http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
Adds (among other things) an up button to Explorer. It's probably the only reason I've not bothered to go back to XP.
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
Adds (among other things) an up button to Explorer. It's probably the only reason I've not bothered to go back to XP.
@smxlong said:
Uh, it's really no different than using fictional telephone numbers that begin with 555.
That doesn't explain how ping traced the owner of the IP address (that's whois) or render what appears to be a HTML link in a terminal (while pretending that only one website can run on each IP address).
Also, 192.0.32.10 exists for a reason.
@b-redeker said:
I really don't care how ugly Word or VS or Outlook is, as long as it let's me type my mails, compile my programs and read my mails.
I thought that too, then I remembered people actually like Aero, and that there's probably at least one person out there using this.
@CaptainCaveman said:
i tend to make pseudo random email addresses that I use on ecommerce sites, like my_amazon_stuff@freewebmailsite.tld or something like that, and only ever use that address for transactions on the same site (in this case amazon).
Or you could just filter you+amazon@gmail.com into the trash when they do it...
@nexekho said:
Also, why does your post contain a web bug?I couldn't see any obvious way to make a tab, and who doesn't indent their code?
I can think of at least two.
#ifdef APPLE
in ur cs indentin ur text
#endif
#ifdef APPLE more indented stuff! #endif
Also, hooray for Apple discovering things ages later than everyone else and still managing to pass it off as innovative.
Since this looks like Gmail, I'll assume you're not on their mail server and their server died instead of yours.
In which case I'd like to point out that it's completely possible to send a message with a different From: address than your own, and people would be quite likely to see this upon logging into their email to send something to a school. What's wrong?
@Faxmachinen said:
Your phone books actually have people's addresses in them?
Yours don't?
I'm not that concerned about websites misusing it as long as I'm always asked first and have the chance to deny it.
But if Firefox can do it, any other app can do it, and the other app might not be as nice about asking me first.
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>Chapter 1- The Message Box</TITLE>
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>Java script message box script tutorial</TITLE>
What is this I don't even...
I also love the emulation of :hover with JS.
Update: got the new modem today, set it up, and it turns out the admin interface is publicly accessible and the default password can't be changed. Well, actually, Clear can change it, and they did.
"Ah, it's still motorola? You must not have that update yet where we changed it."
"That one is on the internet too. clear123?"
"... Oh. Lovely."
They offered to send me a modem with fixed firmware (because apparently they don't have a way to flash it either) but after finding out the public admin interface can't be disabled and that they screw with incoming connections on port 80 we're switching back to Comcast. Stuff like this makes them seem remarkably competent.
Congrats, Clear.
(Is this guy's name Jansen by any chance?)
Did not use explicit 3 point floating precision
Wait, what?
This same instructor described #define s as "pre-set global variables"
My C++ teacher can do worse: cin and cout are functions, with redirection operators. (We also used some stupid template with #define print cout << and #define read cin >>, and never learned STL and used huge static arrays whenever we needed a bunch of values.)
(And you both suck for using #define instead of a constant.)
We decided Comcast sucks too much for the price, and the only other thing around here is slow ADSL, so we decided to give Clear's wireless internet a try. They told me a used modem would work so I ordered one. Turns out it's still attached to someone else's account who just stopped paying their bills rather than actually disconnecting their service (first thing it did when I connected was ask me to pay "my" bill). So I called them up and asked them if they could do anything about it. Of course not, I have to hunt down the original owner (who's going to be nearly impossible to find, I bought this from a used electronics site, not an individual) and get them to deactivate it.
I don't expect them to just do it for me with no further questions asked, but they seriously couldn't think of some way to prove that I'm physically holding the modem? What if the original owner is now dead/became an uncontactable hermit/went to live on another planet?
(The site I bought it from is sending me a new one for free, so I'm not too concerned. Their advice when I asked if I should send the old one back to them? Throw it against the nearest wall. I like these people.)
@blakeyrat said:
But seriously, you couldn't tell that screenshot was scaled down just by looking at it? Seriously? ... I'm concerned about your eyesight.
Alright, yeah, I suck. Not sure how I missed that.
@dhromed said:
Friendly tip: the Office 200X shot you posted is scaled to about 70%, so its actual height is more like 1/0.7 * 92 = 131pxLucky for you, that rough estimate doesn't discount your point, but the "measurement" is in the category "what were you thinking trying to run this screenshot by us."
Very well. I was on Linux when I posted that so I just dug up a pair of screenshots from Google and assumed that was some idiot saving a screenshot as a .jpg. Have another:
Bah, I know I posted a response to this already. I'll just assume Community Server happened.
@dhromed said:
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit of a keyboardista. I'm guessing you are not, or less so.
Depends on what I'm doing - when coding I'll take Kate and a few terminal tabs over a fancy IDE with a bunch of buttons any day, but I prefer my menus to work like menus. I'm not sure why, they just work better for me.
@dhromed said:
@scgtrp said:
It works FOR YOU.Hey, it's just a friendly exchange on usage patterns. I'm not trying to foist stuff on you; it's just that in half* the cases the issues users have are due to lack of knowledge. A small tip can sometimes go a long way, and therefore I try to provide these tips.
Those were emphasis caps, not "I'm going to set you on fire for suggesting I should use the search box" caps. ;-)
@blakeyrat said:
The Ribbon in its default configuration uses fewer vertical pixels than the Office 2003 toolbars+menu in their default configuration.
...wait, what?
@blakeyrat said:
Well, since the Vista/7 Start Menu and Office 2007's Ribbon are *measurably* better than the predessors in every respect, that really just tells me you care a lot more about your ancient habits than you do about creating usable software.
*sigh*
This is not something that can be measured.
People are DIFFERENT. They work differently, they think differently. This is what "usability studies" seem to miss a lot. I think and work differently than the majority of users. Do I expect every program I use to default to the way I'd like it to be? No, that would be stupid and unreasonable. But I do expect them not to remove features and force me into their supposedly superior way of working when I actually *do* work better with the old way.
I know a few people who like to put the taskbar off one side of the
screen, because that works better for them. I can't say I see the advantage, and I prefer having mine on the bottom (because I use the buttons at both corners fairly often), but I think it's nice that Windows lets them do that. To take that option away from them because would be to make the UI less usable for a small but existent group of users. This is not a good thing.
The only way to truly achieve usability for everyone is configurability. It is impossible to come up with a single configuration for a program that is optimal for everyone. Removing options and deliberately crippling things to encourage use of new features is not the way to do this.
@dhromed said:
Chrome's combined search+URL box
I never use Chrome so I can't truly comment on its specific location bar behaviour, but Firefox's location bar is excellent. You type some shit, and you'll get results from your bookmarks and your history, and these results contain the string "shit"anywhere in the ulr or the location. That is awesome. I always get the sites I want within two characters. For sites I always visit, I only need to type 1 character: "t" gives me the forum root of TDWTF. I hear it will google-search if you type in random things it can't find in bookmarks, history and is not a domain name, but it's pretty bad because bad domain names take too long to time out. I just type "g" so it'll autosuggest google, and search form there.
1. It's just too unpredictable for me. I'd rather spend an extra half second typing a few extra characters and definitely getting what I want (or even setting keywords on my bookmarks, if I really don't want to type out "thedailywtf.com") than typing part of it and getting what I want most of the time. And I do, in fact, set keywords for some sites - my issue is with automatic searching. If I mistype a URL I should get a chance to correct it without having to retype the whole thing.
2. The URL and search boxes serve two completely different purposes. One is for when you know where something is and want to go there, the other is for when you don't know where it is and want to find it. In my experience Chrome has kinda sucked at deciding what is and isn't a domain name (though to its credit, I just tested and it looks like I have a button now to tell it I want http://rotini/ rather than http://google.com/search?q=rotini#).
This is really the only thing that's keeping me from using Chrome - the inability to disable automatic searching and only search with keywords.
@dhromed said:
Vista/7 Start menu
You tap the Winkey and type some shit and you'll probably get what you want as the first or second result. It's not search in the sense that you can't find things, it's instant-access for common and semi-common things, and it will also search for things you can't find. As a bonus, if you will.When I type WinKey"pla"Return I'm already opening my workplace's project planning file before the results pane has even finished rendering items. Things I find fucked:
# the Start Menu is network connections control because I have to jump through a few dialogs to get to the actual window that contains the actual connections.
# the programs menu is actually pretty bad, but... you never use it, because you search.I resisted it as well at first, but then I thought, fuck it, and tried to use it in its intended way. It learns what results you use most often and puts them first.
Alright, I should have known better than to bring this up here, again, but since I have...
It works FOR YOU. Usability studies give you, at best, statistics representing the majority of users. Personally, I prefer to use menus, and work more efficiently when I'm using menus. I organize my menu and I know where everything is. Am I in the minority? Probably. But even if I can't keep the classic menu, I have still not found anyone who could tell me why it would be so hard to have an XP-style "all programs" pop-out menu right next to the search box. Compressing the whole menu into that tiny space almost seems like deliberately crippling it to get people to use the search feature more, which is just plain mean.
@dhromed said:
Office's ribbon
Sucks. Feature placement is arbitrary and someone who doesn't use the applications a lot, like myself, will always be hunting down some feature across the tabs and then be surprised they put it there. It's really not that great. It's not intrinsically worse than menus, because placement there is just as arbitrary, it's just a different layout. It's not obviously intrinsically better either, in my experience. Random menus have been replaced with random buttons, in a way.
Pretty much this, with the addition that it takes more vertical screen space in a program which usually shows vertically oriented documents on increasingly small* screens.
* Not only small overall, but I'm seeing widescreen monitors more and more often.
@blakeyrat said:
Assuming typing "http://10.1.1.2:9999" into the URL bar will stop working-- untrue!
Agreed. I'm not sure where this came from, it doesn't make any sense and there are few things more annoying than people making your side of a debate look stupid by arguing it with invalid arguments.
Assuming that copying a URL or URL fragment from the URL bar will exclude the "http://"-- untrue!
Then it's even worse. Yay, let's make a text box that shows one thing but puts something different in the clipboard when copied, in the name of usability!
Assuming that Chrome won't be able to tell the difference between an FTP site and a web site-- almost certainly untrue! (Unless you've tested it and can prove otherwise.)
See #1.
This whole thread is ridiculous! It's nothing but knee-jerking! It's nothing but people who simply hate, hate, HATE, any change whatsoever making up shit to excuse their irrational hatred of change! It makes me want to scream. None of you have even given it a chance.
From your wording here I'm going to assume you're referring to the general group of people who bash changes rather than this specific change, in which case you're just plain wrong. Chrome's combined search+URL box, the Vista/7 start menu, Office's ribbon, I actually tried them and I hated them, and can give you reasons beyond "it sucks" why I hate each one.
Or are you just calling anyone who disagrees with you for any reason irrational? Because there's a word for that, "irrational".
Why don't we give Google a few months, so we can fairly evaluate this change without the knee-jerking, then come back and discuss it? Or! You people who hate it could simply (gasp, shock) switch to another browser and STFU. It's not like there's a lack of browser choices in the market right now.
Fair enough, but what's this forum for if not bashing poor choices made by designers/programmers?
@stratos said:
I even wouldn't mind if they simply show something like [web] [example.org] [forums > addpost] Showing the first two as simple clickable boxes and that last like a pretty breadcrumb.
You've never copied and pasted a URL to someone before?
I fail to see why developers are so obsessed with hiding information from users. Why is it so bad to show file extensions or protocol names? They're part of the filename or URL. They have meaning. People who are incapable of seeing implementation details without completely locking up and not knowing what to do should not be touching computers. All those cables between your peripherals and your "hard drive"? Hardware implementation details, clearly we should remove them because normal users suck at figuring out where they go.
Sigh. If you design for idiots, your users will be idiots.
@MarkR said:
Too bad the only C# loop constructs introduced in C# were the for-loop and the goto statement.
Even if you're working within some ridiculous coding standard that disallows while-loops for some reason, isn't while(condition) equivalent to for(;condition;) ?
@Xyro said:
But it's not really THAT terrible, is it?It's better than it used to be, but they could at least use 302 Found like sane people if they actually do have a legitimate technical reason to go through an intermediate page. Delayed redirects suck.
Though I still don't know why sites are so obsessed with going through intermediate pages like this instead of just linking directly to the file.
Just tried - it still fills in 1234 regardless of what the password actually is. And no, it's still not Firefox doing it.
Slightly more "secure", but no less broken.
I've just moved and Comcrap hasn't showed up to reconnect install a coaxial jack because the only one I've found in this place is rather broken, so I'm temporarily borrowing a neighbor's unsecured wireless connection (not a WTF in itself, the owner could just be a generous person).
So after I connected for the first time I got curious and ran off to the router login page, and was greeted with this:
WTF 1: It's the default password, 1234. Stupid, but more the user's fault.
WTF 2: That's not my browser automatically filling in the password for me. The router itself did that. So not only is it using the default password, it's kindly saving me the trouble of going off to look up the default password.
@tin said:
You can't just rename an RTF file to TXT and have it come out right!
I used to think hiding file extensions by default was one of Windows's most retarded features ever.
I understand now. It's to preserve everyone else's sanity.
@bannedfromcoding said:
Anyway, there's a chance your iPhone email client generates some different formatting, or adds a header, or forgets to lubricate enough to push the email through.
Or they explicitly blacklist the phrase "Sent from my iPhone". I still fail to see why that thing insists on appending spam to legitimate messages.
@derula said:
You have an Arduino user? Where do you keep him, in the basement?
Yes, how did you know?
I would appreciate it if you would stop snooping in my basement.
Given the average intelligence of Arduino users (I'm really almost ashamed to have one myself) I'm going to guess he meant that exactly how you read it.
@rew said:
It infected 42 domain(s)
TRWTF is not knowing the difference between "linked to an infected site" and "infected a domain" (how do you even infect a domain, anyway?)
Linux runs fine on this laptop... with a patch to work around Toshiba's purely retarded BIOS. Apparently it was swapping out some important ACPI tables for completely different ones during boot, after the kernel had started. I cannot comprehend the insanity which would provoke such code.
I don't see how this is at all Linux's fault, though (I blame myself more for believing the Best Buy drone who told me Linux would run fine on it; I was kind of surprised he knew what Linux was.) Most of the problems Linux has with funky hardware are the hardware's fault.
@Mole said:
Expensive Repairs<font color="#626262"> - Costly expert help from strangers to fix your PC</font>- Patent-pending [Censored] automatically keeps PCs running like new.
Wait, they were actually advertising costly expert help from strangers?
Also, I thought you found an ad saying "patent-pending shit" until I got to the bottom. "Redacted" or "removed" would have been better.
Here's another one. Note the complete ignorance of the JS split() function.
function load4(Mydata,ip1,ip2,ip3,ip4) {
var len; var ad; var temp;
var Myall;
Myall=Mydata.value; //ip1
len=Myall.length;
temp=Myall.indexOf(".");
ad=Myall.substring(0,temp);
ip1.value=ad;
//ip2
Myall=Myall.substring(temp+1,len);
len=Myall.length;
temp=Myall.indexOf(".");
ad=Myall.substring(0,temp);
ip2.value=ad;
//ip3
Myall=Myall.substring(temp+1,len);
len=Myall.length;
temp=Myall.indexOf(".");
ad=Myall.substring(0,temp);
ip3.value=ad;
//ip4
Myall=Myall.substring(temp+1,len);
ad=Myall; ip4.value=ad;
}
Minor stuff, I know, but it still shows that someone over at Netgear doesn't know what they're doing. (Also, the logout page is wrapped in a <form> tag with absolutely no form elements in it.)
I know, router configuration interfaces aren't exactly known for great code. But today I came across this:
<noframes>
<body>
<p>Please upgrade to a version 4 or higher browser so that you can use this setup tool (and see lots of great sites on the Internet!)
</body>
</noframes>
To build an interface that only works with frames enabled is bad enough. But seriously, "version 4 or higher browser"? I suddenly regret buying a router from a company who doesn't realize the problem with that.
I will note that it works perfectly in Firefox 3.5 and 3.6.
@blakeyrat said:
I lowercase SQL queries because I find it much, much easier to read. Of course, I also use a text editor with auto-completion and syntax highlighting for SQL.
My editor has highlighting too, when the SQL is in a separate file - however, that's rarely true except for database dumps. In this case the SQL is embedded in the PHP using normal strings - no special syntax at all, so my editor doesn't know to highlight the contents of the string as SQL.
(And no, highlighting every string as SQL isn't an acceptable solution. echo 'Please select the state where you live:'; )
22. <font face="Verdana" size="2">MySql -- it's called MySQL. Also not capitalizing SQL keywords like everyone else, making the queries really hard to find and read. </font>
23. Failing to indent any of the code.
<font size="2"><font face="Verdana">24. "</font></font><font face="Verdana" size="2">You can have the login expire by adding a logged-in date field to tblUsers. You would need to check that date against your "timeout" in incSession.php." -- That is not how timeouts work. You store the date of last activity, not of login.</font>
25. "<font face="Verdana" size="2">To generate the GUID or session ID, you need to generate a unique number and hash it to protect would-be hackers from brute-forcing their way into your application." -- That's not how brute force works either.</font>
26. "<font face="Verdana" size="2">I believe this method to be one of the most portable and easily customized methods available." -- I believe you to be a complete moron.</font>
Also, I always hated the idea of PHP's implicit string interpolation for stuff like "I have $kittencount kittens!" but I suppose that's more style than a WTF.
@Mole said:
last time I heard sms texts didn't refuse certain characters
I think they use 7-bit ASCII, but can't remember where I heard that.
Also: aaaeeennnn@tmomail.net.
@morbiuswilters said:
Right, but you could just instruct them on how to use it
You do realize that the majority of the people who would be checking MySpace in class tend to be the same people who say things like "I have a yahoo on my internet", right? ;)
or just re-package it with the X-Host header already in place.
That's a thought. Oh well, I no longer care.
(It was intended for the kinds of people who don't know what HTTP headers are and wouldn't be able to use that.)
My high school used that same filter. I also discovered that there's also an epic security hole that lets you do this:
GET / HTTP/1.1
X-Host: domain-of-school.com
Host: your-favorite-porn-site-here.com
... and it would work perfectly, acting on the X-Host: header instead of Host:.
I meant to code a Firefox plugin to do this automatically and sell copies to the more Myspace-obsessed people, but I graduated before I got around to it.
@blakeyrat said:
Sure, *you* know how to use it properly, but what happens when *you* leave the company?
No longer my problem, it's the company's fault for hiring such retarded developers and now they can deal with the problems they created by hiring that guy who has "15 years of experience in C#". Writing sane code isn't such a hard concept to grasp. If you can't read it back 5 seconds after you wrote it and know exactly what it does, it's not sane.
// This is sane.std::cout << "Good morning " << ((gender == Male) ? "Sir" : "Ma'am") << std::endl;
// This is not sane.
nresetDN =
(divSel==3'b000)?((div2N[9:0]==10'h000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b001)?((div2N[10:0]==11'h000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b010)?((div2N[11:0]==12'h000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b011)?((div2N[13:0]==14'h0000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b100)?((div2N[14:0]==15'h0000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b101
)?((div2N[15:0]==16'h0000)?1'b0:1'b1):(divSel==3'b110
)?((div2N[19:0]==20'h00000)?1'b0:1'b1):1'b0;
The stupidity of other people is not an excuse to avoid using your own intelligence.
@blakeyrat said:
Whenever you have advice that sums to, "don't use it unless you're really careful," you're better off just not using it at all.
What do you recommend instead of rm? You have to be careful to not sudo rm -Rf /, therefore you're better off not using rm at all.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the ternary comparison operator. It's quite useful for printing bitfields readably (printf("%s", (foo & 0x01)? "bit is set" : "bit is not set");) "Others might abuse it" isn't a good reason not to use something yourself, if *you* know how to use it properly.
I actually quite like that inline switch expression shown above, it's pretty clear what it does and is less code than if (foo) printf("stuff"); else if (morefoo) printf("more stuff"); etc.
F[CS]CJ?
And yes, forced password changes are retarded and serve only to confuse me for weeks after. Especially when they involve the password being sent around in plaintext.
@Heron said:
I think it's more likely that the list of books is unavailable, making so that you can't order from anywhere merely because you don't know which books to order.
Exactly. (Actually the course reference numbers are passed from Connections (the system that's down now) to the external online bookstore to generate a shopping cart there, but in the end that *is* your book list.)
My school was more devious; they only show you your book list for the new semester starting one week before the first day of the new semester, so you wouldn't be able to get them online in time for classes without paying far too much for shipping (you'd spend less just buying books from the school bookstore). The school doesn't prohibit buying books elsewhere, they've just made it very inconvenient to do so...
That's just mean :/
Edit: I just called them to see if I could come in and get the list. Their phones are out now too.
@tgape said:
It's more of a WTF for your textbook ordering to be hosted by your school, IMHO. I would find having to get books from the university itself to be an ethical concern I'd prefer to avoid if feasible. (Of course, if it's just that the university bookstore is the preferred place from which to order your books, owing to discounts, convenience of order pickups, and/or store knowledge of the latest whims of your professors, that's another matter.)
More that everything is being paid for by scholarships and grants, so it's one of:
It's also possible that the 'email' inclusion could date back to a time when they were hosting their own email system
@tgape said:
Are you disagreeing with them?
Not necessarily, but I'd prefer that they not take down the entire thing at once. What I was pointing out here (I thought the bright red arrows would give it away) is that they claim that email is unavailable despite it being completely available.
Alternatively, if they really are into WTFs, it could be they've just disabled real authentication, and anyone can log into any account so long as they know the email address.
They're Blackboard users. Don't expect too much.
You feel it's a WTF for services in scheduled downtime to not be working?
It's a WTF for me to not be able to order books for next semester during the time which I would usually order books for the next semester. And why not selectively take down parts of it as they're working on it, or just provide a "some things may not work" disclaimer and leave everything up?
Yes, that too, but I already started one thread full of horrible memories of Blackboard. I was trying to be nice and let people continue to suppress those memories.
So my college decided Christmas would be a good time for some server maintenance:
WTF1: They claim email is unavailable, then provide a login form which works fine (email is provided by MS Live, so not affected by their "maintenance").
WTF2: Everything else they mentioned IS unavailable, so now I can't order my books for next semester.
@El Disposo said:
If the author of the program you used hadn't been dumb enough to compile the XML into their app as plain text without doing any tests to make sure it hadn't been edited, you wouldn't even have noticed this.
... that's just the wrong way of thinking about it.
Developer: Your word choice shows that this is a huge security hole with no remedy! I'm absolutely right and you're absolutely wrong, and it doesn't matter if there's a workaround!
"Workaround" is never a proper substitute for "proper security". Also, clearly it's not working very well, because this guy managed to get a 96.6% discount.
[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]I've heard stories about people opening PC's to find roach carcasses.[/quote]
I've seen several metric fucktons of (live and dead) roaches in a single case*, but never spiders. Honestly, after that I'll take a swarm of spiders any day. You got lucky.
* It was so bad I pulled half the parts out and instructed the owner to cover the bottom in whatever poisonous substance she had. There were also a ton of viruses which I said I'd come back for and never did.
Nope, just got tired of arguing with people who think they're automagically right and every other way is wrong and nobody should have a choice in anything.
There's a word for that... Nazis?
I cannot resist arguing against someone who thinks their way of doing something is magically right because some "usability study" somewhere said so.