Brian's Annoyances

Screw you Palm

2007-02-28T23:25:00-08:00

Palm has known about the DST changes for over a year (I'll ignore the bit about the fact that it wasn't until OS 5 that DST was actually implemented within the PalmOS); yet they released a patch for the matter less than three weeks before the change is to occur. Microsoft's patches were released in February as well, but this almost acceptable as Microsoft has an automatic update system in place (and has for over 5 years). Palm has no such system in place, and thus many people are going to miss this update, and likely have a bad surprise when they arrive late for something on the week of March 11th.

So reading the Palm support page about the DST update, I read the following:

It is always a good idea to make a backup of your important information. Prior to installing this update, Palm recommends backing up your Calendar events, or printing them out for reference, in the event that Calendar information is lost.

Umm, you have got to be kidding me. Sure, backups are a good thing. But quite simply, there should be no need to ever make a manual backup of Palm data. Even suggesting that one prints out their calendar as a backup is a joke. Considering that one of the core features of a Palm is the calender, one should never need to worry about it's correctness. I can see no reason for this update not to be simple for Palm.

To make matters worse, Palm didn't provide this as a simple patch that you install and are done with. They provide an app that is installed, and than once run it patches the OS. This of course means that if for whatever reason you need to restore your palm after a hard reset, you will need to reinstall this app and rerun the update manually. Sigh. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised as Palm has been fumbling and generally making worse the Palm platform for the past several years.

Sleazy pharmacy

2007-02-25T15:23:00-08:00

My health insurance provider prefers for me to order my prescriptions via their mail order pharmacy. I have no objection to this as it means I don't need to actually go stand in line at a pharmacy. On the mail order receipt included with the order was the paragraph;

Pollen, dust, dander...sneeze! To manage seasonal allergies, try over the counter Loratadine or talk to your doctor about prescription allergy nasal spray. Remember to prevent allergies, start your medications early in the season before your symptoms begin

I have two problems with this; first, I object to medical advertisements. Second, the receipt this ad was on was for a prescription allergy control drug.

T-Mobile won't take my money

2007-02-08T11:38:00-08:00

So I activated a T-Mobile To Go cell phone (a pre-paid cell phone plan) last week. Happy with the coverage I was seeing in my daily travels, I went online to add money to the account. One of the required fields in the order system was a phone number where I could be reached for the next hour, in case there were issues adding the money to the account. I finish with the form and continue on my merry way for the evening.

About 45 minutes later I receive a call from a T-Mobile call center saying I have been selected for a "random security screen". At first the lady on the other end of the phone attempted to tell me that the check was to make sure that I had permission to add money to the phone's account. I of course pointed out that I would be perfectly fine with random people adding money to my phone's account. She went on to explain that the security screen was actually to verify that I was authorized to use the credit card information I provided. She asked for social security number, which I declined to provide. She then asked if she could call up my card issuer in a conference call to verify my identity with them. It was at this point that I asked for her supervisor.

Nate came on the line and explained that they would not process my credit card order without verifying my identity. His repeated the request for a social security number. I said I wouldn't provide that, at which point he suggested calling my bank and having me verify my identity with the bank. So he called up my bank and we had a little chat. Problem 1: I did not initiate the call to my bank and thus can not be sure that they are indeed my bank. Problem 2: A third party (Nate the T-Mobile guy) was on the phone with me and I should not answer security questions so long as a third party is on the line. At a dead end with the agenda of Nate, I move on to finding out what the hell this is all actually about.

It turns out, that the call center that called me is actually run by Vesta Corporation and that the "random security screen" is actually a guaranteed screen for all users of T-Mobile To Go and will happen within the first few uses of a credit card number to add money to an account. This security check will occur if you attempt to add money over the phone, on their website, or through the automated system on the cellphone itself. Nate further claimed that adding money to an account at a T-Mobile corporate store would require me to show a photo id if using a credit card.

I ended up going into a 7-11, purchased my refill cards, and in about five minutes completed the process of adding those refill cards to my phone. My card issuer does believe that the check being asked for is not acceptable by Mastercard and I did initiate complaints with Mastercard directly and through my card issuer. Not that I expect much to come of it. I have never heard back from any of my complaints about stores requiring photo ids for use of a credit card.

Wired Subscription

2006-12-17T18:38:00-08:00

At least once a month, I recieve an offer to renew my Wired Magazine. This has been going on for at least a year now. In the beginning, each time I recieved one of these "Hurry renew now for just $10", I would dutifully fill out the form and send in some money. About six months ago I realized that I had filled in more than one this year. Upon closer inspection, it seems that I have a subscription through 2012. I have three different renewal offers from the past few weeks on my desk right now. This is just ridiculous.

All I ask, is that the the address label for each magazine clearly state when the subscription will end. Is that so much to ask?

Munchies

2006-08-24T15:07:00-08:00

So my workplace keeps a decently stocked kitchen with snacks and such. Most of what they buy is purchased through CostCo and thus comes in large sampler boxes. One of things consistently purchased is large boxes of individual sized Frito-Lay snacks. The box comes with Doritos (Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese), Sun Chips, Chex Mix, Cheetos, Rold Gold Pretzels, and Munchies. I tried the Munchies today for the first time.

Someone at Frito-Lay thought "hmmm, let's bag the broken and small pieces of our other salty snack products and sell it as a new product". What the heck is wrong with them? Who on earth wants a bag that contains a mixture of salty products? Sun Chips do not go particularly well with Cheetos. No wonder the Munchies are usually the last things to go at work.

MMORPGs, a simple missing feature

2006-08-03T23:54:00-08:00

While I have not played a huge number of MMORPGs, I have played a handful. And a feature that I would really like, but have yet to see, is a simple checkbox on the login screen that would remember my username and password. Sure, some games have a checkbox to remember the username, is it really so much to not remember my password? Sure, I suppose I can understand why they don't remember it by default (mischievous siblings being the first example I can think of), but put a darn checkbox for it please.

Can anyone give me a good reason why this isn't an option?

Movietickets.com, oh how do you suck?

2006-06-22T00:45:00-08:00

Let me count the ways...

If you don't accept cookies, and try to log in, you are simply redirected back to the mainpage with no sort of warning.
You can "sign in" by just providing an email address in their system. For example, go log in with the email address johnsmith@mailinator.com. If the email address isn't in the system, it will give you an error. Go ahead and try it some of your friends email addresses.
When you ask for your password hint to be mailed to you, it sends you the hint. That's it. No other text in the body of the email. No way to reset your password if the hint isn't enough.
A surcharge of $1 per ticket. Not per order, per TICKET!
When you are asked for your credit card information to complete a sale, it uses the name provided when the account is created. So I guess you can't use someone else's credit card.

You suck Movietickets.com

You suck Windows Media Player

2006-06-14T09:10:00-08:00

So I am sitting here working on a newly installed Windows XP Pro setup and I double click on an audio file. As this was the first time I ran Windows Media Player, a dialog came up asking a couple of questions about basic settings. With those answered, I click the affirmative answer in the dialog and and am presented with Windows Media Player not playing the file I had asked for. It seems remembering what file I had initially asked for is too hard for Windows Media Player. You suck Windows Media Player.

Addendum: I moved your start menu entry for a reason. I really didn't need it to be restored to the original place. You continue to suck Windows Media Player.