Currently at my mother’s UK flat and frankly horrified at some of the kitchen appliance design I’m seeing here. There’s a Credaplan Microwave (which thankfully doesn’t seem to exist anymore) which sports an interface a succession of PhDs have not been able to fathom. Then there’s a brand new Indesit WIDL146 washing machine which looks … Read more
I’ve just spent an hour removing programs from my Windows XP machine. I have far too many programs anyway, but removing them is not made any easier by a lack of basic standards among software developers, who seem to consider software removal as a chance for some creative licence and a last-gasp effort to suck … Read more
Why are the progress percentage bars in programs so useless? This one in TrendMicro’s HouseCall has been telling me it’s 99% done for more than an hour: This is by no means unusual. Software, whether it’s loading, installing, booting, scanning or whatever, doesn’t seem too hot on the old timing front. The jump from 0–99 … Read more
Does anyone know how to skip the trailers on DVDs? I’ve just sat through nearly 10 minutes of promotions — ‘For the first time ever on DVD’ — for six shows from MacGyver to Happy Days on a DVD of Frasier. What makes the folks at Paramount think they can force me to sit through … Read more
The frustrations of tech travel. Some things are easy, some things you think are going to be easy are hard. Like in-room Internet. The last Hong Kong hotel I stayed in had free Internet, but you had to enter a fiddly name and password to get a connection, and even if the account said it … Read more