OddThinking

Hey Mr. Windows Application Install-Script Developer, can I have a chat with you for a moment?

I am encountering a weird networking problem.

“I will read your mind!” boasted the mentalist. “You can pick a colour, or a flower, or an element of the periodic table, write it down, show it to the audience and seal it in an envelope. Then I will read your mind and predict what it says! In fact, you could write any English word, and I will predict it.”

In 1999, the PC I used had required a 200W power supply.
In 2005, the PC I used had required a 380W power supply.

Making some simple assumptions, I was soon able to plot the graph and make a prediction.

Bloglines, a web-based feed-aggregator has invited people to blog their feedback on their application (and on other products).

I’ll take the bait. I’ll admit to using Bloglines, and provide some feedback here.

Something really scary happened to me just now. I am trying to remain “alert but not alarmed”.

I got a couple of bounce messages.

I learnt a new Cheapass card game recently. It was an interesting and thought-provoking game, but I am not going to talk about the game-play today. I am going to talk about the initial set-up, and an unsolved puzzle it brings up.

My recent entry condemning unresponsive applications took me a long time to write. I knew I was frustrated with unexpected software slowness, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

I realise now that I was confounding three separate problems: Unresponsiveness, Unexpected CPU Hogs and Outstaying Their Welcome.

Over the past 12 months, I have been getting more and more frustrated at how slow my machine sometimes gets. It has taken me a while to pin-point what my objection is.

Today I found the words.

I am as mad as hell about having a machine using only 10% CPU and 10% RAM being too busy to refresh its windows, and I’m not going to take it any more!

In which I continue to bitch about the Samsung D600 – but particularly about the PC calendar synching software that is bundled with it.