Rant
There are 8 entries for the tag
Rant
My last couple of posts have been pretty City of Heroes centric and I'm afraid that this one isn't going to be any different. I'm going to pick on some poor schmuck this time, though, so at least I'm trying to give you some variety.
The group I usually play with are all semi-casual players. We do have a Ventrilo voice chat server and we all have microphones, so we're well setup relatively speaking. We typically have a full team (8 people) on Tuesday nights (our regular night), but we also have a minor team going on other nights of...
I just ran into what has to be the buggiest piece of software... ever. Bear in mind that I predate DOS games and have had experience getting games to run in Win 3.1 and even Win ME--some of them games that push the limit of the "Minimum Recommended System Requirements". Maybe time has softened old wounds, but nothing in my memory comes even close to the horror that is Dark and Light. Seriously. Couple all those bugs with the worst "support" I can remember and you get an experience that is simply best forgotten. Or better, best never begun.
I mean, I've been...
More griping. I know! You'd think I were a negative person. I'm not really. I don't think. Anyway, this one is short. I've noticed a trend lately (okay, in two products that I sort of like) where developers are using a progress bar to indicate that the program is busy and will get back to you shortly. Now, to me, there's a reason that ye ole progress bar has a Minimum, a Maximum and a Value. You know, it has a task that starts at some value, that value "progresses" until it hits some ending where it can then stop. No doubt...
I don't mean for this to be a "gripe" blog. Not that gripe blogs aren't entertaining--I mean, I kind of like Mr. Angry, the Daily WTF, and others. That said, sometimes you just have to share in the hopes that you aren't alone in this whole frustration thing. I named names in a previous post about Arrogant Software, so I guess this is mostly adding to the list. Today's highlight is SpySweeper from WebRoot. Now, like all the software on my Arrogant list, I found SpySweeper useful. I even bought two subscriptions so that both our computers would be covered. Unfortunately,...
There's been an uptick in spamming lately. Some believe that it's a result of growth in the number of botnets out there (groups of computers that have been compromised by third-parties to run whatever the third-party wants them to). Personally, I think it's because the penalties for spam aren't stiff enough. After cleaning up my trackback backlog, I'm ready to consider anything. I'm ready to lobby for tar and feathers if that'll help. Judging by the amount of spam for drug suppliers, I'm thinking we can kill two birds with one stone and clear out the FDA's backlog with a...
Ever notice that software seems to have a personality? Some programs are desperate for approval, some eager to please, some like to show-off all their cool features, some calmly wait for their opportunity to be useful. And some programs are simply arrogant jerks. There are a couple of utilities that are useful enough that, like in real-life, you simply put up with their crappy attitude and count the days until a competitor comes along that will offer a viable alternative. I end up tallying my annoyances every time they crop up, keeping score for the day I can wipe them...
Jack Thompson (unhinged anti-gaming activist attorney) shows that his capacity for self-parody is boundless. Here's his fax to the makers of Bully, a game scheduled for release shortly: Take-Two has until five o’clock p.m., Eastern time, Monday, August 14, 2006, to inform me in writing that it will forthwith provide me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat violence in our schools (See Miami-Dade School Board’s unanimous Resolution), or the following will occur: I shall file a lawsuit against your respective companies...
Here are some tips if you have customers who want to cancel their account:
• If you can sign-up online, you should be able to cancel online. Period.
• Voice recognition may be cool to you, but speaking to a computer is less fun to your customers than you’d think, and repeating themselves to one is infuriating.
• A cancelling customer does not need to be cajoled into staying or find themselves speaking with somebody explaining why their reasons for cancelling are bad ones.
• A cancelling customer complaining about billing irregularities from a three-month free offer isn’t going to respond well to another three-month free offer.
• A cancelling...