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Yet another dope has seen fit to call out Mac OS X's annoyances. Let's have a look.

1. Separating Menu Bar from Window Is Stupid. No, you are if you think the Windows way is in any way better. Location consistency doesn't trump having something infinitely high. Usability studies and common sense tell you that.
2. Apps Don't Really Close When You Close Them. Some do. The ones that don't either take little or no processor time and/or memory or may run tasks in the background. And if you're gonna nit-pick on "annoyances," don't say "when you close them." Say "when you close all of their windows. Duh. And command-Q isn't dangerous, as nearly every Mac app will let you save or cancel if there's a modified document or if it's performing some task.
3. Maximizing Is Broken. No, you're just used to the MDI or whatever it's called on Windows. Apps that need to be full-screen on Mac OS X are full-screen.
4. Alt-Tab to a Minimized App, and It Stays Minimized. Because you may want to make use of cmd-N to make a new window (or cmd-Q, or any number of other menu items and commands. Still, this is the most valid point he's had this far.
5. Too Many Option Keys. It was only ever called "open apple" by dumbasses like yourself. Which ones do you use to right-click? How about the right button on your mouse. Seriously, "too many option keys"? Don't use 'em!
6. No Dedicated Page Up, Page Down, Home, or End Keys. He must be using a laptop, in which case he can simply press the function (fn) key to get page up/down/etc. Or plug in nearly any USB keyboard.
7. Only One Desktop. Uhh, can you do this in Windows? Not that I know of. You can add this - if you'd like - via shareware. I'm fine with Apple keeping this one out of their software. Imagine the number of calls tech support people would get when some mom somewhere can't find that document she was working on because she switched desktops.
8. The Clock Sucks. I guess he hasn't found "View in Window" yet. But c'mon, if "the clock sucks" is in your top 100 annoyances, let alone your top 10, you've got a pretty darn good OS. Especially since, with 30 seconds of research, you can figure out how to change this.
9. iPhoto Sucks. Uhh, okay. That's got nothing to do with Mac OS X. So not only does Mac OS X not annoy him so much he has to talk about the clock, but now he's talking about apps that aren't even part of the OS.
10. Safari Sucks. Not part of the OS. Bzzzzzzt. Sorry, try again.

If I made a list of Windows annoyances, you can darn well bet things like "the clock sucks" wouldn't even come close to making the top ten.

Has anyone seen or heard from Don Yacktman in the past, oh, three months? How about the past month? Week?

I have a vested interest in knowing what the heck is going on with Don due to the fact that he owns what was once my company, and the fact that he hasn't appeared to do jack squat with the software in what will quickly become a full year.

My friend José called me today after getting a new heart last Saturday. He's doing well and they say he has 0% rejection. Frickin' awesome!

I just checked the "value" of my home on Zillow.com (Mac users: use Firefox. Safari is not yet supported). It's "valued" at about $8k less than Carey and I paid for it. But that value is seasonal, too: I checked the graphs and the home was worth $18k more than Carey and I paid for it in August of last year (we bought in April/May).

In a way, the site is kinda creepy… yet I wish I'd had it when Carey and I were looking for our house. It wouldn't have changed our decision at all, but it's still interesting.

Ken Whisenhunt showed that he's not only a smart offensive coordinator, but that he's also an all-around smart person. He turned down Al Davis' offer to coach the Raiders. Oakland is a coaching graveyard, and with the Steelers, Ken sees the potential to win, oh, ten or so more Super Bowls in the next ten or so years. 🙂

Smart decision, Ken.

I hope I'm wrong (please, tell me if I am), but it does not appear that I can tell Entourage to apply "rules" via AppleScript. If I've overlooked the possibility, please tell me how this can be done.

A friend of mine wants to apply a certain rule (or all rules, if the first can't be done) to the incoming messages in a certain folder (that part is easy) on a schedule (this part is also easy).

Well, I said it before and I'll say it again: it's odd how incredibly unsatisfied I am with a Steelers Super Bowl victory. It largely boils down to the fact that the playoffs (Cinci, Indy, Denver) were so exciting and the Steelers had their A game only to bring their C/D game to the Super Bowl. Even still, they beat a Seahawks team that had their B/C game.

There's some chit-chat out there about two key things. The first is the umpiring. This is easily dismissed by people that, y'know, know the rules of football and want to go back and watch the tape. The NFL itself said that the game was "properly officiated." I have the game on TiVo. I've watched all of the controversial calls in slow motion. They were all made correctly. And even if one or two of them had gone wrong, the Steelers would have some legitimate beefs about bad calls, too, the most obvious of which was blocking Ben in the back on the INT return.

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So you can win some things if you download the billionth song.

Great. I can't even add some items to my shopping cart. I get an error 502. I owe someone an iTMS gift certificate and I can't even access the proper "page" to buy a gift certificate, nor can I add songs to my cart.

You know what would be nice for the iTunes Music Store? TABS. Yeah, tabs. That way I could open a page for each song I'd like to add when the darn thing starts working again.

As a lifelong Steelers fan, it's odd how incredibly disappointed I feel after a Super Bowl victory. Neither team brought their A game. Heck, I'd be hard pressed to give Seattle even a B, and Pittsburgh played at least one grade level below them. C+ and C- games, perhaps?

To those who want to blame the zebras, I have a few things to say. First, a push-off is a push-off. Second, you have to make a legal catch before something can be considered a touch-down, and hitting the pylon in the air doesn't count as your "second foot down in-bounds." He was out of bounds. Third, when you have one arm around the front of a player and one around the back, that's holding. Fourth, Ben's TD looked like he barely crossed the front of the goal line to me; the refs agreed, even after review. After the Indy game this year, nobody has a legitimate gripe about the umpiring in the game. Oh wait, there was one horrible call: I don't think you can get flagged for illegal blocking when you're making a tackle.

More in the full entry…

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Today I toggled a setting in this blog's "Feedback" area. I now immediately publish comments only from authenticated commenters. This is two steps up from "no one" and one step down from "Anyone."

MovableType hasn't been updated in months. The next time it is, I'd like to see a setting that immediately approves comments only on entries in the last x days (where x is a text field defaulting to, say, 14). Most spamments are on older entries. But I don't want to turn commenting off entirely because some older entries continue to get valid comments.

At any rate, we'll see how "Any authenticated commenters" works out. If you'd like your comments to appear more quickly, get a TypeKey account. You should be able to get one from the comments below…

Question: What are you doing for the Super Bowl?

My Answer: Staying here with just my wife and kid.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

Webster's, if you'd like to use this image for the next version of the dictionary, you have my express written permission to do so.

Can a judge sentence someone to self castration? Because folks like this should not be allowed to breed. Or even interact with other human beings.

Or maybe the judge could sentence the guy to write 1 million times on a chalk board "If my iPod is too loud, I will henceforth simply turn down the volume."

I don't know what all of the fuss is about - it still looks hideous. Absolutely hideous.

But so long as it renders pages properly, I couldn't care less how it looks because at least I don't have to use it.

This entry is mostly for my wife to make a decision (today). She's at a conference, so this is how I can reach her…

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