Wednesday
Dec232009
My Festivus Grievances: 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 04:20PM
Last year I made a list of all of the technologies that worked my nerves for Festivus. Well ladies and gentlemen, Festivus is among us once again and I am just cranky enough to take another crack at a 2009 list. So sit back and don your Oscar the Grouch demeanor because I'm about to complain. I am in just such a mood since an old lady snapped "Move it!" in Fairway Market today because I took too long to find the saffron. Holiday shopping makes me hostile. Bah humbug. Happy Festivus.
Natali's Tech Letdowns for 2009
Natali's Tech Letdowns for 2009
- MobileMe. The service is mostly fine except for the fact that it doesn't sync shared calendars from iCal. So if I want to sync my Google Calendar to my iPhone, I am SOL. Yes I know there are other solutions to work around that so please don't email me about them. I shouldn't have to find a workaround. I pay $100 per year for MobileMe. I want fully-functional synced calendars on my iPhone gosh darnit!
- Google Wave. Seriously, WTF? I can't figure out the purpose of this program other than for people to bug me in a new way. Pass.
- Mobile chargers. The European Union now has a law that mandates standard mobile chargers. Why can't we have that? I'm sick to death of carrying different chargers. We have czars that are in charge of our electronic lives now. Can't one of them fix this?
- AT&T Wireless. Their crappy coverage is the bane of my existence. It makes me want to shout profanities into the universe for minutes on end. It makes me behave unladylike. I #$%&ing hate you, AT&T!
- Earbuds. Why can't they be retractable and indestructible. Is that too much to ask for?
- iTunes. Actually, I don't have a problem with it as much as my mother does and I cannot offer her advice or support from across the country over the phone. When I get a call from her asking about iTunes, I blame the dropped connection on AT&T.
- Windows Mobile. I want to like these devices, I really do. But why does it take me 53 clicks/pushes/steps to accomplish what the iPhone can do in one swipe? Way more complicated than is has to be.
- Facebook. Over it. Sick of it. Can't add any new friends anyway so I'm on information overload. Need to take a break from caring. Facebook and I may get back together in the new year.
- The Barnes and Noble Nook. What a letdown. Such great promise, such bad execution.
- Apple rumors. This is the thing that I hate the most about my job: pretending that I care about Apple speculation and having to postulate an opinion. "What do I think about a tablet? Oh I think...(insert BS here)." I hate that. I have better things to do with my mental CPU.
That's all I've got now that I've sufficiently worked myself up into a frenzy. Tomorrow, I'll throw off the grumps and get back to the holiday spirit but this has been a fun and much-needed vacation from that. Air your grievances in the comments if you have them!
Reader Comments (56)
No Apple App Store approval process hate?
Besides burping in your year-end blooper reels, when have you ever acted un-ladylike? :)
OK, here's one...for such a useful service...why does the web based Twitter interface suck so hard? I mean you really have to use something like Seesmic to make Twitter work as it should! Also..."Loaded" is dark on Fridays...arrrgh! :) Happier tech 2010 Natali!
JOB HUNTING: I have 2 degrees, but I think my MBA might be scaring off potential employers looking to use the recession to hire the cheapest talent available. Job hunting just sucks!
GOOGLE WAVE: I have 15 useless invites to give out but as I don’t know what the point of Wave is, I don’t know why anyone would want one. (also, why would Google not just open this up and not have people hunting around for useless invites??)
MICROSOFT: Windows 7 parties? Seriously? Those video clips were so incredibly lame, come on!
FACEBOOK: Come on just let Natali have more friends already!
LOADED: Why can’t I get loaded on Fridays? Loadedaholics need a fix for the entire work week! We also need to stay informed on how long her hair is.
CANADIAN TV: We have had to endure months of ANNOYING ads from Cable and Satellite companies asking us to “Stop the TV Tax” and local broadcasters replying with their “Local TV Matters” campaign. We all know the consumers are going to get screwed in the end (pun intended) so stop adding to our end bills by wasting so much money with all the ads!
TV: Why can’t I watch the “Festivus” episode on the holy day of Festivus? Why is this not mandatory programming on this day just like Christmas Vacation on the 25th!!
FAVICONS: why doesn't every site have a cool and amazing favicon (next to the url on the address bar up top) like Natali's?? I wonder who made that for her?
SHAMELESS PLUGS: Not enough people visit my web site at http://www.chrismclachlin.com" rel="nofollow">www.chrismclachlin.com and write me about exciting job opportunities!
Good list. In addition to the annual "predictions" episode of BOL, I think there should be an episode for the airing of greivances... although Molly might take over that whole episode.
Happy Festivus! Hope the rest of your holiday weekend is a little more relaxing...
What you said about Facebook is too true.
If you install logmein on your mom's computer it'll be much easier to give her tech support since you'll be able to see what's on her screen, and control her computer too
Social networking in general. Everyone seems to be using something different, and if you want to share, you have to join in on it.
Palm Pre. Not a huge grievance, but I was hoping they'd be further along by now. I'm getting a bit frustrated with the lack of any real speed improvements.
I hear you on wave. I *want* it to work, but it's... pretty messy. And not everyone has it, so it's hard to do. I'm better off setting up a private forum or something.
Netbooks. Why are they still $500 for the "high end" ones? They should have capped off at $350. And with this, had ION. And the GPU enabled Flash should be pushed out fast. And Pine Trail looks like a huge disappointment. Sure, greater battery life, but you're suppose to couple that with performance improvements, too.
Gotta agree with most of this.
wow... this felt like a vlog as I read it. I could hear your grieve stricken tone. It was kind of a cool (because you let it all out not because I enjoy others' grievances).
I loved your Festivus Grievitus. I agreed with it and at the same time learned that the Nook was a letdown and the Google Wave isn't going to be essential.
I'm still waiting for Tweetdeck or some other program to implement email and RSS feeds. I'm still grieving about having to go to many sources to collect all my various "feeds."
This is soooo good. And honest. Kind of sums up every tech persons nightmares. Like the nightmares before Christmas...uh, Festivus, I mean.
Freaking hilarious! Why The face! Slightly unladylike but incredibly appropriate... Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Yikes! Actually it's better to just let it out. But that's not advice, and I didn't email you it :)
Things that pissed me off this year? Number 1 Evernote Mobile. Err it's not Mobile if it doesn't f*cking work!! OMG you can't even search your notes while it's busy talking to the mothership. WTF? I have to go into Airplane mode to find a note?? It refused to upload any new notes I added on the phone, and until I deleted them, it would give me 9+ popup alerts every time I opened the app and it tried to sync. Then all I could ever see was the 6 most recent notes on the phone, and the table view would just cycle through those 6 and not bring up any of my remaining 1800+ notes. And to top it all off Evernote asked me to vote them as the best mobile app! I went beserk on thier ass over that in my twitter stream. I wish I could vote them worst mobile app. Why? Because I'm a premium member and pay for their sh*t service.
Earbuds are on my list too. I've gone through about 3 pairs of expensive Sennheiser in-ears and after exactly 1 week, the sheath around the jack and the cable comes loose and I spend the next 4 months trying not to rip the cable right out the jack. Great audio quality, sh*t construction.
MacBook Pro 2008's "4 hour" battery life. In the entire time I've had the MBP, not once did I ever get 4 hours of anything out of that battery except lifelessness. I go sleep dreaming of a new MBP simply for the "7 hour" battery life they come with now, in the hopes that I'll actually get 4 hours of life out of it! Maybe iPhone development is hard on the devices internals, but I'd expect to get more than 1 hour 20 out of it. Total and epic fail. Plus the battery's lifetime is only good for 300 full discharges. WFT? What am I supposed to do with that? My train journey into London everyday is 1 hour 10. I discharge my battery twice in one day. So I have to buy a new battery every 6 months?? ugh.
Windows XP. It's Windows, I hate it, and I have to use it at work everyday. Just searching for something is a nightmare. I feel like I'm forming a relationship with the OS it asks me so many questions about what I'm looking for. Do I want this search option, do I need to search only the current folder? Am I looking for an image? Is it trying to bond with me? Will it be offended when I finally throw it out the 3rd floor window on the BMA courtyard below? Do I care? I take my personal MBP in and spend as MUCH time as I can on it.
Twitter. God, what do Ev and the gang do all day? F*ck Me. It's still shit, lists are shit, and the API is practically useless now for clients that support lists, because 150 API calls a minute just isn't enough. I find myself having to go to http://Twitter.com" rel="nofollow">Twitter.com just to post and update cause the damn API won't do it. List's were totally overrated, just like Google Wave. I really don't know why everyone was so excited about Google Wave. It's a collaboration tool for producing content. That's it. I don't need it. And I don't know anyone else who does. It's realtime "see what the person on the other end is typing to you this very millisecond" was maybe, just maybe over-hyped.
- I hate how Facebook and Twitter are always experiencing tech difficulties.
- I hate Traffic, I wish I lived in a city that had mass transit.
- I hate how this economy keeps sinking to new lows month after month after month. Even worse than that is how the Gov't keeps telling how much better it's getting.
- I hate how neither of my smart phones are able to sync with anything ANYWHERE near reliability.
- I am sick of how this weather keeps changing so drastically. I wish it either stayed hot or cold, but quit moving 60 degrees either way on a seemingly daily basis!
Wow, I have never seen you THIS grumpy! After reading yours, I have lost the will to complain for the rest of the day. I am sure every thing is going to work out with the exception of all the Apple rumors, will they ever end?
As far As face book you can add a fan page,and link from your face book,that will allow you to add more people.(like your mother did). I-tunes you can always help your mother over Im or at her fan page,how hard can it be? Here Natali I hope you have a Merry Christmas
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=ER13610552" rel="nofollow">http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=...
From Chris: "LOADED: Why can’t I get loaded on Fridays? Loadedaholics need a fix for the entire work week! We also need to stay informed on how long her hair is." Haha! I'm sure you can wait until Monday to see how much it's grown over the weekend. Sheesh! My only real grievance is the Snow Leppard update installing EVERY printer driver known to man on my Macbook. There were over 6,000 files in the printer folder before I tossed it! I then installed the only driver I need for my Epson printer. Also, Firefox and Snow Leppard don't play nice, Firefox did not like the update, I get crashes daily.
"...but then remembered Beethoven and the dappling of things and the lark and Hurrah for Karamazov and kindness."
It's true, we all feel badly about certain things at one time or another. Have faith. The sun shall rise again and offer new light.
Have a Happy Holiday and Happy 2010! :)
I mainly agree with your grievances, too.
iTunes, it's horrible on a PC. I became so frustrated with iTunes that I canceled my AT&T account and gave my iPhone to my son, and got a Droid Eris.
AT&T, also, did not help in my decision. Here in the LA area there are a lot of pockets of no service.
Google Wave, I was so happy when I got my invite, then I didn't know what to do with.
Facebook, I just don't get it.
MobileMe, I only used it to forward my Gmail to MobileMe to get push email, for $100 just did not make sense.
Windows Mobile, agree with the same.
Happy Festivus!
It just seems where you live AT&T has the worst problems new york & San Francisco. Why don't you try to transfer to socal there very little trouble with iphone here. Wish you have loaded 5 days. Happy holidays.
Twitter Lists - I've found fantastic people to follow on twitter, mainly through careful web-searching and blog-lists. So why would I just trust someone's favorite 100 twitter people? How the heck does following 800 people on twitter work anyway? (I do give credit to twitter for addressing it's scalability issues, great strides there)
Netflix - +1 for sending me a disc so that I can watch streaming media on my PS3. That accomplishment cannot correct two other glaring bits. One - when I watch streaming media on my laptop, the quality is lower and the buffering is annoying (even though similar content viewed through Hulu comes across at HD levels). Two - on demand is great, but what about when I'm flying? I love to catch a flick on my laptop, yet you offer me no way to do this (even though I can via iTunes).
Guitar Hero - this game totally sucked me in when I first tried it. However, I've realized that the long term strategy is to slowly release more games instead of releasing lots of new content (songs) that I'd be willing to purchase. I don't wan't another flippin' version of GH. I want more content.
Car Tech - even though they put great tech into cars, they frequently miss the mark on making said tech usable. See the infiniti g35 climate control system for a infuriating demonstration of why the A/C turns on even when it's below zero and snowing.
The brick & mortar/online mismatch - How many times have you gone online to view a restaurant/store/service providers info and offerings, and yet when you arrive at the physical location - they don't have what your looking for. There is no reason your inventory system should be 48 hours behind in 2009.
Yahoo! - They've done some amazing things (Yahoo Answers, the YUI framework, UI design patterns), but this year has been chock-full of nothing. A once favorite web-destination has now turned into a B list attraction.
Good post :)
The more time goes by the less I want a smartphone. I have a Sony Ericsson W880i that has lasted me nigh on 3 years now. It has bluetooth for hands free, it makes phone calls, sends text and MMS Messages, and it has a calendar. It's also tiny, thin and can last up to 5 days without recharging (assuming I get no calls, which now I've ditched the landline at home rarely happens.) I brought the phone with me to Hawaii when I emigrated from the UK, and switched onto a good contract with T-Mobile. It just works for me all the time. I've yet to go out of signal, and now T-Mobile has rolled out 3G if I really want it the data network is out there.
A few years back my job started involving On call weeks when I might have to log in to servers and fix them remotely. I bought the newly released Nokia N810 internet tablet as it met all my needs. Good keyboard & screen, something I can type on for an hour without getting finger cramp. For those few occasions when I'm out and about and I really want some data from the web all I have to do is get it to connect to my phone by bluetooth and jobs a good'un. All these "There's an App for That" stuff seems nice'n'all but being pragmatic about it there really isn't much I'd want from them that can't be achieved through a browser anyway (which coincidentally is what Steve Jobs has been wanting for people from day one anyway.)
On the subject of universal chargers, as I see it with the way the global economy is you're in luck. Thanks to Europe passing such legislation, the US will follow suit without having all the nitty gritty hassles of passing the legislation themselves. No phone company is going to waste time designing two separate power sockets & infrastructure on the phone when they can get away with just one. Plus you can probably bet good money that at least some of them will try and make a big deal of it in the US as if it was an altruistic move on their behalf!
Natali, doesn't it feel great to just vent sometimes? I felt better just reading your post. Keep your head up tho, 2010 is gonna be a wicked year!
Regarding Netflix / iTunes / Hulu - Have you seen reports of the hassles that both Netflix and Apple have had with media companies and getting them to use their service. Hulu even had to do the utterly ridiculous and block Hulu being streamed inside Boxee, even though the media was effectively being consumed the same way, with the same ads etc, because the media companies that provided them with content were insisting on it and threatening to remove their content from the service.
Now imagine how those companies that are still struggling to adapt to the modern world with concepts like Streaming would react if you told them people would be able to download their movie for playing later. All they'll see is Piracy. Apple have had a few advantages because Steve Jobs is the majority shareholder in Disney, so they've been able to put content in to iTunes to demonstrate that it can actually work, won't result in massive piracy, and can be done in such a way as to make a profit from it.