I occasionally show up, about once every 6 months... And here I am today to rant.
I love Vista and IE 7, but they both have a couple of issues that bug me. In Vista, I love the Aero Glass theme; the transparency is awesome. I'm not sure how functional it is but with my background it makes me feel like I'm working in a meadow rather than at dingy corner desk.
So what upsets me is that when you maximize a window Microsoft naturally assumes you want to see only that particular window, so instead of the title bar being transparent, and the sidebar being transparent, they both turn solid black. Visually is sucks, but since I also have a black framed monitor, it actually makes it look like my screen suddenly got a lot smaller. I hate it. And I know they have defended it by saying this is what people need to be productive. but I've tried it for a few months now and it still sucks. Just give me the option!
I know people are coding 'transparent' themes out there but I'm not sure where to begin. One I saw meant a registry edit and that it just too much for me. If any of you have recommendations please let me know.
and IE: I love IE7, and I'm very happy that they stole many great features from others! I was even beta testing IE 7 and credit myself with suggesting MS highlight the tab you have open so you know which one you're reading. They answered my suggestion and bumped it up with a 5 star rating and the next release had it. (I just wish they'd make the highlight a different color, or allow me to color a few of the tabs myself so I can instantly find certain pages I have open all the time...I'm still waiting on my payment from MS by the way.)
But as many of you know, they moved the home page button to the bottom right, and the Back and Forward navigation buttons on the upper left as normal. Obviously they thought this was more productive for some reason. And there is no way to change it.
Admittedly I don't use the homepage button much. If I click on a new tab it opens the home page anyway. But I've been trying this new system for many months now, and guess what? I still want the friggen home button to be up by the Navigation buttons. Maybe I'm just stuck in my old ways? who knows? I don't care. I don't mind that the menu is hidden by default, I don't care if the printer and tool option buttons are elsewhere, but I do want the gosh darn home button on the upper left, as it should be on every website, and on every browser...
BAAHHHHHHHHH!
Lastly, I wrote the Beeb a couple times over the years about their video quality on the news site. I check the site every day to keep up with the latest happenings over the pond. They always have one video story on the right. I avoid it like the plague because it always opens up to the horrendously crappy video with an excruciatingly bad clipped sound track. When I've ranted to them about it they've just wrote back saying I could apply for some premium service "if I was in the UK" or that it's bandwidth issues.
So over the years I just avoid it. Meanwhile I check the page so often and sometimes I see a video story of interest, an I tell myself, "no, stop, don't click it, the crappy quality will just p**s you off." But every month or so I figure, "no, its an interesting story, they must have upgraded the quality by now, i mean come on, its been like 8 years". and I click on it.
today it's a story about some robot Olympics of some kind, so how can I miss that? And I click on it, and I hear the first line, clipped, in this sucky grainy video, and I X it right out.
Why why why do they do this? What possible reason? When a four year old with daddy's cell phone can post a better quality video on youtube, why would they still waste the time of myself and millions of others with this sorry excuse for content?
As you look at news sources around the world, and as you find other avenues, you start to question your beloved beeb. The crappy video really makes me think about other decisions they make. I mean, if this is such a flop, what other flops are going on?
BaH
Big fan though, I love the beeb. All my favorite shows, (well, they killed Top of the Pops, must have been the same people responsible for their web video). I like the World Service. Hope they don't screw that up. But I do think Blair was right about the media recently, and even legitimate UK journalists don't interview people, they spend more time challenging them and trying to dig dirt...
BAH... Thanks for the space
Topic: Vista and IE Gripe from a Microsoft fanboy, plus a word about the beeb (Read 1427 times)