Wait, What? Why??

I needed lunch.

I ordered lunch (and a couple days extra lunches).

And then I noticed one of those, "wait, what?" moments.

If you click on something on this site to add it to your pizza (in my case, by mistake green peppers, as well as tomato and chicken) then remove it (allergic, too cheap, too cheap)... it shows up on your receipt.

As, "no {whatever}."  Which makes sense, if your computer isn't smart enough to recognize "Hawaiian BBQ Chicken without BBQ Sauce," but makes no sense if there's no "standard menu item" involved.

In this case it's costing Domino's another pizza -- which I await now -- without green peppers.  Since the guy making it somehow saw the "no" in front of tomato and chicken, but not green peppers... which would make me very, very ill.

What was the developer thinking?!

You can think about big enterprises, and probably get the sinking feeling that this happens on a daily basis but none of the lowly franchise employees have a means or the clout to get it fixed with The Pizza Mothership Web Development team.

Which Set Do You Think Is Easier To Use?

How Microsoft thinks I should use Windows:

How I use Windows, once I talk someone into giving me Administrator rights.

Dear Outlook,

I know that this is futile, but I'm going to say it anyway.

When are you going to be better? There's so many things wrong with you, but today your lack of ability to tell that 2 people are the same people is really getting to me. 

You aren't going to send the same person 7 copies, so why won't you deduplicate my to: line?

For example:

Should become this when I click the little Man + Checkmark icon.

Not this:

That way when I'm reading a list of 75 people on the to line, I can better see that Jane is on the list (or not on it).  Speaking of, it would be nice if the To: box could expand to show everyone there, but maybe that's just me. 

This mostly happens when we have 17 Outlook distribution groups, I add each one, then need to deduplicate it to see who is missing, since between them John Smith is on 15 and yet Sally Roe is missing from all of them...

*sigh*

PDF Wackyness

My husband has been setting up a netbook for his mom. He was shocked and appalled by how big Adobe Acrobat Reader is... he kept muttering about PDF being an open standard.



He asked me how big the "whole thing" is.



I did some comparisons.



It does seem odd that Adobe Photoshop CS3 + Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 + Adobe Flash CS3 + Adobe Illustrator CS3 disk space = 76% of (Adobe Acrobat Pro 9) disk space.

And yes, my desktop color theme is "Spruce."

Update to Last Post

Dear HP,

When I print, setting the printer to print 2-4 pages per sheet of paper, b/c I'm trying to not waste paper, please insert a page break between copies 1 and 2.

It's bad enough that I have to turn collating on by hand, but it's embarassing to have to cut off 1/2 a page and staple it to the top of every odd numbered copy... and the other half to the end of every even numbered copy.

Really, your business is printing, how hard are concepts like this? There's not even a setting I can find to force the printer to do this right!

-Me

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Long Time No Post

And now, a micro-post.

Dear HP,

I'm trying to be a good citizen and not print 8,435 extra pages.

Please make collate the DEFAULT when I print multiple copies to one of your printers.

Thanks,

-Me

World of Warcraft Gets (Some) Accessibility....

Buried in the 3.1 patch notes we see this:

The Interface menu features a Color Blind option.

Yay for accessibility.

Yeah! I Knew It!

It is absolutely silly that companies spend tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to "catch" one 9$/hr clerk sending a Hallmark card to grandma...

Now there's research to show how really silly that is.

"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased productivity," he said.

and

"Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online under the pretence that it costs millions in lost productivity," said Coker. "That's not always the case."

See more: Hey, boss! Facebook makes better employees

It's ALWAYS the Fault of that Horrible Internet...

Heard this story on the radio and was annoyed...

http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/41673662.html

Basic summary:

• Homes broken into while empty and for sale
• Appliances taken
• Homes listed on Internet
• Obviously Internet at fault

Nowhere in the story does it indicate if these home were listed in the papers, had signs in front, had open houses, had been very publicly moved out of, had had an eviction, etc.

Most homes for sale are now listed on the Internet.

While I do not doubt that someone would look at Internet listings to pick houses to steal AC units from (wish they would steal mine, I need a new one... well, ok, maybe not, we wouldn't get replacement value...) the concept of the stories seemed to be, "Don't list your home online or thieves will come vandalize it!"

How about, "Don't leave a home obviously empty while on vacation, for sale, or for rent unless you want Bad Things to happen?"

I guess there wouldn't be a story if it was just, "Some people continue to be stupid and others continue to be criminal" instead of "Internet EVIL."

Well THAT'S Incredibly Helpfull...

http://www.microsoft.com/products/ee/transform.aspx?ProdName=Office&EvtSrc=OfficeErrorMessages&EvtID=10070&LCID=1033&ProdVer=11.0

What an odd little message...

I needed to print a meeting, with attachments, from Outlook.

Note the instructions in the far left lower corner.... yes, I can print the message to any printer I want... but not the attachments.

Microsoft is so weird.

I Am Selected As Gmail Guinea Pig

Yesterday, while logged into Gmail, I saw this:

The red text (a little small here) says, "Import mail & contacts ^Test."

I became very excited! At last, a way to import my old Outlook PST files. And then, thinking, not just my Outlook files -- the Thunderbird (Mozilla) files... the old Netscape mail files... wait, I think I have old mbox (pine) files...and Eudora, oh sweet, old Eudora files.

Alas, 'twas not to be.

Gmail is only testing importing from these:

aim.com
aol.com
aol.fr
caramail.fr
clear.net.nz
cox.net
comcast.net
cs.com
earthlink.net
freenet.de
freeserve.co.uk
gmx.at
gmx.ch
gmx.de
gmx.net
hotmail.com
hotmail.co.uk
hotmail.de
hotmail.fr
Ihug.co.nz
juno.com
laposte.net
live.com
lycos.co.uk
msn.com
netscape.com
netzero.com
neuf.fr
optoonline.net
optusnet.com.au
orange.fr
orangehome.co.uk
orcon.net.nz
paradise.net.nz
rr.com
slingshot.co.nz
sprint.ca
sympatico.ca
tiscali.co.uk
verizon.net
voila.fr
wanadoo.co.uk
wanadoo.fr
web.de
worldnet.att.net
yahoo.com
yahoo.co.uk
yahoo.co.in

Before Gmail I didn't USE webmail... I used Pine for online access!

Alas, my heart is broken.

However, I am pleased to note the forum set up just for telling Google what isn't working (or in one case, what is typoed) has 35 posts. And 4 of them are about importing old files. (Ok, one is mine).

I didn't see anything else that was the same request over and over again... so maybe someone will listen. Maybe.

I also noted that whatever nerd-factor⁴ gets one selected for Gmail feature testing also leads to other users besides me wanting more than just Outlook files.. someone else posted Mbox files and Thunderbird long before me.

I do seem to be the only one with mail still stuck in Netscape and Eudora files. ;>

God, now that I think about it, I probably have old AOL exports, too. (Hey, in 1995 that was the only way to get dialup over Christmas break!)

I Get Annoyed Again: American Airlines Dot Com

Background: Due to a specific 40 week project, we are booking some plane tickets to go from RDU to SAN. I have in the past accidentally booked the wrong return date on AA.com, so I'm super-cautious before I want to commit to the ticket. (AA currently has the lowest tickets.)

Anyway, I will vent on AA.com today. Whee.

Let's go ticket shopping!

I've already got tickets to SAN, so let's go someplace a little more fun. Nice, France. For a month. For our anniversary and my birthday. Sounds good.

I get this lovely "not quite stolen directly from southwest.com" grid.

Except I only get the grid if I don't care when I fly. This search specifically does NOT give all the flights in a day. For RDU-ICT (a different ticket), it didn't show me anything leaving after 5 pm. The flight routing does exist... but this search won't tell me about it.

I can find that routing if I select that I only care about Schedule.

But that interface won't tell me prices! (Yes, I realize that's an insane ticket below, but I want to see it as a choice, insane or not.) So now I get that"Enhanced" means "find out the price of each leg." Because, you know, that's obvious and I'm just slow...

So, sure, American will let me search by price... but they won't give me the whole picture. I can't willingly choose a more expensive starting flight if i want to, and then switch to cheaper seats for the rest of the ticket.

Ok, let's get back to today... we pick some tickets to Nice.

This looks good, but I hope no one is talking to you, the phone doesn't ring, and your dog doesn't bark...

because that's the last time you will see that information until after you buy your ticket.

The next pages in the transaction don't tell you what tickets you bought, what dates they are one, what flights.. anything.

If you get distracted, or maybe you're a bit confused because you've been shopping multiple routings on multiple airline sites, and you want to go back and see what you're buying before you commit to spending $3070 on non-refundable tickets... well don't get distracted or confused.

Sidebar: Raise your hand if you think buying airline tickets with PayPal® won't get you on the No-Fly list, or at least the belly-button inspection list...

Clicking back to check if that's really the flight choice you wanted and ignoring all the reload warnings (hah, the dangers of being a web developer, no fear!) leads you to a page that suddenly tells you that you are returning on your departure date... or departing on your return date. That's no good.

This is the point where I actually closed my browser, turned off the TV, told my husband to shush the dog and started the whole thing again. *Sigh*.

During the process of buying my "I'm so poor" tickets to San Diego, I gave up on actual seats on one of the flights.

The following flight has $99 seats. It's from Texas to California, so I doubt the seats ever sell for less than $99 AND there is no way they will sell the whole plane at that price. In fact, as soon as the plane starts to fill up, those $99 seats will be gone.

So why is this the available seating? (The 3 center orange seats)

Is the whole flight booked with the Society of Antisocial Sociopaths Annual Vacation Club, or is it that AA is not ever going to release that coveted aisle/window seat for a lowly $99?

Later in the week, I want to go back to see if more seats are available.

I've done this before, so I go looking for the place to check in/change seats that ONLY requires my "record locator number" and name, not an AA username and password which I think I had in 1997, but don't know anymore.

Hmm. Where do I go? View / Change Reservations, that sounds good.

No. Not there.

Here?

No. Same that's the same page, again!

Where? Let's try this. The words say no, but I can't see anywhere else to try...

Finally, aha! Yes, following the link to purchase tickets allows me to select seats for a flight I already paid for. Again, I must be slow because that's so obvious.

Why is this so hard?

And lastly, in the course of grabbing these screens I saw this ad approximately 5,432,232 times.

I have to say that the URL /onebigmillion is really lame on an ad that says ONE MILLION. What, it's a different million? There is a small million but this, this is a BIG million? Either the campaign is One Big Million and the ad image doesn't tie in properly, or the URL is just silly.

Or my patience with everything AA is out, and I haven't even gotten to the airport yet...

Best Error Message Ever

Ok, maybe not ever, but certainly best error message this month...

Austin (Of Course It's Austin) Area Road Signed Hacked...

I love this story (http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/Road_signs_warn_of_zombies).

I love it b/c it's silly, and reminds me of LA Story, which I just saw on Tivo again the other day.

And I love that the news site ran a serious story... then put a bunch of Zombie related links to the side under, "Your Guide to the Undead."

Yeah, That's Why It's Known As a "Crackberry"

On the other hand, if it takes the addictive factor to get a president to use e-mail, ok then...

I wonder if he was looking something up in Wikipedia? Lord knows that's one of *my* number one uses....

Ed: More on the new president and his beloved Blackberry: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28780205/

Got a little wacky in training class....

Looks like Microsoft is having a bad day...

Zune issues suddenly swamped Google...

And yes, for the record, this is my OWN screenshot, no one pointed this out to me. (Glare at my husband for assuming I stole this post!)

Update... Zune's broke: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28449091/

I find it amusing that Google predicted the story hours before MSBBC ran it...

Unfortunately, Often Seems True

OMG, Microsoft, Seriously??

I've got a ton of meetings scheduled. The attendee lists are long. I would like to print the list of people who have accepted, declined, tentative, etc.

Except, according to Microsoft, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011499821033.aspx, I can't.

What, it's important enough to be a tab on the screen, but not important enough to ever print? Seriously?? WTF.

"There is currently no direct way to print the names of the people who have been invited to a meeting"

and

"Only the names of the meeting organizer and attendees are copied. If you are the meeting organizer and you want to include each attendee's response to your meeting request, click the Tracking tab, press ALT+PRINT SCREEN, and then paste the image into a Microsoft Office program file."

Ok, you're a multizillion dollar company. You know something is wrong, because you have a help page on something, and the answer is to alt-printscreen?

Really?