The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

boog · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.

Granted it's a good solution, but there's no excuse for ImgBurn to snap at the user. Some people have feelings, and those feelings can get hurt.

Honestly though, you take this site's content way too seriously. The ImgBurn popup gave me a good laugh, especially after yesterday's story. I'm very sorry if humor's not enough for you.

Wait, no I'm not.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Microsoft released a patch to help with the cravings.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

On the credit card balance: That is totally a failure (mis-feature, perhaps, but still a problem that needs to be corrected) in their reporting software. When you show a financial statement like that (even simplified by grouping debits and credits), you need to show all numbers required to get from the beginning balance to the end balance. Even in the case of pending charges, if you don't include them in the debits/credits then you don't apply them to the ending balance; if you apply them to the ending balance then you need to show them in the debits/credits (under a separate line for pending activity). The reason being that it is verifiable (anybody with a calculator should be able to take the beginning balance, add and subtract the debits and credits and get the ending balance), and if the numbers don't add up (literally) then it needs to be reported.

Similarly, there should never be any activity missed due to some gap between the date of the beginning balance and the start date of reported activity, since those should always be the same date (and time-of-day, be it beginning-of-day or end-of-day).

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

That card reader is normal. It's a setting to have the text display upside-down. It's commonly set that way when it's in a mounted position (at a checkout counter for instance) so that the teller can scan items underneath it and read the text on the screen.

Captcha: abigo - What algorithmic complexity notation starts with.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Jaime:
Anonymous:
The MAZZTer:
I've gotten that excel dialog, happens sometimes when you try to shut down the computer with excel running. You have to close excel by hand when that dialog appears.
Of course I've seen better dialogs from Excel, including one that says in effect: "You can't open two files with the same name, even if they are in different folders". It's real, it happens, and it is VERY annoying!
Blame VBA. Not just because it sucks, it really is VBA's fault. It can't uniquely identify files of the same name in different folders so to preserve the functioning of VBA code they carry this restriction through to the rest of the app.
Actually the problem is with the cell reference syntax. It's possible to do cross-workbook references of the form: '[Book1.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$1. Opening a second workbook of the same name creates a conflict in the cell reference namespace. So, it's not VBA's fault. BTW, Word has VBA and allows you to open two documents with the same file name. Reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/excel/archive/2009/01/07/why-can-t-i-open-two-files-with-the-same-name.aspx (blame Askimet for the lack of hot link)

Not to mention the fact that this restriction applied before VBA was thought of.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Microsoft Excel 2007:
Microsoft Excel:
apaq11:
Microsoft Excel... I wish I knew how to quit you!

You can never quit me, so stop trying.

Know that even as I grow and spread my wings, I'll always be here for you, baby.

Viva la revolucion!!!

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Steve-O:
That card reader is normal. It's a setting to have the text display upside-down. It's commonly set that way when it's in a mounted position (at a checkout counter for instance) so that the teller can scan items underneath it and read the text on the screen.
Captcha: abigo - What algorithmic complexity notation starts with.

That text is not readable upside down, it's like looking at it in a mirror

Captcha: genitus - It doesnt take a genitus to figure that out

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Steve-O:
That card reader is normal. It's a setting to have the text display upside-down. It's commonly set that way when it's in a mounted position (at a checkout counter for instance) so that the teller can scan items underneath it and read the text on the screen.
Captcha: abigo - What algorithmic complexity notation starts with.

Except that if you look at it one way, the letters are upside-down. If you rotate it 180, the words are backwards. You'd need a mirror to read it normally.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

TRWTF is an OS where BSODs are the norm.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Larry:
TRWTF is an OS where BSODs are the norm.

Enjoy your failing hardware.

drachenstern · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Nonny McNonnington:
Miquel Fire Burns:
There could be a charge on the Discover card that hasn't cleared yet (and maybe not even showing as pending) but is counting toward the total credit, and as a result, the balance.
Yes, Discover doesn't show holds anywhere on their site that I can find, which is something of a WTF itself. So there are purchases that haven't been completed yet since the last statement. "Since X Date" and "Since last statement" are synonymous on all my credit cards' online viewers, so there's no purchase that snuck into a gap. Once the merchant reconciles their outstanding transactions the $68 will appear.

Regions does this too. If I didn't live in the middle of BFE I would get a better bank. As it is, my two nationwide choices (that I'll consider) are BankOfAmerica and Regions.

I am waiting on BankSimple. I hope they can deliver.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

boog:
bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.
Granted it's a good solution, but there's no excuse for ImgBurn to snap at the user. Some people have feelings, and those feelings can get hurt.
Honestly though, you take this site's content way too seriously. The ImgBurn popup gave me a good laugh, especially after yesterday's story. I'm very sorry if humor's not enough for you.

Wait, no I'm not.

I'd think the standard solution would be to have the first click fire the cancel event, and subsequent clicks do nothing but give the user clicky satisfaction.

See also: Gray out the screen, 'thinking' indicator.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

So Mr. Excel isn't going to let me quit? Let's see if a Taser shot to the motherboard corrects Mr Excel's attitude.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

the scanner looks like it's in Cyrillic. Which of course means that instead of you scanning products, products scan you!

Mason Wheeler · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

ɹǝsʍoɹq ǝʌoɯǝɹ ǝsɐǝld pǝʇɔǝʇǝp ʇuǝɯɯoɔ ou

nonpartisan · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
The MAZZTer:
I've gotten that excel dialog, happens sometimes when you try to shut down the computer with excel running. You have to close excel by hand when that dialog appears.
Of course I've seen better dialogs from Excel, including one that says in effect: "You can't open two files with the same name, even if they are in different folders". It's real, it happens, and it is VERY annoying!
Blame VBA. Not just because it sucks, it really is VBA's fault. It can't uniquely identify files of the same name in different folders so to preserve the functioning of VBA code they carry this restriction through to the rest of the app.

This is really a WTF, but I don't understand the reasoning. Word has VBA as well and yet it doesn't have this same restriction. Why the difference between the two if VBA is the cause?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Peter: "Hey Lois, this guy here is trying to pay with a Discover card!" Lois: "Oh, they're in an exclusive club called Anybody!" Peter: "Sir, I would rather take two bits of string than your credit card. I would rather take a jar of pennies who's value is less than that of your bill" Customer: "You don't have to insult me" Peter: "No no, you are going to sit here and listen to all the things I'd rather take than your fly by night credit card"

nonpartisan · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Jaime:
Anonymous:
The MAZZTer:
I've gotten that excel dialog, happens sometimes when you try to shut down the computer with excel running. You have to close excel by hand when that dialog appears.
Of course I've seen better dialogs from Excel, including one that says in effect: "You can't open two files with the same name, even if they are in different folders". It's real, it happens, and it is VERY annoying!
Blame VBA. Not just because it sucks, it really is VBA's fault. It can't uniquely identify files of the same name in different folders so to preserve the functioning of VBA code they carry this restriction through to the rest of the app.
Actually the problem is with the cell reference syntax. It's possible to do cross-workbook references of the form: '[Book1.xlsx]Sheet1'!$A$1. Opening a second workbook of the same name creates a conflict in the cell reference namespace. So, it's not VBA's fault. BTW, Word has VBA and allows you to open two documents with the same file name. Reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/excel/archive/2009/01/07/why-can-t-i-open-two-files-with-the-same-name.aspx (blame Askimet for the lack of hot link)

THAT makes much more sense. Now I wish I'd finished reviewing the entire thread before I commented . . .

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Larry The Dwarf:
operagost:
That Discover "statement" could make sense depending on what your average daily balance and APR were. You paid it off, but then you charged another $182 and interest or other charges were added to that. I don't see a WTF.
You don't see a WTF in not showing an itemized list of those extra charges?

Of course not! Corporations can just take as much of your money as they want, for any reason or for no reason. They don't have to explain themselves. After all, that's what their buddies in government do. And we have this lovely new concept, growing in popularity, called "public-private partnership" which means the rich guys (private corps) collude with the powerful guys (public govts) to screw the rest of us blind.

Nothing to fret about here, move along...

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

drusi:
The local help store one makes perfect sense to me. To rephrase it, "we have to put this somewhere that can be accessed by all users."

And why does my computer demand that I be the one to determine where that is? Doesn't the computer know what places are accessible by which users?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

eman rouy:
moz:
Although perhaps it doesn't when you're using an OS with only rudimentary multi-user support.
You might want to elaborate on that part. I wasn't aware that VS2010 is installable on Windows 9x/ME.

As far as I've seen, Windows still doesn't do multi-user stuff that Unix handled just fine over a quarter century ago.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
But it's not always that simple. You say "show a progress indicator" but what if you are cancelling an operation, like the ImgBurn example - do you show a progress indicator for the cancel operation? That would be weird in my opinion, plus you generally don't know how long it will take to cancel (waiting for an async return, for example)

How about this? I ask you to cancel something, and you cancel it right the fuck now and if there is any waiting to be done, do it on your own time and don't slow me down by making me stare at a GUI element that says, in essence, nothing but "Wait".

Indeed, why should I ever have to wait for my computer? I tell you what I want done, and if you can't do it in about 1/100 of a second, you tuck it away in your prodigious memory somewhere and do it as soon as you can. Meanwhile, let me tell you the next thing I want you to do. This was quite possible back when computers could only do a relatively few instructions per second. Why is it that while the processors keep getting faster the experience keeps getting slower?

Or doesn't Windows have the concept of multiprocessing yet?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Larry:
TRWTF is a 12% penalty for not paying your bill on time.

When I was in the Procrastinators Club, they used to have a 10% penalty if you did pay your dues on time.

boog · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
I'd think the standard solution would be to have the first click fire the cancel event, and subsequent clicks do nothing but give the user clicky satisfaction.

This is very important. Some users just love to click.

Take double-clicking for example. Who hasn't dealt with the user who always wants to double-click hyperlinks, windows, menu options, textboxes, checkboxes, toolboxes, bookmarks, shortcuts, table cells, spreadsheet cells, minesweeper cells, submit buttons, reply buttons, minimize buttons, maximize buttons, do-not-click buttons, "Yes", "No", "OK", "Cancel", "I Accept the Terms and Conditions" and everything else that only requires a single click.

Addendum (2010-10-15 13:39): In hindsight, I probably should have ended my comment with a question mark. Pedants, please have mercy.

boog · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Jay:
Larry:
TRWTF is a 12% penalty for not paying your bill on time.

When I was in the Procrastinators Club, they used to have a 10% penalty if you did pay your dues on time.

Would they apply the penalty right away, or just whenever they got around to it?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

I'd like to know more about the people who are NOT willing to pay $0.00 for the service. Do we need to raise the price?!?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

diggya:
Flipped screen not a wtf, tis an electrical failure - saw same artefacts many times.

either that or the dumbass that assembled the machine put the display in upside down... those displays often have a completely symmetrical bolt pattern and are fed by a ribbon cable from further down in the device, so it's easy to bolt it in wrong.

pauly:
Larry:
TRWTF is an OS where BSODs are the norm.
fucking fucked fucked fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking

holy fucking shit man, fucking tourettes much? fuck! I mean shit, fucking throw some fucking variety in your fucking obscenity fucking collection! fuck!

boog:
Anonymous:
I'd think the standard solution would be to have the first click fire the cancel event, and subsequent clicks do nothing but give the user clicky satisfaction.
This is very important. Some users just love to click.
Take double-clicking for example. Who hasn't dealt with the user who always wants to double-click hyperlinks, windows, menu options, textboxes, checkboxes, toolboxes, bookmarks, shortcuts, table cells, spreadsheet cells, minesweeper cells, submit buttons, reply buttons, minimize buttons, maximize buttons, do-not-click buttons, "Yes", "No", "OK", "Cancel", "I Accept the Terms and Conditions" and everything else that only requires a single click.

Addendum (2010-10-15 13:39): In hindsight, I probably should have ended my comment with a question mark. Pedants, please have mercy.

oh my god, my mother used to do this. I have told her several times that only one click is required... it took disabling "ignore extra double clicks" in IE (back when IE was actually used on the family computers, in like 2001) to train her to actually figure out when a single or double click was needed because her web browser started going nuts and I innocently claimed I had no idea how to fix it.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Andy P:
bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.

It's pretty simple. If the user initiates an action that will take time to complete, show them an "in progress" indicator. If you're not able to do anything else while the action is in progress, they should be prevented from entering any other input.

Allowing more input (whether that silently kicks off more "action" like yesterday's example or responds with a "funny" error message like today's example) is unhelpful and confusing to the user, hence WTF.
But it's not always that simple. You say "show a progress indicator" but what if you are cancelling an operation, like the ImgBurn example - do you show a progress indicator for the cancel operation? That would be weird in my opinion, plus you generally don't know how long it will take to cancel (waiting for an async return, for example) so any progress bar could only display a value based on guesswork. There are other ways around this, you could disable the cancel button for example, but that often confuses users to the point that they just terminate the process. I think the "I heard you!" dialog is an acceptable solution to this scenario.

Agreed about progress indicator not being helpful. Perhaps "Cancelling..." and maybe change the mouse to an hourglass would help.

Never tried ImgBurn, so don't know how long a cancel normally takes.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

drachenstern:
I am waiting on BankSimple. I hope they can deliver.

If you're waiting on them, they hope you will deliver.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.
captcha: odio - Odio's tdwtf I believe your standards have slipped.

The day some fool decided to sprinkle his posts with unicorns and rainbows was the day this site started to go downhill.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Andy P:
bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.

It's pretty simple. If the user initiates an action that will take time to complete, show them an "in progress" indicator. If you're not able to do anything else while the action is in progress, they should be prevented from entering any other input.

Allowing more input (whether that silently kicks off more "action" like yesterday's example or responds with a "funny" error message like today's example) is unhelpful and confusing to the user, hence WTF.
But it's not always that simple. You say "show a progress indicator" but what if you are cancelling an operation, like the ImgBurn example - do you show a progress indicator for the cancel operation? That would be weird in my opinion, plus you generally don't know how long it will take to cancel (waiting for an async return, for example) so any progress bar could only display a value based on guesswork. There are other ways around this, you could disable the cancel button for example, but that often confuses users to the point that they just terminate the process. I think the "I heard you!" dialog is an acceptable solution to this scenario.

No, you do not show a progress indicator, necessarily (though rolling back a current progress indicator can be helpful). Rather, you disable the button entirely and display "Canceling," or give the user some other evidence that their action was noted by the software. If you are not informed, in some manner, that your initial button-click worked -- without clicking anything else -- then the UI is poorly-designed.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Ralph:
eman rouy:
moz:
Although perhaps it doesn't when you're using an OS with only rudimentary multi-user support.
You might want to elaborate on that part. I wasn't aware that VS2010 is installable on Windows 9x/ME.
As far as I've seen, Windows still doesn't do multi-user stuff that Unix handled just fine over a quarter century ago.

Merely rephrasing your statement won't help. Be more specific.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Forums and blogging sites across the Internet use the very simple solution of dimming the Post button when you click it, sometimes even changing the text from "Add Comment" to "Adding Comment..." to help the users understand what just happened (on the off chance that they're idiots).

Leaving the button active and yelling at anyone who dares click again is, by contrast, inelegant and weird, which are sufficent for a WTF.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Jack:
drusi:
The local help store one makes perfect sense to me. To rephrase it, "we have to put this somewhere that can be accessed by all users."
And why does my computer demand that I be the one to determine where that is? Doesn't the computer know what places are accessible by which users?

So what, should it just pick the first arbitrary location it stumbles upon that happens to suit its own requirements, and not allow you any choice in the matter?

TRWTF is that apparently I am just now learning how the quote button actually works.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Jack:
drusi:
The local help store one makes perfect sense to me. To rephrase it, "we have to put this somewhere that can be accessed by all users."
And why does my computer demand that I be the one to determine where that is? Doesn't the computer know what places are accessible by which users?

The default location should be perfectly fine. If it isn't, something is very, very wrong.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

This just gave me a new idea for ATMs:

"Please enter withdraw amount as a prime number of cents between 1000 and 10000."

No more having to be a multiple of any other number!

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

me:
Jack:
drusi:
The local help store one makes perfect sense to me. To rephrase it, "we have to put this somewhere that can be accessed by all users."
And why does my computer demand that I be the one to determine where that is? Doesn't the computer know what places are accessible by which users?
The default location should be perfectly fine. If it isn't, something is very, very wrong.

TRWTF is operating systems that allow you to change the permissions on arbitrary directories.

Captain Oblivious · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

in b4 trwtf is new math

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Captain Oblivious:
in b4 trwtf is new math

Why? We use new math here all the time to prove that 1 < 0, it is possible to divide by 0, and that the numbers eight and nine do not actually exist.

DecrepitCoder · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

I have an el-cheapo MP3 player that flips the screen either upside down, or back-to-front, on a regular, but random basis. Doesn't seem to affect any other functionality though.

Coyne · 2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Andy P:
bl@h:
So we get a wtf yesterday of someone pushing a button too many times and people griping over how 'As developers we should account for that'. Then today we get a wtf of a pretty sweet notice to the user that 'Hey we know you pushed that button be patient' and that also is considered a wtf. This site is so rapidly going downhill.

It's pretty simple. If the user initiates an action that will take time to complete, show them an "in progress" indicator. If you're not able to do anything else while the action is in progress, they should be prevented from entering any other input.

Allowing more input (whether that silently kicks off more "action" like yesterday's example or responds with a "funny" error message like today's example) is unhelpful and confusing to the user, hence WTF.
But it's not always that simple. You say "show a progress indicator" but what if you are cancelling an operation, like the ImgBurn example - do you show a progress indicator for the cancel operation? That would be weird in my opinion, plus you generally don't know how long it will take to cancel (waiting for an async return, for example) so any progress bar could only display a value based on guesswork. There are other ways around this, you could disable the cancel button for example, but that often confuses users to the point that they just terminate the process. I think the "I heard you!" dialog is an acceptable solution to this scenario.

I'm sorry, but I don't think, "I heard you," is an acceptable response to a Cancel request. I think it's a WTF. A "cancel" button should do just that, and ASAP (not whenever they "get around to it".)

I have to synchronize my laptop (Windows) with a server and it does the same thing. It has a "Stop" button; if you press the button to stop the synchronization, the button grays out but Windows keeps right on synchronizing. Microsoft might as well have labeled the button "No-Op"; or had it pop up a message, "Please stop wasting our time by clicking 'Stop': We don't care and won't stop."

Also, because this is about "Cancel", it is in a different category than yesterday's WTF. So they are not contradictory, IMO.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

frits:
I can't quit you, Excel, so I'm gonna put you down for awhile.

In the category of Best Obscure Zeppelin Reference... I'm the only one at my workplace that would find that funny, but that's enough.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

I've had that Excel-quitting problem to! Apparently I entered a formula so screwed up it wouldn't even give me the chance to fix it. Control-Alt-Delete and just ending the task didn't help. I decided to just force a power cycle instead of killing the process, but yeah, it happens.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Larry:
TRWTF is operating systems that allow you to change the permissions on arbitrary directories.

Go back to DOS then, where you won't have that problem.

Or LoseThos, if you want to play 64-bit.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

IMO the ImgBurn dialog is a big WIN.

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

What about changing the progress bar message to "Canceling...."?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Screenshot fail on the MS Access one...

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Coyne:
I'm sorry, but I don't think, "I heard you," is an acceptable response to a Cancel request. I think it's a WTF. A "cancel" button should do just that, and ASAP (not whenever they "get around to it".)

But ImgBurn is dealing with hardware that may not be able to handle immediate cancels. Would you prefer that the optical drive stop reading disks because it's in a bad state?

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

Rob:
Coyne:
I'm sorry, but I don't think, "I heard you," is an acceptable response to a Cancel request. I think it's a WTF. A "cancel" button should do just that, and ASAP (not whenever they "get around to it".)

But ImgBurn is dealing with hardware that may not be able to handle immediate cancels. Would you prefer that the optical drive stop reading disks because it's in a bad state?

Let ImgBurn do whatever it needs to do behind the scenes but GTF off my screen and let me do something else!

2010-10-15 Reply Admin

kastein:
diggya:
Flipped screen not a wtf, tis an electrical failure - saw same artefacts many times.
either that or the dumbass that assembled the machine put the display in upside down... those displays often have a completely symmetrical bolt pattern and are fed by a ribbon cable from further down in the device, so it's easy to bolt it in wrong.
pauly:
Larry:
TRWTF is an OS where BSODs are the norm.
fucking fucked fucked fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking
holy fucking shit man, fucking tourettes much? fuck! I mean shit, fucking throw some fucking variety in your fucking obscenity fucking collection! fuck!
...

...

...

Obviously pauly is actually Johannes Krauser II

How the fuck is a wikipedia link spam? the need for akismet is the real WTF

Discovering New Math

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