bob gets bloggy

Annoying Programs: RealPlayer

RealPlayer’s offenses, as documented in the article that kicked off this series, go beyond mere annoyance. They are unethical and have resulted in RealPlayer software being banned forever from my machines. This doesn’t mean I have sworn off streaming media — check the Wikipedia article about “Media Player Classic” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Player_Classic) and if you’re interested you can find the download link on the project page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/ .

Annoying Programs: Windows Update

To reduce the annoyance of Windows Update, some people set it to do everything automatically.  I take the opposite approach: I set it to alert me, but then let me decide when to download and when to update. That way the bandwidth hit of downloading and the insistence on rebooting aren’t interrupting me at bad times.  For me it’s less annoying to choose when it downloads and when it installs.  Also, I don’t like to be among the first to use a new update, especially a big one like a service pack. I always wait a few days under the theory that if it is buggy I will have time to hear the digitial screaming of other users before I jump in.

Annoying Programs: Apple

Apple’s annoyances include interrupting you to check for updates on your time, resource-hungry programs that slow your system to a crawl, and digital rights management that mostly gets in the way of using content you’ve already paid for.

Apple’s software is firewalled on my PC and not allowed to check for updates. (I use Comodo Firewall Pro, which is free and very configurable, to accomplish this: http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/download_firewall.html .) Also, I use DRM-free MP3s almost exclusively, mostly ripped myself from purchased CDs, so I only fire up iTunes when I want to hear a podcast from one of the few churches that lock you in to iTunes to hear them. For 99% of my podcatching I use Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/), which uses a lot less resources and works much better (using bit-torrent technology) for pulling down largish MP3s on the thin end of the net.

10 Most Annoying Programs

The linked piece from Rupert Goodwins, ZDNet.co.uk is a humorous but all too true look at some ubiquitous and annoying software.

In response, I find these are all true and bothersome enough that I have quietly dealt with most of them in the normal course of using my computer.  Probably most “computer guys” have done something similar but we forget to document the fixes so they can be shared with non-geeks.  I have taken this as a reminder to document at least these ten.

Adobe Reader: I use Foxit Reader by default
(http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php).  It’s light, quick, and stays in the background where it belongs.  I still have Adobe Reader around, but I have it firewalled so it can’t check for updates.  If and when I receive a PDF I can’t read with Foxit, I do try my current version of Adobe.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll manually check for an update.   By this method I’ve been forced to update once in five years.

By the way, allowing PDFs to display in a browser can crash the browser—it’s usually better to right-click on a PDF link and save it to disk first, then open outside the browser.

Subsequent tips will follow — look for the “technobabble” tag.  As always, your comments are welcome.

thoughts on Windows Vista from a latecomer

We have two Windows laptops here, both purchased during the XP era (which I suppose isn’t quite over yet). One of them is over 6 years old and will probably need to be replaced this year. I suppose we will buy a laptop loaded with Vista, partly because that’s how they come, and partly because I need experience with it.

I don’t own a Vista computer yet but I have been called on to help someone who bought a Vista-loaded laptop. His problems included (1) he needed to load pre-Vista software to get his job done and the installer wouldn’t run under Vista; (2) Vista comes in 8(!) flavors, the one that came pre-installed was inadequate, and when he used the upgrade DVD that came with his laptop, it wiped out manufacturer-specific files and drivers, and he wanted to get them back; and (3) his printer/scanner wouldn’t work with Vista because again the driver installation was incompatible with the new security model. We managed to get past these problems by access to help files and tips on the internet, together with way too much time spent trying approaches that didn’t work.

So, before buying a Vista laptop, I went out and bought a book on Vista.  Reading it has helped me understand the changes under the hood.  I knew to check for updated Vista-compatible drivers on the websites of my peripheral vendors before taking the plunge (not being an early adopter has saved me a lot of headaches on that issue). I now know better than to accept anything less than Home Premium as a pre-install. And I now know that, in spite of all the marketing hype about Vista’s enhanced security, I will still need to run 3rd-party firewall and antivirus (such as Zonealarm’s free firewall and AVG’s free antivirus) because the security that comes with Vista isn’t adequate without them.

I’ve mentioned to a couple of friends who are Windows XP users who have been tempted to try an Apple Macintosh (or even one of the flavors of linux), this might be a good time. It is almost as great a change in user experience (i.e., having to relearn how to get your work done) moving from XP to Vista as from XP to Mac OSX.