< mari
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
chi >
[ Page 64 of 76 ]
From: Mark Fowler Date: 10:09 on 18 Dec 2003 Subject: Textedit Bother. My Mac Crashed. And I hadn't saved the work I was working on. I know everyone tells you to save often. The thing is I don't - because I don't normally *need* to. Both emacs and vi (my normal editors of choice) quite happly cope when you suddenly kill them and have a recent copy of the document to hand. Textedit, it would seem, does not. ARSE. I hope I can remember what that said. Mark.
From: Simon Wistow Date: 17:33 on 15 Dec 2003 Subject: XPlayCd Just a little hate but ... I'm playing a CD in XPlayCd, it gets to the end, I dig out the app again and hit play ... and it plays the last track again rather than playing from the start. Wah? This is especially irritating when you have a data track because it starts to play that and then stops when it realises it can't. Grrr.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 15:49 on 11 Dec 2003 Subject: FTP FTP> mv foo bar mv: no such command. I mean. What The Hell? Has no one thought it might be an idea to add this? How difficult can it be? I've yet to find an operating system that runs FTP and can't move files. Or has someone added this while I haven't been paying attention and decided to call it something other than 'mv'? I'm not sure which would be worse. How hard can it be? ffs. Mark.
From: Daniel Pittman
Date: 03:48 on 11 Dec 2003
Subject: OpenSSH and it's built-in denial of service "feature"
...I hate OpenSSH. It's sure nice to have a free SSH server and all,
but it is *so* full of hateful half-complete features.
In this case, we need to use password expiration on our systems, because
company policy demands it. So, we enable this. Life is good.[1]
Then a password expires. Fine, whatever. So, user tries to log in to the
master server where they need to change the password.[2]
OpenSSH knows that the password is expired, so they are not permitted to
log in. That is a fine feature, except...
...OpenSSH does not implement changing passwords.
Oh, yes, it can tell you to sod off if your password is now expired,
because that is so useful, especially when that is the only way to get
in to the machine to change the password.
Advice to programmers: if you want to leave your feature half finished,
do it is a way that isn't going to suddenly impale someone through the
heart and have them bleed to death.
At least the server isn't in the data center in Kansas yet...
Daniel
Footnotes:
[1] Well, the interface is hateful, and distributing passwords across
machines is hateful, but not quite as hateful as OpenSSH.
[2] See point one. All distributed password systems suck.
From: Phil!Gregory
Date: 17:46 on 10 Dec 2003
Subject: Inconsistent Interfaces
I'm setting things in the firmware of a wireless device that was basically
dropped in my lap. It's a BreezeNET AP-10, with firmware revision 4.4.1.
Let's take a look at my commands and its responses (paraphrased for
effect).
me: Please use 0x00DEADBEEF in WEP key slot #1 (out of four)
it: Sure thing!
me: Okay, now use WEP #1 as your default.
it: Done!
me: Good, good. Since the configuration's done, activate WEP.
it: No, I don't support that! Ha, ha!
<sound of me going off to find a sledgehammer>
If a particular feature of your program is unavailable (especially if it
will never be available for a given software version[0]), would it be too
much work to *not have configuration options for that feature*?
And a minor annoyance is that I can enable SNMP traps from the console
setup, but I have to set the destination host for them through SNMP
management, which is annoying due to the topology of out network.
[0] Apparently, WEP must be purchased separately for this device and
whoever bought it originally didn't go for it. (Tangentially, I'm
aware of WEP's weaknesses, but it keeps the casual browser out.
(IPSec routers bordering the wireless connection keep everyone else
out.))
From: David Cantrell Date: 10:36 on 21 Nov 2003 Subject: Every browser ever and MathML Over the weekend, I wrote a perl implementation of the serial correlation co-efficient. As part of the documentation, I want to point people at a nice rendering of the mathemagical formula, rather than just embedding a dodgy ASCII representation in the POD. MathML to the rescue, or so I thought. Except that it doesn't work in any browser I had access to except IE. Which, of course, sucks for other reasons.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 09:51 on 21 Nov 2003 Subject: IE and PNG and alpha Look, it's a standard. Get with the programme. Yes, I know you've 'won' the browser wars now and there's no business need to ever do any updates to your browser ever again, but it would be nice if it worked and we didn't have to do hacks like this: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/alpha.html FFS. Mark.
From: Mark Fowler Date: 14:04 on 19 Nov 2003 Subject: Still Hating Subversion Installs on the Mac. I have upgraded to 10.3. I have upgraded to the latest version of fink. The whole way ssl subversion clients seem to be built has changed. And it *still* doesn't work[1]. It's still no-one's fault (it's not the fink people's fault, I understand what unstable means,) it's not the subversion developers fault (I understand what alpha means.) But I really really really want a ssl svn client for my mac. And I really hate that I can't get one working. Mark. [1] If anyone really cares, it now is reliant on ruby-dev, and ruby-dev fails to install. I think (from the cryptic messages) it's been replaced with something else, but I don't know what.
From: Phil!Gregory Date: 15:54 on 15 Nov 2003 Subject: Useless Use of Javascript I hate sites that use Javascript when they don't have to. Fine, go ahead and use it for your fancy drop down menus and so on, but make sure your site still works without it. Sites that require it in order to submit a form are especially annoying, because it usually means that they're trusting the Javascript to do input validation. so they're breaking form submission for pretty much no increase in security.
< mari
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
chi >
[ Page 64 of 76 ]
Generated at 10:28 on 16 Apr 2008 by mariachi