[OK, so actually it's been back for weeks, I just haven't noticed.]

Let us celebrate with an ancient quote:

http://www.bash.org/?831458

Well it made *me* laugh! :-P

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Invisible wrote:
> Let us celebrate with an ancient quote:
> 
> http://www.bash.org/?831458
> 
> Well it made *me* laugh! :-P

http://www.bash.org/?127039
http://www.bash.org/?743595

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Invisible wrote:
> [OK, so actually it's been back for weeks, I just haven't noticed.]
> 
> Let us celebrate with an ancient quote:
> 
> http://www.bash.org/?831458
> 
> Well it made *me* laugh! :-P

"...girls are too confusing about what they want from guys..."

Probably because if they say what they really want, then it tips the 
balance of power against them.  Which women do not like.

Regards,
John

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John VanSickle wrote:

> "...girls are too confusing about what they want from guys..."
> 
> Probably because if they say what they really want, then it tips the 
> balance of power against them.  Which women do not like.

I was actually more amused at the concept of "stealing 2nd base while 
nobody's looking"... ;-)

In the case of some of the girls I've met, I get the impression that the 
girl herself is as confused as everybody else! o_O

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http://www.bash.org/?26741   So true...
http://www.bash.org/?58743
http://www.bash.org/?17176   LOLZ!

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http://www.bash.org/?20152   I bet Warp would approve... ;-)
http://www.bash.org/?41606   The wrongness...!

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http://www.bash.org/?818300   Ooo, nasty. ;-)
http://www.bash.org/?2290     ...
http://www.bash.org/?9587     PWN3D!
http://www.bash.org/?629240   I'm pretty sure that's false.
http://www.bash.org/?106605   THIS might be true though! :-/
http://www.bash.org/?233731   Inquisitive animals, eh?
http://www.bash.org/?689386   So true.
http://www.bash.org/?513921   Something like that...

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Invisible wrote:

> http://www.bash.org/?41606   The wrongness...!

WTF?

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> 
>> http://www.bash.org/?41606   The wrongness...!
> 
> WTF?

EXACTLY!!

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Invisible wrote:

> http://www.bash.org/?106605   THIS might be true though! :-/

Oh, if the software companies have their way. I suspect it'll 
automatically debit from your account every time you launch MS Word for 
Windows.

> http://www.bash.org/?689386   So true.

Is there anyone who liked WindowsME? One of my computers came with it 
preloaded. ... It was sort of like Windows 98, only ... hmm.

> http://www.bash.org/?513921   Something like that...

That almost sounded like ... nevermind.
-- 
~Mike

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>> http://www.bash.org/?106605   THIS might be true though! :-/
> 
> Oh, if the software companies have their way. I suspect it'll 
> automatically debit from your account every time you launch MS Word for 
> Windows.

You jest, but I believe several companies are making serious moves in 
this direction. The idea is that the "software" exists on their servers, 
and is never installed on your machine, and you "rent" the right to 
access this software for X days for a given fee.

I'd like to say it'll never become popular, but...

>> http://www.bash.org/?689386   So true.
> 
> Is there anyone who liked WindowsME? One of my computers came with it 
> preloaded. ... It was sort of like Windows 98, only ... hmm.

It was sort of like Windows 98, except... something was wrong with it. 
Personally, it wasn't until I encountered a machine actually running it 
that I discovered why it's so hated. It looked like 98, but... every 
week I had to remove several hundred viruses from it, and it would be 
behaviour strangely in one way or another... very odd.

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Invisible wrote:

> It was sort of like Windows 98, except... something was wrong with it. 
> Personally, it wasn't until I encountered a machine actually running it 
> that I discovered why it's so hated. It looked like 98, but... every 
> week I had to remove several hundred viruses from it, and it would be 
> behaviour strangely in one way or another... very odd.

My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from 
98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in 
Windows XP. But that was about it. What was wrong with it is it was 
built on the old Win 95 architecture.
-- 
~Mike

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Invisible wrote:
> http://www.bash.org/?106605   THIS might be true though! :-/

I think they call it XBox LIVE.  :-)

I saw an interview with some high-up at MS, either Gates or Balmer I 
forget, where they were asked about their biggest mistake, and they said 
something like "Discounting Windows ME, I'd have to say it was ...."

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
> My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from 
> 98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in 
> Windows XP. But that was about it.

  You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
Microsoft: Adaptive menus.

  I still can't understand why *anyone* could think that menus whose
contents change during time is a good idea. One of the most basic
principles of GUI design is that everything should work consistently
and always the same way. Some functionality might change depending on
context, but even there you shouldn't go to extremes. What is braindead
about the adaptive menus is that they contents don't change depending on
the context, they can change even during identical operations.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Mike Raiford <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My WindowsME system worked fine. It was almost indistinguishable from 
>> 98. I think it had the compressed folders feature, which is present in 
>> Windows XP. But that was about it.
> 
>   You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.

I don't know. I like adaptive menus, when they're done well. The "new" 
start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top, 
and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've 
used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work 
nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.

Now, stuff where it rearranges itself and does *not* present all the 
possibilities is nasty, yes.

The "search" stuff in Vista seems to work nicely, too. I haven't tried 
the ribbon stuff, either, but that looks ugly.

I think you have to do something when you wind up with so many options 
they no longer even fit on a menu. That's probably one reason MS has 
good help systems - you'd not find half the stuff if you couldn't search 
help for "where the H___ have you hidden the XYZ options in *this* 
version now???"

And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu 
such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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>>   You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
>> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
> 
> I don't know. I like adaptive menus, when they're done well. The "new" 
> start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top, 
> and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've 
> used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work 
> nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.
> 
> Now, stuff where it rearranges itself and does *not* present all the 
> possibilities is nasty, yes.

The key thing is, Word menues do not change their ordering at random. 
They only change which options are or aren't visible initially.

The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different 
program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid, 
horrid, horrid! >_<

(Can you tell I have that mis-feature turned off? Interestingly, if you 
do that you get a menu rather like what Word has - the programs you 
actually use show up, and the ones you don't are initially hidden, but 
everything is always *in the same order*.)

> I think you have to do something when you wind up with so many options 
> they no longer even fit on a menu. That's probably one reason MS has 
> good help systems - you'd not find half the stuff if you couldn't search 
> help for "where the H___ have you hidden the XYZ options in *this* 
> version now???"

Yeah, well... M$ does like to rearrange menus just to make each version 
of Word look "new", even though it actually contains exactly the same 
functionallity.

> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu 
> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)

I don't like that. It means you have to mentually "guess" which option 
will be hilighted each time you use it. I'd rather have the options show 
up a predictable distance from my mouse pointer...

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> The "new" 
> start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top, 

  A "recently used programs" list in some start menu is not the same
thing as an adaptive menu, where elements which should be fixed aren't.
A "recently used program" list is more akin go a "recent documents"
sub-menu, which is just fine.

> and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've 
> used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work 
> nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.

  The problem is that I don't want to "hover for a bit" or make an extra
click to show the full menu. If I have used a menu a lot, I remember from
heart where those most used menu elements are, and selecting is usually
a question of click+drag+release. A menu which changes contents and doesn't
even show all the options and where the options I use change locations
completely defies this and is one of the most annoying things ever.

  Do you know what I hate in Firefox? The damned changing context menu!
It drives me crazy. Whether or not the first element is "back" depends
on where you click! It's annoying as hell.

> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu 
> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)

  That could also become annoying if you are accustomed to click + drag a
certain amount + release, to select an option you use a lot.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible wrote:
> The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different 
> program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid, 
> horrid, horrid! >_<

Heh. I like it. The programs I've been using most bubble to the top, and 
when I finish something (like, if I've been doing a bunch of photo 
editing or fixing videos or something and now I'm done with that 
vacation's worth of media) I just clear out the list. I'll admit it took 
me about a week to get used to it, but I like it.

Of course, since you *can* turn it off, it's rather even nicer.

> Yeah, well... M$ does like to rearrange menus just to make each version 
> of Word look "new", even though it actually contains exactly the same 
> functionallity.

Well, they usually add a bunch of stuff and rearrange things to be 
easier, but they also change around the stuff they didn't change, which 
is what bothers me.

> I don't like that. It means you have to mentually "guess" which option 
> will be hilighted each time you use it. 

Nah. It means if you do the same thing to ten different icons, it's a 
single click, instead of 
click.drag-the-right-distance.release.reposition-mouse-on-mousepad

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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>> http://www.bash.org/?106605   THIS might be true though! :-/
> 
> I think they call it XBox LIVE.  :-)

PWN3D!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:

>   You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.

I actually liked the adaptive start menu. I could expand it if I needed 
everything, or just leave it contracted for my most frequently used.

The XP way of having the MFU list is pretty convenient as well.

-- 
~Mike

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Warp wrote:
>   The problem is that I don't want to "hover for a bit" or make an extra
> click to show the full menu. 

You are aware you can turn this off, right? It's some click-box in the 
options stuff.

> If I have used a menu a lot, I remember from
> heart where those most used menu elements are, and selecting is usually
> a question of click+drag+release. A menu which changes contents and doesn't
> even show all the options and where the options I use change locations
> completely defies this and is one of the most annoying things ever.

I'm assuming you're talking about Word or some such here? If not, which 
are you speaking of?  I've not been bothered by menus reordering 
themselves, but maybe I haven't run into it. Things showing up and 
disappearing, or different sets of menus being available depending on 
what you're editing, yes. But not arbitrary reordering.

>   Do you know what I hate in Firefox? The damned changing context menu!
> It drives me crazy. Whether or not the first element is "back" depends
> on where you click! It's annoying as hell.

That's kind of the point of a "context" menu, tho. :-)

>> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu 
>> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
> 
>   That could also become annoying if you are accustomed to click + drag a
> certain amount + release, to select an option you use a lot.

Sure, I suppose. I find that kind of menu always has my mouse sliding 
off the edge of the desk, tho, when I'm doing something repetitive. I 
guess if you're used to one way of working, another is going to annoy 
one until one gets used to it.  Sounds like you have better mousing 
precision than I do. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   That could also become annoying if you are accustomed to click + drag a
> > certain amount + release, to select an option you use a lot.

> Sure, I suppose. I find that kind of menu always has my mouse sliding 
> off the edge of the desk, tho, when I'm doing something repetitive. I 
> guess if you're used to one way of working, another is going to annoy 
> one until one gets used to it.  Sounds like you have better mousing 
> precision than I do. :-)

  Not that much.

  There's another very annoying feature which, as far as I remember, they
changed in Windows95 (or Windows98) compared to Windows 3.x: In the latter,
if you had a menu with a submenu, you would click on the menu element for
that submenu, and then it would open the submenu to be on the side of the
parent menu and, most importantly, it would *keep it open* until you select
something or click somewhere else.

  In Win95 (or something) they changed this behavior to be much, much worse:
Now the submenu opens by simply hovering the menu element (not that bad in
itself) but if you unhover that element, it *closed* the submenu. There's
no way you can keep the submenu open other then carefully keeping the mouse
hovered on that parent menu element while you move it towards the submenu.
This is extremely annoying and irritating because it requires really precise
mouse handling to not to unhover and thus unintentionally close the submenu.
It can be difficult even to me, an experienced computer user. I can only
imagine how difficult it must be eg. for the elderly or people with
impariments.

  The worst of all? Everybody has copied Microsoft on this! Now you can see
that braindead behavior everywhere. Even this KDE has it. It's annoying!

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:44:10 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Invisible wrote:
>> The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different
>> program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid,
>> horrid, horrid! >_<
> 
> Heh. I like it.

GNOME does this sort of thing as well with the Computer menu - favourite 
applications/documents with a "more" option (which shows a fixed list).  
I've got that along with the traditional GNOME menu, but I tend to use 
shortcuts on my panel or alt-f2 (equivalent of "Start->Run") most of the 
time, or launch from a console window. :-)

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> This is extremely annoying and irritating because it requires really precise
> mouse handling to not to unhover and thus unintentionally close the submenu.

I'll second that. I often use the keyboard on long nested menus just for 
that reason.

>   The worst of all? Everybody has copied Microsoft on this! 

That's another part of the kill. MS spends bunches of money testing this 
sort of stuff, so everyone assumes they should copy it too.

Altho I will say, a lot of the vista visual tweaks seem very nice as 
well as subtly useful. Not that I've more than a couple hours experience 
with trying to get it all set up the way I want. :-)


-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Invisible wrote:
> You jest, but I believe several companies are making serious moves in
> this direction. The idea is that the "software" exists on their servers,
> and is never installed on your machine, and you "rent" the right to
> access this software for X days for a given fee.

Web apps are an experiment for that: same concept, only free. The only next
step is start charging.

I hate web apps.

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Warp wrote:
>   The worst of all? Everybody has copied Microsoft on this! Now you can
>   see
> that braindead behavior everywhere. Even this KDE has it. It's annoying!

Websites with fancy navigation menus copy it *and* don't even implement a
delay. Everything is instant. Move mouse over a submenu and it INSTANTLY
shows it (closing the other).

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Web apps are an experiment for that: same concept, only free. The only next
> step is start charging.

I take it you haven't used a commercial web-app. Like salesforce.com for 
example. :-) It's not the next step, it's the previous step.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:33:13 -0200, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Web apps are an experiment for that: same concept, only free. The only
> next step is start charging.

"Software as a Service" or SaaS.

Jim

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Warp wrote:
> 
>   The worst of all? Everybody has copied Microsoft on this! Now you can see
> that braindead behavior everywhere. Even this KDE has it. It's annoying!
> 

It's not the worst. The worst is that no system equipped with this
feature offers no choose. You can turn off XP's personalized menus. You
can turn off XP's new start-menu. AFAIK you can do the same on Vista.
But you *can't* turn off that submenufeature.

Once again, Afterstep <3. If you'll click on submenus headerbar, it
becames own window and stays there until you close it. Yep, you can even
click 10 Xterms open at the same menu.

-Aero

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Darren New wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> Web apps are an experiment for that: same concept, only free. The only
>> next step is start charging.
> 
> I take it you haven't used a commercial web-app. Like salesforce.com for
> example. :-) It's not the next step, it's the previous step.

Sure I haven't... What *is* salesforce?

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Sure I haven't... What *is* salesforce?

Until google bought them, it was a, well, sales force utility suite. The 
sort of thing that tells you when the customer is likely to run out of 
what you ordered, what their number is, who's in charge, etc.

Imagine if you're (say) a company selling auto parts to garages, or a 
company selling copier machines to businesses. You have thousands of 
customers, dozens of salesmen, all kinds of schedules, etc. Imagine 
Outlook extended into dealing the the customers as well as internal 
corporate stuff. Now, run it over the web. That's what salesforce.com was.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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