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Pet hates about plooters

Started by HappyTree, November 24, 2010, 07:53:26 PM

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HappyTree

There are many ways in which the humble computer irritates, but I think my most hated trait is the lying progress bar.

You're sitting there waiting for an update to download and install. To keep you sane the system kindly provides a progress bar so you know, like, how much progress it's making. Or that's the theory anyway. As well as the percentage it also has a convenient graphical indicator and if you have Windows 7 it's nice and green and shiny with a little light moving along like Kit from Knight Rider.

Now I know I should know better by now, but I find that my anticipation mounts as the progress bar fills up. 40%, ok. 50%, we're half way there! 60%, not as long to go as I've already waited. 70%, getting closer... 80%, almost done! 90%, any second now! 98%, come on, come on you beauty! 99%, yes yes yes! 100% Yippee!!!! It's finished. :)

Oh wait a minute, it's still chugging away. I thought 100% completion meant it was all done. What's going on? Why hasn't it stopped yet? More installation to happen? Well why is it saying 100%? Surely it would be best to make the progress bar actually reflect how near to the end you are? In my little head it should stop exactly as it hits 100.

So what is it doing after it's all completed? What more is there to do beyond total completion? If it needs a couple of minutes to sort itself out after it's finished then...it's not finished. So let it hang for a while on, say, 97%, then I won't mistakenly think it's over.

Why do they do that? Yes, I was installing an iTunes update. It stuck on 86% for about half an hour, then jumped to 100% and still had the gall to sit there doing nothing for about 10 more minutes. Rather frustrating. I wish they'd just tell the truth.

Big Jack McBastard

Ah yes one of the many banes of my life, my favourites are the ones that get tedious and you swan off halfway through thinking, 'oh that'll be done in 10 minutes, I'll go and have a cig and chill out for a bit', only to return some 20 minutes later and find it in exactly the same place.

Especially when it's something big like an OS install.

Oooh, my nips are red raw just thinking about it.

Zero Gravitas

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Meaningless-Progression.aspx

Enterprise Quality[nb]And quite possibly made up, like everything else on that site.[/nb]!

surreal


Consignia

Quote from: Zero Gravitas on November 24, 2010, 09:38:18 PM
And quite possibly made up, like everything else on that site.

Nope, I've seen a lot that of stuff from that site in the wild. Admittedly in smaller applications, rather than more enterprise stuff. It happens a lot when old school developers are pressured for time, and need a hack to fulfil a requirement.

On topic, it is quite difficult to do progress bars. I mean, it's easy to differiate "done" and "not done", but how do you place a value in between that? It's tricky to give an accurate value, which is why some times progress bar moves quicker at some points, because the tasks aren't equal in time taken, but equal in weighting.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Uncle TechTip in the tagsPC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does that mean?

* steps forward out of the crowd, arms outstretched *

I'll take this one, having spent ages wrestling with the same question over a hot Laserjet 4M back in the day before I finally worked out the answer.


It means Paper Cassette[nb]i.e. the main paper-tray that comes with it, rather than the big optional 500-sheet one at the bottom (Lower Cassette), or the tiny little top tray for postcards, sticker sheets, and the like (Multi-Purpose).[/nb] Load Letter-sized paper.  "Letter" is an American paper size, roughly equivalent to A4, but not the same.

This message generally means that your copy of Word and/or Windows is still set up for American paper sizes, not British/European paper sizes, and thus by default is trying to print on Letter-sized paper rather than A4-sized paper.  So the printer is telling you "Please take that commie pinko fag subversive A4-sized European paper out of my Paper Cassette, and put in some good ol' honest mom's apple pie Letter-sized paper in, please".

You just press the OK button (or whatever it's called) on the printer to tell it to STFU and print anyway -- it usually comes out OK.


If you already knew that, and were just being whimsical, well fuck it, someone else has probably always wondered about it, and now they know the answer.


An tSaoi

Those loading bars that don't fill up sequentially, but which feature a little block that shoots from left to right, then reappears at the start and keeps on going. A bit like Neo in the train tunnel in Matrix 3. It doesn't give you any impression of how much is actually done.

Quote from: An tSaoi on November 25, 2010, 07:04:55 PM
Those loading bars that don't fill up sequentially, but which feature a little block that shoots from left to right, then reappears at the start and keeps on going.

I swear that's really how Internet Explorer killed Netscape Navigator.

Uncle TechTip

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on November 25, 2010, 05:51:49 PM
If you already knew that, and were just being whimsical, well fuck it, someone else has probably always wondered about it, and now they know the answer.

I recommend you watch the film Office Space! I do like the fact that the dozy HP engineers failed to foresee the confusion that "PC" for Paper Cassette would cause.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on November 25, 2010, 07:52:35 PMI recommend you watch the film Office Space!

Ah right!  I will sometime, then.


Quote from: Uncle TechTip on November 25, 2010, 07:52:35 PMI do like the fact that the dozy HP engineers failed to foresee the confusion that "PC" for Paper Cassette would cause.

Yup, for ages I thought it meant I had to do something on my computer to fix the problem (which actually I did, but not in the way it appeared!).

A really really dumb decision, that.

What else would you call it though, "MC" for "Middle Cassette"?  That would bring on a whole new hilarity: "'MC LOAD LETTER' - who's he when he's about?"