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.