Bug of the Moment

Bug of the Moment episode 220

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:44:42 GMT

Everything I touch…

Now what…?

Bug of the Moment episode 217

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:20:44 GMT

Update Roll-Up 8

The random character appliance

I found the following while trying to locate a device on a network – the network-enabled random character appliance:

Upon receiving the string “GET / HTTP/1.0” it would fire off a string of random characters on that final zero without waiting for two carriage returns/line feeds. I don’t recall seeing any HTTP headers returned, either; it wasn’t my local network otherwise I would have run HTTP Werkzeug on it.

It disappeared from the network later, so I will probably never discover who it was who tied /dev/random to a socket stream.

The Disobedience Option

Apologies for leaving the cursor over the screenshot. FoxIt Reader giving me the chance to disobey it:

They just don’t care

Usability at its finest. You can spend £1000, £2000 or more on a computer and it’s still too stupid to figure out why it won’t let go of your memory stick:

After recently watching Eagle Eye (oh dear…), I think the biggest counter to anyone believing that level of claptrap is a few minutes spent using a real computer.

Time to try turning it off and on again.

Bits and bobs

Java doesn’t take kindly to cancelling its incessant nagging to upgrade:

Word 2010’s error handling when the desktop went away (probably after a VPN connection dropped):

And finally …

Some years ago, I sent off a copy of Evil Invaders to Chris Richardson of 8-Bit Software on 5.25″ floppy, and he converted it to a disc image file. I recently realised that in my intro loader program, I misspelt my own name! So I present to you – I am TRWTF:

I have now corrected C.EVILINV and uploaded a new SSD.

Bug of the Moment episode 216

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:53:07 GMT

So close, yet so far

I am still waiting for the Windows world to figure out windowing systems.

While we wait for the netbook world itself to figure out high DPI displays, here is Adobe’s latest and greatest running on a brand new ASUS Eee PC:

In case it’s not clear (Microsoft still haven’t worked out how to indicate that a window is resizable in a meaningful way), this is a resizable dialog box. As with the previous entry, we have a program on a brand new Windows 7 computer unable to work out how much usable desktop space there is. I struggle with this myself because I have my taskbar at the top of the screen (and this makes many programs cry), but this is your bog standard bottom taskbar.

Unlike my Apple Mail example, the dialog box does scroll, and you can indeed reach every part of it:

Not sure where it thinks the OK and Cancel buttons should be, because here they’re a good distance from the bottom of the window:

Here is the dialog resized to its minimum possible size; it’s conveniently missing a scrollbar in the panel list on the left, and across the bottom of the window:

Granted, Adobe have a reputation for poor attempts at makeshift UI (for example, that Page Units menu above looks iffy), so it figures that their attempt at creating a resizable dialog box is going to be an abject failure. However, after watching the strain that the installer undergoes to get this lummox installed on the computer in the first place, I would expect something good to come out of Adobe’s overblown contraption.

PS: In Windows, it’s Tools → Options, not Edit → Preferences, which itself hasn’t been valid on a Macintosh for around eleven years. (At least Apple have now standardised this; Windows programs continue to place and name the options menu item according to whim, not convention.)

Bug of the Moment episode 215

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:19:45 GMT

This, folks, is what a window manager is for:

The operating system should provide a service for verifying window bounds. You tell it how large your window is, and where you intend to put it on the display (centre on cursor’s display, centre relative to parent window, relative to mouse cursor, largest area spanning all displays etc). The window manager then inspects your bounds, and chooses the best placement possible, moving the window wholly onto the nearest display if necessary (in a direction opposite the offending overlap), and then reducing it in size if it still doesn’t fit. Global regions such as a taskbar or systemwide menu bar are taken into account.

I don’t know how Microsoft Management Console has succeeded in repeatedly opening windows obscured by the taskbar when there is clearly space to slide the window up a bit. This brought back memories of similar but more complified issues in Mac OS X Tiger, firstly Apple Mail creating a sheet larger than my iMac’s display (yes this is a factory default mail rule):

Also, the Finder tended to open Info windows far too tall:

However, the Apple issues are in part due to Apple, like Microsoft, having not implemented a dynamic layout engine as with other window toolkits (GTK, Qt, EIKON and XUL).

Microsoft have no excuse though for blatantly mis-positioning a window. Microsoft Management Console in Windows 7 is hit and miss, but then, it always was hit and miss: a good idea, badly implemented at every level.

Bug of the Moment episode 214

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:55:08 GMT

Any key

From Safari Software’s Traffic Department 2192:

Interesting definition of “any”.