Category: Technology

Microsoft sez:

Microsoft’s solution would be to make developers shoulder the responsibility if their sites break when rendered by IE 8.

Sounds a lot like their “solution” to a lot of broken things.

Whenever some developer or project manager tells me that a software application does not have to provide bulletproof validation for administrators because they’re not as dumb as normal users, I pause a moment to reflect upon administrator genius:

trumwill: Over the weekend the company changed everything on the network. They sent out an email with our new network passwords.

morequen: Wait, they sent out *an* email?

morequen: with everyone’s password?

trumwill: Everyone’s password being the same, yes. They advised us to create a new one.

morequen: wow

trumwill: Which would be possible if we could, you know, log in to see the email. Which of course we couldn’t because our passwords didn’t work.

Administrators are just users put in charge of other users. Smarter? Maybe sometimes. But software shouldn’t be written as though its users are Steven Hawking, because sometimes those presumed genius-level administrators are nothing but users tasked with administrative responsibilities.

(Link seen on Dustbury.)

In this column, he subtly hints at how he feels about competing computer technologies:

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

No word on how many Linux adherents lost lunch money on the playground to Brooker immediately after publication of said article.

(Link seen on Outside the Beltway.)

Mail merges have been automatic for 20 years, right?

Front

Back

Today, I received this message:

Oh, no, I thought like good little phishbait. I didn’t even bid on that.

But instead of clicking through on the e-mail, I go to ebay.com and search for the item.

Well, low and behold, the item number in question was an actual item and it was offered by the seller mentioned in the phish e-mail:

Of course, it’s still obviously a phish because:

1. That’s not the e-mail address tied to my eBay account.
2. The e-mail lacks most eBay header/footer details.
3. The message headers indicate it came from somewhere besides eBay.
4. The auction that I was “delinquent” for hadn’t ended by the time I received an e-mail.

But still, the sophistication of this particular phish is remarkable. It scrapes an actual auction off of the eBay site before or at the time of mailing to make it seem more authentic.

I’m almost afraid enough to vow to never click a link in an e-mail again, but I’d probably get fired.

Wow, sending free CDs for a dial-up Internet service:

Dude, when someone comes to you with a marketing plan exhumed from a time capsule, it’s for historical perspective, not implementation.

Steve Jobs has certainly recognized, so far, that the products and interfaces that most closely resemble the things we’ve been conditioned to expect from 40 years of Star Trek win, but I’ve got two words for him:

Voice Recognition

Touchscreen is nice on this little tricorder thing (what, you scan it in with the camera and run it through OS X applications and you’d call it something else?), but whomever gives me voice-activated wireless communication with my home network and through the firewalls to the Internet will win.

Whether it’s an affected A like the television show or a little Windows icon on the RFID on my chest that I tap remains to be determined.

Clicking through a link on my MSN Messager, I got the following helpful error message:

Note Microsoft’s tips:

1. In your browser, click refresh. But the URL is for a unique landing page, toobusy.html. So refreshing will only reload the error page.
2. In your browser, click Back, and try again. But since I reached this page without navigation in the browser, the Back button is not enabled.
3. Wait a few minutes and try again. Bingo.

The screen offers me three options, only one of which I can actually try. In that case, the screen should only offer me a single option.

Such things lead a user to believe that maybe the application, or at least the copywriters behind the interface, are out of touch or incorrect sometimes. That blows a user’s trust in an application, or it should.

But me, I am in QA; I don’t trust my watch without checking it against my cell phone, the clock on the computer, and the clock on the phone.

A number of years back, I signed up for the MGM newsletter as part of a contest entry or something. Every so often, one of the newsletters hit my e-mail box, and I deleted it without reading it. Finally, I decided to save myself the step of manually erasing the unread by unsubscribing to the marketing missive.

I clicked through the unsubscribe link and entered my e-mail address. A thank you page displayed and assured me I would be removed.

Meanwhile, a pop-under displayed:

An invitation to subscribe to the newsletter from which I just unsubscribed.

Those kids at MGM are ever the optimists, ainna?

It’s not Microsoft Bob, either; it’s Ms. Dewey, a Flash presentation wrapped around Microsoft’s new search engine.

When someone asks:

Can anybody define the test cases on mobile.

so he/she can use the answers in a job interview, Brian J. steps up to the plate:

Lynne, help a guy out!

To test mobiles, you should ensure that:
* Individual items move freely on their strings.
* If automated, the wind up mechanisms stores kinetic energy and the start/stop controls work.
* If musical, the correct notes play in a recognizable order.

You might have to test the mounting equipment as well to ensure it handles the weight of the mobile apparatus.

Some “real” “QA” “professionals” seem unamused.

The old adage which powered a large number of failed startups remains true. If you break into a new industry or make a new product, you have to be the first to offer it and build market share, or no one will think to buy your product when there’s a dominant product already offered.

Case in point: Christian First Person Shooter video games. Super 3D Noah’s Ark is credited with being the first.

And you cannot even think of what might have been the second one, can you?

There’s probably an MBA paper in this anecdote somewhere.

Error message from Hotmail:

Please note the steps to remedy the situation:

• In your browser, click Refresh.
  As it’s an HTML error page, refreshing the error page will simply redisplay the error page.
• In your browser, click Back, and try again.
  The application redirected me immediately to this page when I tried to reach Hotmail.com; ergo, clicking back would take me back to the unrelated previous Web site I would have visited. In this case, since I went directly to Hotmail when I opened the browser, the Back button was not enabled at all.
• Wait a few minutes and try again.
  I guess that’s the only choice, really, and since it’s the only choice, it should be the only hint.

Microsoft: It’s some language for placebo.

A former World of Warcrafter laments on how the game ruins lives. He enumerates the fundamental flaws:

First off, let’s go back to the time it takes to accomplish anything in the game. To really be successful, you need to at least invest 12 hours a week, and that is bare minimum. From a leadership perspective, that 12 hours would be laughed at… . The “good guildie” who plays about 10 hours a day and seven days a week.

And:

The game also provides people with a false sense of security, accomplishment, and purpose. Anyone can be a superhero here if they have the time to put in….

And people put everything on the line for these accomplishments with which they associate much value. I know of children and spouses being forced to play and grind for their parents, threats of divorce, rampant neglect, failing grades in school, and thousands of dollars spent on “outsourcing” foreign help. For what, you ask? Honor. The desire to be the best for at least one week…. The accomplishment and sacrifice itself are meaningless a few days later. Then it’s usually off to the races again.

And:

Finally, when you’re a leader there is a call (or more appropriately a demand) for success. Usually those you represent want to keep progressing. They want to keep improving. They want more access to the best things. It is on you to provide it. In my experience, when you fail to progress fast enough, waves ripple throughout the guild and people become dissatisfied. It’s your fault, no matter what.

All in all, it sounds like good training for the business world.

If Face is trademarked by Facebook and pod is trademarked by Apple, if I created something called FacePod, would Apple and Facebook collide cataclysmically in their haste to sue me?

A friend e-mailed me from his new job, and I saw his signature block was doubtlessly a company recommendation:

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT: This e-mail and any attachments are intended only for those to which it is addressed and may contain information which is privileged, confidential, and prohibited from disclosure and unauthorized use under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, or copying of this e-mail or the information herein is strictly prohibited by the sender. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting all copies from your system.

Dear unnamed company functionary, please note that my receipt and opening a message that came from your servers does not constitute a legally binding agreement on my part. Come and get me if you must, but please spare me the ill-informed bluster.

Gamers with Jobs, a blog by people who play video games and apparently have real jobs.

Oracle security sister preaches:

Oracle’s security chief says the software industry is so riddled with buggy product makers that “you wouldn’t get on a plane built by software developers.”

And:

“What if civil engineers built bridges the way developers write code?” she asked. “What would happen is that you would get the blue bridge of death appearing on your highway in the morning.”

Remember, gentle reader, MfBJN thought about that in 2004.