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Here's a clue for all the clueless people out there, thinking they're all that because they design software and operating systems that don't do their jobs: It isn't doing it, and I am Ticked! The result of being unable to do my work today as a result, is that I have time to build a new web page. Here it is.

There is a "joke" making the email chain letter rounds, for some time now, in which leaders of GM and Microsoft trade barbs about what their own products would act like if designed by each other. I honestly don't know whether these persons actually made these statements or not, but I do know that each makes some good points about the other's products.

Here's a point which I believe the GM leader missed making about what his cars would do if designed like computers are designed:

If cars were designed like computers, every time you urgently need to operate one of the vehicle's controls on a moment's notice, the vehicle would concentrate exclusively on seven other irrelevant tasks, five of which the user has no desire to have done, and then an entirely different control would pop up in front of the one he's using and force itself into his hand in place of the one he was using.

Can you picture what it would be like to run over a child because your car was too busy to activate your brakes and steering, and when the car finally gets around to paying attention to you, you find that you have frantically tuned the radio and dimmed your lights?

I read that there are now more computers in a typical car on the road than there were involved in an Apollo Mission. As many computers as there are in vehicles these days, how do vehicle manufacturers prevent such problems?

Thanks to the way computer platforms and operating systems are designed, this sort of thing happens several times a day on most any PC.

...is the Help File. If I'm looking at a Help File, it's because I need to know how to get the software to do what it's supposed to do when it's not doing it - not what it's supposed to do. Why do the idiots who write Help Files always pass the buck by assuming that the user has done something wrong?

A tip for anyone who has written a Help File: Search and Replace the term, "simply", and any synonyms the dictionary comes up with, with explanations of what the user has to do get it done.

Next, since the very reason why we're reading the stupid Help File is because the idiot software isn't working, tell us what we really have to do to get it to work.

Users don't like to micro-manage the software's mundane procedures. Once we've initiated a process and pulled up another window in front of it, it's welcome to do its thing in the background. We don't need it to pop up in front of our work, intercept our mouse clicks and key strokes, and make rapid-fire d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d noises at us indicating that the work we just did has to be done over, or worse, not make the noises so that we don't realize we just wiped out or corrupted all the work we did before initiating the process.

The ones who make modem dialers and other software which require users to enter usernames and passwords, and especially the ones that save passwords for us. Yeah, Microsoft, I mean you!

I've noticed that this kind of software doesn't actually save a password for the user unless it works once. Some of them actually enter it for the user as soon as he signs up for the service. That's fair enough, kind of nice actually. But once you've confirmed that it's correct, what's the point of telling me later to check my username and password when the login fails?

You should know as well as I do, that the username and password are just as good now, as they were the last several hundred times that they successfully logged me in. It's the server at the other end that has failed to process the login properly, so why are you harassing me about it every time it fails?

You've designed the dialer to redial when the phone company fails to connect, so why doesn't it redial when the server fails to connect? Considering that while the phone company may fail to connect perhaps one time out of ten, servers seem to fail to connect about two times out of three, you guys are beating the wrong horse!

Eksyooz me for riting fonetiklee bud I need to tel sumbuddy reelee stoopid sumthun reelee importunt. Dis iz for duh peepul that make furee innernet survus software:

Duh time tuh tell me dat duh yuzername an passwurd iz rong is win yur verifyun dem. Nod aftur I wated a haf our for duh adz tuh start showun!

Sints yoo had duh software inter and rumembur dem innyway, wut bizznuss doo yoo hav sayun duh passwurdz rong? If derz sumpin more obnokshus dan telun me my yuzername and paswurd iz rong win yoo no its rite I didn no wad it wuz, but yoo did didncha?

If yoo thot I woodunt figyur out win you gave me duh messij dat duh yuzername and paswurdz rong dat yoo wood no I coodunt git duh clikabul link in dat messij tuh wurk win yoo wont evun let me online, den yur just as stoopid az yoo thot I wuz. I just hope dat my fonetikal spelun iz tawkun down lo unuff for yoo tuh unnerstan.

P.S. Dont just coppee duh Help Filez yoo pud on my hard drive on yur web site. Win I cum to yur web site Help Sekshun its bukuz duh wun yoo pud on duh hard drive didunt tel me wadz reelee rong.

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