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[ Page 24 of 76 ]
From: Earle Martin Date: 15:54 on 09 Jan 2007 Subject: Applications that shuffle tabs around when you click on them Dear $application_programmer, I'm sure you found it very satisfying when you wrote the part of your tab-handling code that makes the the tab that the user has just clicked on - in one of multiple rows of tabs - jump up to the top, and rearrange all the other tabs. However, I have to use this "feature" on a daily basis and it is moronic, as it totally fucks the little part of my brain that subconsciously keeps track of where I have to click to move between $things[1] and $things[2], and so I have to spend valuable seconds sweeping my eyes around the screen to find where that tab I just switched out of has gone to. HATE.
From: Adam Atlas Date: 03:47 on 01 Jan 2007 Subject: Some quick bookmark hate Am I the only one who finds it hateful that most web browsers add new bookmarks/favourites to the BOTTOM of the list? When I find some site that I'd like to come back to later, the bookmarks feature would be more useful if I didn't have to scroll through hundreds of old ones to get to it...
From: jrodman
Date: 16:52 on 28 Dec 2006
Subject: apt, and proxies (Debian again)
I use a cacheing web proxy to make my life suck a tiny bit less. I use
it in my browser, and I export it as an environment variable. This
works well. All kinds of tools get accelerated.
( Well, really I export it as two environment variables, HTTP_PROXY and
http_proxy, because it seems people were various kinds of stupid at
various times. Oh well. )
Now, apt (a package tool), from debian supports http proxies. Handy,
since apt sometimes loses its mind and I have to manually delete its
package cache to force it to download them again. So it can regain its
mind faster.
Unfortunately, apt does not support http cacheing properly. It cannot
arrange to reliably discover when tiles provided by the standard package
repositories have changed. The result is apt-get update (find out
about new packages) often acquires a patchwork of mismatched old and new
files.
This causes it to complains about md5sums not matching.
Ye olde apt-get update hate: when `apt-get update' fails, it suggests
to fix this by running `apt-get update'. This invariably produces the
same error in a slightly different configuration. I wish all software
was so helpful:
"An error has occurred.
To fix this, please do exactly what you just did again."
Net result, `apt-get update' fails around 50% of the time (who knows
what the factors are). I would prefer it to work 100% of the time.
Since its support for caching proxies is broken, I would like to ask it
not to use a cacheing proxy. Looking at the configfile documentation:
blah blah blah all about proxy settings for http written in confusing
language... Then clarity:
The http_proxy environment variable will override all settings.
When there is a conflict between program-specific settings, and a
program-general setting, ignore the program-specific settings. Right.
Okay, so I cannot configure apt not to screw up. I have to remove the
environment variable before invoking apt-get. Well, how will I do this?
apt-get is indirectly invoked by various tools, so making my own
shellscript to run it is not going to work. I could replace apt-get
with a shellscript that invokes apt-get after removing the environment
variable, but this will be transparently re-broken on upgrade.
I guess I will simply have to manually remove both environment variables
before launching whatever tool that might invoke apt-get. And then put
them back.
-josh
From: David King Date: 23:24 on 27 Dec 2006 Subject: Give me back my damn focus! Why is it that nobody can write a decent focus model? I've been using Opera on my Mac recently due to some (non-focus related) Safari hate. Opera has a sidebar, where it puts things like a half-assed mail client, a half-assed IRC client, history, bookmarks, a list of current transfers, and the kitchen sink. Most actions performed on this sidebar result in a new window being opened (for instance, opening an IMAP folder or a history item). but the focus model is totally unclear. If I click on an IMAP folder, then hit "Up" on my keyboard, will it move "Up" one message within that folder, or one folder in the folder-list? This appears to be totally random. I work nearly totally from the keyboard, so this bites. Unpredictable focus behaviour is worthy of hate, but it gets better. If I've used the sidebar in the current session, even if it is *closed*, it appears to capture my "enter" key. If, for instance, I try to type a search term into a text box, and hit "enter", fully expecting it to "Submit" (pun intended), it instead opens up my last- viewed mail folder, because that is what the side-bar has focused. I wasn't aware that different controls could simultaneously have the focus, let alone pick-and-choose which keys they wanted to receive. So in order to do anything involving the "Enter" key (like typing a URL), I have to open the "Keyboard viewer," a small application that simulates a keyboard. Strangely, that "enter" key works just fine.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 20:17 on 27 Dec 2006 Subject: Re: C#, .Net, and Mono > > And they're hardcoding explicit bit lengths in the definition of the class > > library? > How long do you think it will be until software starts using buffers > over 2 gigs in size. When I left my last job in May I had been using a system with 64-bit size_t for about a decade, so I would be utterly gobstruck if there's no software currently in existence that's reading and writing more than 2G at a shot.
From: H.Merijn Brand Date: 18:30 on 22 Dec 2006 Subject: Speedtouch network? OK, I will get a new laptop soon. The new one will have 11g wireless. My current only has 11b. Reason to unpack the SpeedTouch 716 v5, to see if it can replace my perfectly functioning Vigor 2600we, which can only do 11b. It never failed me, and is very stable. My home network is 10.x.x.x, and in whatever form you connect the 716 to the PC: wireless, UTP, or USB, it will NOT accept any address except in the bloody 192.168.1.x, as it is 192.168.1.254 itself. OK, I unhooked a PC, and attached it with a crossed UTP to the 716, so I could upgrade the firmware, which was already pretty old. All went fine, but in all configuration settings, there is no place to fucking set the network to 10.3.3.x. Isn't a router something to *enable* communications? Back in the box. I'll buy a Draytek Vigor 2910VG or something that works
From: Yossi Kreinin Date: 13:27 on 22 Dec 2006 Subject: We know what you need, and we'll push it down your throat. I use a GUI program showing differences between files in order to commit the changes to a revision control system. I don't want to see diffs in whitespace. Quiz: how did I tell the program to ignore these diffs? 1. Pressed a button 2. Passed a command-line flag 3. Set an environment variable 4. Ran it under strace, found out that it runs a version of diff (apparently a copy of GNU diff with the bug report address stripped from the help message), copied the entire installation to my home directory, and replaced their diff with a script running diff with -b If you chose 4, you might be familiar with BitKeeper, the source control system Linux fans used to love. That was before BitMover, having them hooked, stopped giving the shitty thing away and required them to pay a shitload of money. The way they always did with companies infested with enough Linux fans to promote the program. Well, I guess BitKeeper is right - whitespace matters in Makefiles, Python scripts and ASCII art. P.S. SourceSafe is worse than BitKeeper, and Microsoft is evil, stupid and stinky.
From: Sean Conner
Date: 07:43 on 22 Dec 2006
Subject: Re: perl
It was thus said that the Great David Cantrell once stated:
> On Sun, Dec 17, 2006 at 09:36:52PM -0800, Aaron J. Grier wrote:
>
> > this is exactly what I hate about perl. "there's more than one way to
> > do it" invariably means that some dumbfucks out there will attempt to do
> > it every single way possible in the language. perl apparently prides
> > itself on this.
>
> A general purpose language which can't be used in different ways to
> solve different problems is not fit for purpose. Are you proposing that
> programming languages should be rigid and unsuitable for a wide range of
> tasks?
Um ... <raises hand> ... I'd like somethimg a bit more consistent.
A typical programic idiom I use (when programming in C) is:
if (argc == 1)
do_some_process(stdin);
else
{
for (i = 1 ; i < argc ; i++)
{
input = fopen(argv[i],"r");
do_some_process(input);
fclose(input);
}
}
So imagine my surprise when:
if (scalar(@ARGV) == 1)
{ # the one bit of consistancy I can do without actually
&do_some_process(STDIN);
}
else
{
for ($i = 1 ; $i < scalar(@ARGV) ; $i++)
{
open INPUT,$ARGV[i];
&do_some_process(INPUT);
close INPUT;
}
}
Doesn't work at all. Problem one (remember, I come from a C background
here), $ARGV[0] *doesn't* contain the program name ($ARGV isn't right since
it's only defined when using <ARGV> apparently---lovely), so okay, I adjust
some numbers and it *still* fails because you can't pass file handles to
subroutines.
Only, it seems like you *can* but only if you use the *obvious* notation
open INPUT,$ARGV[i];
&do_some_processing(*INPUT);
close INPUT;
Never mind the fact that every @#$@#$ variable in Perl is preceeded by a
'$', '@' or a '%' *except* for filehandles, diretory handles and block
labels.
Yes, C has its quirks too, but at least there I can actually pass any type
of variable to a subroutine without having a special notation for a certain
class of variables.
-spc (And least you think otherwise, there's plenty to hate in C, but I'm
afraid I've lived with it long enough to subconsciously work around
its quirks ... )
From: Guy Thornley
Date: 04:43 on 22 Dec 2006
Subject: locales.
Well, this is new to me. Perhaps it new to you, too. Or maybe not.
Follow closely.
$ ls
Alan Parsons Project - 1976 - Tales of Mystery and Imagination/
cd1/
cd2/
Yahel - Waves of sound/
Younger Brother - A Flock of Bleeps/
$ mv [A-Z]* cd2/
mv: cannot move `cd2' to a subdirectory of itself, `cd2/cd2'
$ ls
cd2/
Uhm? Since when were shell globs case *in*sensitive??
Yes, I know about nocaseglob:
$ shopt
nocaseglob off
which, according to the manpage, should make globs case sensitive.
$ echo $LANG
en_NZ.UTF-8
It gets worse:
$ touch a b C D
$ ls
a b C cd2/ D
$ echo [A-Z]*
b C cd2 D
Geezuz, where did little-'a' go?? A colleague pointed out that little-'a' is
sorting before big-'A' now.
This is just wrong, on every single level I think of, this is WRONG.
Easy to demonstrate it is locale:
$ bash -c 'echo [A-Z]*'
b C cd2 D
$ unset LANG; bash -c 'echo [A-Z]*'
C D
Why should I use locales ever again? This behaviour is not just hateful; it
is outright terrifying.
.Guy
From: Hakim Cassimally Date: 18:04 on 21 Dec 2006 Subject: OpenOffice Impress Yes, "Impress" is the word. Though it made a massive leap from the 0.90 that was frankly unusable to being apparently useful in 2.0 it has a few, er, rough edges. OpenOffice's crash recovery feature is put to good use on my Ubuntu Edgy installation as complex actions, such as entering text will cause it to poo itself regularly. Impress's files are significantly smaller than those produced by Powerpoint! A recent presentation was 4Mb in the MS format, and only 27Kb in OpenOffice! An incredible saving! Achieved by the clever expedient of simply not bundling extraneous information like images into the presentation. This clever default didn't quite work for me, as I was in the rather unusual situation of preparing a presentation on one computer and presenting on another (silly of me really). Of course, rather than storing confusing relative filenames, OOo had hard coded the links to the full path. It's a shame that my Windows machine at work doesn't like /home/hakim as a path. No matter. I simply unzipped the .odp file, ran a search and replace on the file path, and rezipped. The resulting file was corrupt and didn't open, but thoughtfully not putting this option in the GUI gives so much more possibility for powerful manipulation. As I was running out of time, I went through every slide and reinserted the copy of the image from my windows machine. This worked just fine. Except when I saved and Impress decided that I must have still wanted the unix path and reverted the changes. Google showed me that images could be inserted as links or as embedded. I checked, and "link" was unticked, implying that it *should* be embedded. Just for a laugh, I inserted a single image with "link" ticked and saved. This time it accepted the file path and the image was still there when I reopened. Woot! So, I got to enjoy mindless pointing and clicking, save the file, and then Export it to PDF, because even OOo isn't clever enough to fuck up a PDF file. Yet. I've checked, and there isn't any obvious context-menu option to change whether one/all images should be linked/embedded. I now want to take some changes I made at work and edit them on my laptop, so at this point I'm taking a simple expedient. I'm saving the document as a Powerpoint .ppt... I am tired of being repeatedly fucked on by OpenOffice. It is now in Version 2.0., but is still unstable and broken. Using OpenOffice makes me want to pay several hundred pounds for CrossOver and an MS Office license, and very few things make me want to spend my own money on software. in hate, osfameron
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Generated at 10:28 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi