For some reason I’m giving Internet Explorer another chance and making an effort to use IE7. They’re claiming “we heard you” as a tagline for the product, but I don’t think they did.

I just tried going to a couple of wallpaper sites as a test of the next generation of Microsoft’s browser. Guess what I was greeted with? A Windows dialogue box telling me that it’s “preparing to install”. Excellent. Any chance we can discuss what exactly you’re installing?

Then, of course, I’m taken to like 4 sites via popups that are doing god knows what to this VMWare session. I finally got tired of dealing with it and opened the URL in Firefox. Guess what? No popups, no software installations — just wallpaper. Interesting concept.

It appears that, just as with Vista, the IE project has had a lifetime to get where it needs to be but has utterly failed to do so. Why is this? I refuse to believe the programmers are inept; I’ve heard too much to the contrary. So the question remains: what’s making Microsoft so impotent? Why does IE continue to suck so horribly? Let’s see:

1. The interface is crap. It’s not consistent, it’s not intuitive, and it even looks lame.
2. Rumor is that they’ll continue to not support web standards.
3. I’m using a relatively late beta and still can’t safely navigate a goddam wallpaper site due to on-the-fly software installs. They could get away with this being “a feature” in 2000, but today it’s just inexcusable.

Seriously, why can’t these people get their act together? Is it management? No leadership? Resting on laurels? I’m really curious. It’s just a sad joke at this point.

Everything in Leopard that was announced today is cool, don’t get me wrong. But major? I’m not so sure.

What I really want to hear is that they’re going to fix Finder. It’s horrible. It’s a sad day when Windows Explorer, Nautilus, and Konqueror are all better file managers than OS X’s offering. Seriously, they have to do something.

It sounds strange to say it, but I want the basic “Windows” functionality, e.g. to be able to highlight something, cmd-c, go to the desired destination, and then press cmd-v to paste it there. That’s not too much to ask. Or to be able to press return to open something that’s been highlighted. Basic stuff.

Please, Apple…fix Finder.

What’s it called if you have a book that you write in frequently in order to document your various thoughts? Ok, now that you have that word in your mind, what’s it called when you write an entry in that book?

Is it called a diary?

No.

It’s not called a diary. The diary is the entire book. You don’t go and write a diary when your best friend goes away to camp and leaves you alone. That’s called a diary entry.

Similarly, a blog is a “web log”, meaning it’s a log on the web. And just as one doesn’t write logs when something happens, you don’t write blogs either. Once again, blogs are the entire website — not individual posts. This isn’t difficult, folks.

Anyway, I blame MySpace. You should too.

Ok, it’s a minor issue, to be sure, but it bothers me so I’ll mention it.

I hate when I go to a training session where the instructor has a 500×400 foot screen that they’re showing content off of, and then they proceed to hand out that same content in a workbook and expect you to follow along as they change slides.

(long sentence)

Ok, so the content is the same, right? And you have a giant phucking screen with the content on it, right? So why in the hell are you so preoccupied with whether or not I’m following along in my book? I can’t look both places at once, and if it’s going to be one or the other I’d prefer the one that has lowercase letters the size of a sheet of printer paper.

Sheesh…

I can’t get into soccer. To me, they mostly take turns losing the ball, and seem to take shots on goal very infrequently. This, of course, leads to very low scoring games. Great, 0-1 with 5 shots taken in an hour and a half.

Don’t get me wrong, when there’s a brilliant drive that comes screaming down the field, and it culminates with a powerful strike on goal (even if it misses or is blocked) — that’s exciting. My problem is that this constitutes like .07% of games I watch. I watched like 10 games during the World Cup and it was mostly an exercise in frustration.

Of course, I am into MMA, so maybe my standard for action is a bit too high.

Ok, so as of right now I am currently unable to play a good portion of my music and videos that I bought from the iTunes music store. I got to find this out, by the way, while on a plane enroute to New York…while my iPod was devoid of battery life.

When I try and open one of the affected songs or videos I am told that I need to authorize the computer to play the content. When I do so I am told that I already have 5 computers authorized, and that I will need to de-authorize one in order to continue.

Fair enough, but not really, since I only have 1 computer authorized. I figure the answer’s simple and I call my buddy Ken who explains that I simply need to reset my counter — a fact that doesn’t really bother me. So I go and sign into my account to do the reset, and guess what?

My account says I only have 3 computers registered.

Three? As in 5 minus 2? So, just to be clear, the real number is of registered computers is 1. My account thinks there are 3. And iTunes thinks there are 5. Now here’s the beauty of the situation: since I am not up to the limit of 5, I can’t reset the count and get my content to play. WTF. Seriously.

DRM becomes lame at a very specific and tangible piont, i.e. when it interferes with the ability of a legitimate user to use their content in a legitimate way. Well, Apple just hit that point. Only they didn’t just hit it; they trampled it with impunity and ridiculed its heritage.

It’s ironic that after dumping thousands of dollars into iTunes over the last couple of years and using Apple as my shining debate example of correctly implemented DRM, that I am now unable to partake of my legitmately purchased iTunes content.

And it doesn’t seem to be just me; there is a whole lot of buzz right now about ditching OS X for Ubuntu. Did stuff this just happen to a bunch of people at the same time? Did the evil of DRM just catch up with a whole group of us? WTF, Apple. WTF.

“Expect a phone call”, says Daniel, who knows that nobody at Apple is likely to ever see this post, “Expect a not-so-pleasant phone call.”

I’ve consistently heard one thing about IT consultants — most of them suck horribly.

I have to say that I’ve also found this to be true, but not for the reasons I thought. I thought it was an issue with technical ability, but it’s not. It’s not that the consultants I’ve seen are weak technically; their problem is that they seem to have very little regard for what clients want and need, which, if I were to nitpick, is of at least moderate interest.

I’ve seen on a number of occasions where the consultant comes in and essentially starts preaching to his flock. This is how it’s going to be, we know what’s best for you, etc. They simply fail to listen, and what makes it worse is that they seem to favor pre-packaged solutions over those that are customized. Of course, in order to customize a solution they’d have to listen to the client, which could be part of the problem.

At any rate, while it’s bad for most clients (since they’re dealing, by definition, with most consultants), it’s actually quite positive for me. I’m coming to realize that I can be at a major disadvantage technically, i.e. not even in my area, and still offer far more to the client than a so-called expert. The reason for this is simply the willingness to truly listen to the problems that a client is facing, and then follow-up with efficient, customized solutions.

Perhaps it’s bad business to do this; perhaps I’m being naiive about how consulting works. I’m willing to accept that as a possibility. I do know, however, that it’s not possible to make money doing using my approach then I will simply move on to something else. I refuse to become what I see in these others. For the time being, though, I’m going to continue with my theory that you can make money consulting in this ideal, enjoyable way.

We shall see.

Until today I’d never installed a single Adobe Reader update. I’ve been prompted many times over the years but I avoided it because I was somehow sure that it would be annoying.

Today my fears were justified. I decided to go ahead and do it and was soon prompted to reboot my system. Bastards.

But that’s not the bad part. I begrudgingly rebooted and went to lunch. When I got back and logged in, I was immediately presented with a friendly dialogue box from Adobe. It told me I needed to reboot to finish the install of the Adobe Reader update.

Bastards².

Why is it that it consistently takes me like thirty (30) seconds to access Apple’s iTunes Music Store? A while back I was getting in like instantly, but now it’s like I’m loading the next level of a game from the 90s.

Perhaps it’s my machine; I am only running a dual-core 2.0 Ghz Intel with 2GB of memory. Or maybe my bandwidth? I’m admitedly limping along at around 8Mb/second.

What exactly is the problem here? I’m starting to get a bit pissed about it. I don’t see how I can be getting this sort of delay on top of the line hardware and sick bandwidth. Oh, and it does it all night long, too. It’s not just during peak hours.

Anyone have any ideas?

Everyone working at a coffee shop should learn one thing on the very first day – The opening on the coffee lid should be opposite the seam on the coffee cup.

The number of coffee shops that fail to perform this very simple check is staggering. It’s not a complex idea, folks: the seam is imperfect and doesn’t allow a perfect seal with the lid. As such, if someone pours coffee in the direction of the opening, it’ll leak.

I have actually found that many actually (either purposely or without even knowing it) line up the seal and the opening almost perfectly. It’s insane. So what I end up having to do, almost every single time I get a coffee, is rotating the thing back around so that they are opposite each other.

How this issue isn’t common knowledge among coffee shop traning programs is beyond me.