Best and Worst Software Features of the Week

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I was typing in Microsoft Word and I started a bulleted list with an item like this:

  • Topic1. A sentence about Topic1. And another one.

Then I hit the Enter key.

What do you think happened?

Not only did I get another bulleted list item, Word set the font to bold!

So I typed this:

  • Topic2.

And as soon as I typed the period, Word turned bold off!! Not only did it figure out that I’m creating a bulleted list, it figured out that I’m starting each bullet with bold font, followed by a period, followed by more text in regular font, and it takes care of everything for me automatically! That’s pretty sophisticated.

Compare that to Lotus Notes, which can’t even figure out when I hit Enter twice that I want to turn the bullets off!

We use Notes at work and I swear to God, if I type a bulleted list and hit Enter twice, Notes gives me this:

  • Item 1
  • Item 2
  • Item 3
  •  
  •  

I actually have to turn bulleting off manually! Does anyone really want to create a bulleted list with multiple empty items?

I’ve never seen another text editor do something this stupid . . .

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Lotus Notes Sucks

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I’m working with a company that uses Lotus Notes. It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve had to use Notes and it’s as bad as ever. It’s probably the worst piece of software ever released by a major company.

The worst feature — well, it’s hard to pick a worst feature, but one of the worst features — because I have to deal with it dozens of times a day — is the way Notes makes me reply to email. I can’t just click Reply and start typing. When I click Reply, I get a dropdown list of options and have to select one:

– Reply
– Reply with History
– Reply without Attachment(s)
– Reply with Internet-Style History

The godawful thing about this is that default options for email work 100 percent of the time. I always want to reply with history and without attachments, so why give me a bunch of options that I don’t want and make me explicitly select one every time?

Why would I not want to reply with history? If I’m sending replies without including the original email for context, most people send and get way too much email to remember what the heck I’m responding to.

And why would I send an attachment back to someone with my reply? They already have the document. They sent it to me. They don’t need another copy of it. But every day I see emails going back and forth across the network with multi-megabyte attachments because people have to explicitly select an option to remove it.

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Dinner Conversation

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“The boy I started tutoring in algebra a couple weeks ago,” I say, “his mom told me he got a C on his last test.”

“You’re fired,” my son says.

My wife stares at me in disbelief for a few seconds.

Finally she says, “That’s not your fault. You can only do so much in one hour a week.”

“Actually,” I say, “she thought that was great. It all depends on your expectations.”

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The Average Software Developer

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The average software developer reads less than one professional book per year (not including manuals) and subscribes to no professional magazines. These developers are not developing or advancing themselves professionally. About 75% of these people do not have a degree in computer science or a related field. They learn by trial-and-error and on-the-job training, which means that they risk learning other people’s bad habits rather than industry best practices. This method of professional development perpetuates ineffective, inefficient practices that hinder the success of software projects.

— Construx.com

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Wasted Years

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My 14-year-old son informs me that he is not “wasting his years” the way I am . . .

“Is that what I’m doing?” I ask. “‘Wasting my years’? How am I wasting my years? Taking care of you?”

“My years are fully utilized and non-refundable,” he says.

“You’re a schmo.”

“Meanwhile, you’re wasting your years, calling people schmoes.”

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Changing Requirements

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The most common reason for software project failure is attributed to requirements issues – badly defined, not stated correctly, changing requirements, etc.

— “Tips for Discovering Requirements”

Any project I’ve done that lasted longer than a day had changing requirements. If your development strategy only works with an unchanging set of requirements, you need to rethink your approach . . .

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Trash by Any Other Name

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Trash by Any Other Name

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if boxes, etc., sitting around the office are supposed to go out with the trash. In Southern California, you’ll often see BASURA written on these things because the probability that a Spanish-speaking person will be taking out the trash is high.

We couldn’t seem to get this box removed by writing BASURA on it, so one of our tech support people came up with this sign . . .

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The Competition: A Sonnet

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“Get off,” my wife says — but the pug
Just looks at her and doesn’t move.
He’s lying in his favorite spot
Beside his master on the couch.

“Off,” she says — the dog just stares;
He could win a test of wills
But when she moves to pick him up
He concedes defeat and jumps.

“I want to sit there,” she explains.
He looks at her, he looks at me
Then jumps up from the other side,
Lying down across my lap

Sideways, facing down his foe
As if to say “Your move.”

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People I Thought Were Dead

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  • Charlie Callas – comedian
  • Robert Clary – actor, “Hogan’s Heroes”
  • Mike Connors – actor, “Mannix”
  • Jackie Cooper – actor
  • Ann B. Davis – actress, “The Brady Bunch”
  • Joan Fontaine – actress
  • Shecky Greene – comedian
  • Ray Harryhausen – film producer, “Jason and the Argonauts”
  • Tom Kennedy – game show host
  • Gina Lollobrigida – actress
  • Peter Marshall – game show host, “The Hollywood Squares”
  • Jack Narz – game show host
  • Joyce Randolph – actress, “The Honeymooners”
  • Ravi Shankar – sitar player
  • Gale Storm – actress
  • Mort Walker – cartoonist, “Beetle Bailey”

Updates

  • Charlie Callas – died 1/27/2011, age 83
  • Robert Clary – died 11/16/2022, age 96
  • Mike Connors – died 1/26/2017, age 91
  • Jackie Cooper – died 5/3/2011, age 88
  • Ann B. Davis – died 6/1/2014, age 88
  • Joan Fontaine – died 12/15/2013, age 96
  • Shecky Greene – died 12/31/2023, age 97
  • Ray Harryhausen – died 5/7/2013, age 92
  • Tom Kennedy – died 10/7/2020, age 93
  • Gina Lollobrigida – died 1/16/2023, age 95
  • Peter Marshall – died 8/15/2024, age 98
  • Jack Narz – died 10/15/2008, age 85
  • Joyce Randolph – died 1/14/2024, age 99
  • Ravi Shankar – died 12/11/2012, age 92
  • Gale Storm – died 6/27/2009, age 87
  • Mort Walker – died 1/27/2018, age 94

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Wives of Spanking Husbands Club

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From the front page of the Los Angeles Times 70 years ago today, Jan. 26, 1938:

Wives of Spanking Husbands
Form Girls’ Auxiliary to Club

SIOUX FALLS (S. D.) Jan. 25 (AP) — Wives of Spanking Husbands’ Club, organized in Sioux City, Iowa, and parent organization of fifty-nine such clubs throughout the nation according to its own figures–reached out for another slice of territory today.

The Iowa housewives who consider it a mark of esteem for their husbands to wield a disciplinary hairbrush once in a while, announced plans today for a junior auxiliary–Daughters of Spanking Parents.

ELIGIBLE GIRLS

A letter received here from Sioux City and signed “Rita Rae, general delivery,” told of plans for the new organization for which she claimed an initial membership of seventeen. Any girl above the age of 11 years is eligible to join, Mrs. Rae wrote.

“We think all parents should spank their daughters when they don’t behave,” Mrs. Rae wrote. “Some girls won’t admit it, but the really know it is better to get spanked than scolded and nagged. Spanking creates a better understanding between parents and daughters.”

MERELY SPANKED

Mrs. Rae is the president of the Wives of Spanking Husbands, which was organized last June 26 under the broad-minded slogan “Spare the hairbrush and spoil the wife.”

“Our husbands don’t beat us,” the Sioux City woman was careful to explain. “They just turn us over their knees and give us a good sound spanking.”

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Don’t Waste Your 15 Minutes of Fame

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[Heath] Ledger’s ex-fiancée Michelle Williams and their two year old daughter Matilda flew from a film set in Sweden to their home in Brooklyn following the tragedy. . . .

Her father Larry Williams said: “It has just broken everybody’s heart in my family. I think Tennyson got it right in the poem he described someone as having died at a young age but burning the candles at both ends. And oh what a beautiful flame he made. That was Heath.

“The saddest thing is his daughter whom he just loved dearly. The Tennyson poem is just so true. His years were few but he left a beautiful legacy.”

— Daily Mail

Okay . . . Tennyson?!

Tennyson did write In Memoriam A.H.H. about a friend who died young, but the candle poem was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends –
It gives a lovely light!

He mentions Tennyson twice, in case you missed it the first time. I’m quotin’ Tennyson here! The first and last time anyone will be interested in anything this man has to say and instead of going down in history as a Tennyson scholar, he’ll be remembered as a puffed-up phony . . .

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Can You Die Too Soon?

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Some media outlets are using the occasion of Heath Ledger‘s demise to publish lists of stars who died “too soon.”

Does anyone really die too soon? Maybe everyone dies at exactly the right time. Maybe some people die too late.

[James] Dean died before he could fail, before he lost his hair or his boyish figure, before he grew up.

— Donald Spoto, Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean

James Dean died at age 24. Did he die too soon? Would he have been remembered as fondly if he’d lived to an old age?

Better to be a delicious fruit snatched away in mid-bite than something one finds in the back of the refrigerator and says, “My god, we should have thrown this out a long time ago.”

It’s never a bad career move to check out in your prime . . .

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Fruit Pickers

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“Look at those guys,” my son says. “They’re all wearing ponchos and it’s not even raining.”

“Well, it was raining,” I say, “and it may rain again. There’s an old saying in the fruit picking business: It’s better to have a poncho and not need it than to need a poncho and not have it. Think about it.”

“Why do I need to think about it?”

“Because it didn’t seem to make much of an impact on you. Want me to say it again?”

“No.”

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Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

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Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams

NEW YORK — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said.

— CNN.com

Possible drug overdose, possible suicide! Oh dear . . . another blow to the theory that being rich and/or famous is the ticket to happiness.

I think most famous actors — not all, obviously — are convinced that they can do things that nobody else can do, that they’re not cardboard people who are adored for no reason.

Tom Cruise, for example, I don’t think will ever commit suicide.

Oh well . . .

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Another Difference Between Dogs and Cats

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Murph & Turbo

Originally uploaded by Somerslea.

One of my co-workers keeps calling another co-worker Misty, although her name is actually Mitzi.

“I’m sorry,” she explains. “Misty is my roommate’s cat and I mix up the names in my mind.”

“Do you ever call the cat Mitzi?” I ask.

“Sometimes, but not as often as I call Mitzi Misty.”

“Does the cat respond when you call her Mitzi?”

“No, but she doesn’t respond when I call her Misty either.”

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