySQL-shared-standard-5.0.21-1.rhel4 [root@d01-olg ~]# rpm -qa | grep -i perl perl-Filter-1.30-6 perl-5.8.5-24.RHEL4 perl-DBI-1.40-8 Thirdly, a quick google for what's available. Aha, perl-DBD-MySQL, just the thing. Now this is where it goes a bit wrong, so pay attention: [root@d01-olg ~]# up2date perl-DBD-MySQL Fetching rpm headers... ######################################## Name Version Rel ---------------------------------------------------------- perl-DBD-MySQL 2.9004 3.1 Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies... Downloading headers to solve dependencies... ######################################## perl-DBD-MySQL-2.9004-3.1.i ########################## Done. mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1.i386 ########################## Done. Preparing ########################################### [100%] Installing... 1:mysql warning: /etc/my.cnf created as /etc/my.cnf.rpmnew ########################################### [100%] 2:perl-DBD-MySQL ########################################### [100%] The following packages were added to your selection to satisfy dependencies: Name Version Release -------------------------------------------------------------- mysql 4.1.20 1.RHEL4.1 Wait, what? You did /what/?! Fourth step then, would be to run in circles screaming and panicking. Fifth, check that it just did what it looked like it just did: [root@d01-olg downloads]# rpm -qa | grep -i mysql perl-DBD-MySQL-2.9004-3.1 MySQL-shared-standard-5.0.21-1.rhel4 mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1 It did. To install the requested perl module, with no prompting whatsoever it has downgraded the MySQL server from 5.0 to 4.1, and then removed any MySQL client packages that didn't fit in with this master plan. Sixth, panic some more. Intersperse with a lot of swearing. Seventh, check the mysql data dir is still there: [root@d01-olg ~]# cd /var/lib/ [root@d01-olg lib]# du -sh mysql/ 13G mysql/ It is. Start breathing again. Eighth, backup the mysql data dir before anything else happens: [root@d01-olg lib]# cp -a mysql/ mysql.20070306 [root@d01-olg lib]# Ninth, download the latest MySQL-5.0 packages from mysql.com: [root@d01-olg downloads]# ll total 28632 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6908341 Oct 26 20:06 MySQL-client-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7110183 Oct 26 20:07 MySQL-devel-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13561014 Oct 26 20:10 MySQL-server-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1685652 Oct 26 20:11 MySQL-shared-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm Tenth, install them: [root@d01-olg downloads]# rpm -Uvh MySQL-* warning: MySQL-client-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 5072e1f5 Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:MySQL-shared-standard ########################################### [ 25%] 2:MySQL-client-standard ########################################### [ 50%] 3:MySQL-devel-standard ########################################### [ 75%] 4:MySQL-server-standard ########################################### [100%] Eleventh, connect to the database and look for the data: [root@d01-olg downloads]# mysql -uroot -p Reading table information for completion of table and column names You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 15 to server version: 5.0.27-standard mysql> show databases; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | client1 | | client1_test | | client2 | | client2_test | [...] Twelfth, start breathing again (apparently stopped again somewhere around step ten). *head-desk* Jesus fucking Christ, what the FUCKING fuck? Call that package management?? "Friends don't let friends run Red Hat. Or cheap Red Hat clones."
From: peter f miller
Date: 04:42 on 27 Feb 2007
Subject: Office printer hate
So I open up a simple text document in Office to take a quick look at
something then I close the window to quit. The document closes but
before the application is gone up pops an error message:
"The printer has not yet responded, but the Microsoft Office program
may be able to proceed without printer information. Do you want to
continue to wait for the printer?
Yes No"
Gee, let me think about that. I'm trying to quit because I'm done with
the document. I never tried to print anything and in fact there is no
longer any document open to print. Furthermore even if there was a
document open and I did want to print it, there is currently no
printer attached to my laptop for me to print the document to.
No, I think I'd rather not wait. Thanks for asking though. I mean it's
not like you have any useful clues you could use to guess what my
answer might be, right?
From: Andy Armstrong Date: 14:17 on 26 Feb 2007 Subject: =?WINDOWS-1252?Q?3_EASY_STEPS_TO_UPGRADE_ZEN_CART=99?= 3 EASY STEPS TO UPGRADE ZEN CART=99 http://tutorials.zen-cart.com/index.php?article=3D108 Easy steps? That sounds good. So all I have to do is download a virgin copy of the version I have =20 installed, apply any patches that are applied to the installed =20 version, download the new version, diff the installed version with =20 the virgin copy of same, manually apply and differences to the new =20 version, upgrade the database, etc etc etc, test, repeat, swear a =20 bit, sob. Actually they're trying to explain to not-particularly-technical =20 users how to use diff and patch to merge local changes into a new =20 version of some software including handling possible changes to a =20 database schema. I imagine that at some point quite early in the =20 instructions their idea of 'easy' diverges sharply from said user's =20 idea of 'easy'. As someone who's quite used to working with patches the process still =20= looks pretty fraught. --=20 Andy Armstrong, hexten.net
From: Earle Martin Date: 20:16 on 25 Feb 2007 Subject: Dragging to the Taskbar in Windows XP Good God but this is stupid: http://downlode.org/Pictures/Stupid_Software/Windows_XP_Drag_to_Taskbar.png How did this even make it to release? Didn't the fact that this situation evidently occurred often enough in testing that someone had to implement this incredibly verbose and annoying message suggest that maybe they should ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT THIS BEHAVIOR? Sigh.
From: Earle Martin Date: 19:52 on 25 Feb 2007 Subject: Copying text in Adobe Acrobat Reader SSBoYXZlIGEgUERGIGRvY3VtZW50LiBJdCBpcyBvcGVuIGluIG15IGJyb3dzZXIgdmlhIEFjcm9i YXQgUmVhZGVyLiBJCndhbnQgdG8gY29weSBzb21lIHRleHQuIFNvIEkgY2xpY2tlZCB0aGUgInNl bGVjdCB0b29sIiwgaGlnaGxpZ2h0ZWQgYQpwYXJhZ3JhcGgsIHJpZ2h0LWNsaWNrZWQsIGNob3Nl ICJDb3B5IHRvIENsaXBib2FyZCIuIEluc3RlYWQgb2YgYQpjaHVuayBvZiB0ZXh0IGFib3V0IHBl cmZvcm1hbmNlIHN0YW5kYXJkcyBmb3Igc2FmZXR5IGdsYXNzIGluCmJ1aWxkaW5ncywgSSBnb3Q6 CgooW1NIVVdWA1pSVU5MUUoDUlEDV0tIA1hWSANSSQNWRElIV1wDSk9EVlYDRFFHAwpWRElIV1wD U09EVldMRlYDTFEDRVhMT0dMUUpWA0xRA1dLSAM4UUxXSEcDNldEV0hWAwpGUlFGT1hHSEcDV0tE VwNEA0ZLTE9HA1pITEpLTFFKIBQTEyBPRQMLFxgRFhkgTkoMAwpGUlhPRwNVSERWUlFERU9cA0VI A1VISkRVR0hHA0RWA1VIU1VIVkhRV0RXTFlIA1JJAwpTSFVWUlFWA0xRWVJPWUhHA0xRA0RGRkxH SFFXVgNaS0hVSANKT0RWVgNSVQNTT0RWV0xGVgMKRFVIA0xQU0RGV0hHEQM2WEZLA0QDRktMT0cP A0xJA1VYUVFMUUoDRFcDSVhPTwNWU0hIRw8DCldLSFJVSFdMRkRPT1wDR0hZSE9SU1YDREVSWFcg FCATExMgLQNSSQNOTFFIV0xGAwpIUUhVSlwDRVhXDwNFSEZEWFZIA1JJA0dMVlNIVVZMUlEDUkkD SFFIVUpcA0RXA1dLSAMKV0xQSANSSQNMUFNERlcPA1dLSANERldYRE8DTFBTREZXA0hRSFVKXANM VgMKRlJRVkxHSFVERU9cA09IVlYRCgpUaGFua3MgYSBsb3QsIEFkb2JlISBUaGF0J3MgZ29pbmcg dG8gbG9vayByZWFsbHkgZnVja2luZyBncmVhdCBwYXN0ZWQKaW50byBteSBlbmdpbmVlcmluZyBj bGFzcyBhc3Nlc3NtZW50LgoKCi0tIApFYXJsZSBNYXJ0aW4KICAgICAgICAgICAgaHR0cDovL2Rv d25sb2RlLm9yZy8KaHR0cDovL3B1cmwub3JnL25ldC9lYXJsZW1hcnRpbi8K
From: Andrew Black - lists Date: 04:24 on 22 Feb 2007 Subject: Unsafe removal of device Windoze decides to hibernate itself and I resume. It then complains Unsafe removal of device _You_ (i.e. me) have unplugged a device PS/2 Compatible Mouse So I use the mouse which it claims isn't there but works fine to click on OK.
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Generated at 10:28 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi
