Category: Annoyances

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Last month I finally got around to installing antivirus software on the one Windows computer we have at home. While I’ve found Norton Anti-Virus has worked well on my system at work, I ended up choosing McAfee Internet Security Suite for two reasons: (1) unlike Symantec, they don’t use a product activation scheme, and (2) since McAfee bought Deersoft, purchasing a McAfee-related anti-spam product should help fund SpamAssassin development.

Big mistake.

Since installing McAfee, this computer has crashed at least once each time I’ve turned it on (usually with a McAfee dialog box visible). The privacy service adds another login prompt, whether you want it or not. It tends to pop up dialogs when you’re in the middle of, say, running ScanDisk to make sure the system survived the crash McAfee caused five minutes earlier. And, ridiculously, the software and virus definition update runs through Internet Explorer.

By this I don’t mean that it expects you to go to the website and download an installer. That would be inconvenient, but acceptable (since you could choose what web browser to use). No, it pops up a “Check for updates” dialog box which then opens Internet Explorer, goes through a set of redirects until it opens a pop-up that looks like a download manager (but is clearly done using HTML), and then downloads and installs the update.

Now forget any isues you might have with buggy rendering, feature parity, monopoly abuse, antitrust, etc. Just look at IE’s track record on security.

Why would you want a security system to rely on something so notoriously insecure?

Symantec has its own update program that calls out, checks for updates, downloads them and installs. You can run it manuallky, or you can set it to grab and install virus updates automatically. Nowhere in this whole process does Internet Explorer come into the picture – or if it does, it’s hidden away where the power user won’t see it and say “What the hell do they think they’re doing?”

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I’m aware that I’ve been grumbling for a while that my drama-queen examiner (who has reappeared, by the way, and pretty much kept from disappearing again) would get more done if she’d delegate stuff to me. However, I don’t think that the week we’re cleaning up in the wake of a major system upgrade when all the examiners are trying to close files for month end and I’m handling the work of a guy on his honeymoon is really the best time to start…..

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We started out with the intent of not doing everything ourselves, since that way lies madness and lack of free time. Then we found out just how annoying 90% of wedding vendors are and how little patience we have with large doses of that, and switched to coordinating everything ourselves. When it became obvious that if we continued in this vein we wouldn’t be having a wedding, we sucked it up and started vendor-hunting again. Only this time, they’re twice as annoying since all of them are now programmed with the auto-repeat loop of “It’s just around the corner! You’re really cutting it close! It’s almost here! It’s really down to the wire! It’s just around the corner!” and have been for the last six months. I’m beginning to feel my eye twitch whenever someone says any of the above.

This includes my family. Continue reading →

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Since our apartment complex was taken over by new ownership and management last year, they’ve embarked on a months-long project to “rehab” the complex. In some cases, this meant long-overdue repairs like replacing all the plumbing and water heaters, or rebuilding the balconies with less termite-laden wood. In some cases, this meant cosmetic changes like prettying up the main entrance with a trellis and new steps (still in progress).

There’ve been problems along the way. The plumbing work forced us to move everything out of our storage space for several months, and they’ve delayed things with little explanation and started up again with no notice. They tried out new color schemes in our section back in August, and still haven’t gotten around to a final paint job. They told us to move everything off our balcony just before Thanksgiving, but didn’t actually remove it until January (by which time many of our neighbors had moved things back).

Sometimes the changes themselves have been ridiculous or annoying. They’ve decided to fence off the lawn in our courtyard so that it can be attached to an expanded pool-and-picnic area. I don’t think it occurred to anyone that people liked having a lawn that wasn’t behind a locked gate.

But the most bizarre change has to be the garage doors they’re adding to the carports. They’ve widened and squared-off the posts so that they can put in standard-sized garage doors, despite the fact that this (a) makes it very hard to park in the middle spaces (I’ve already scraped the bumper once, and this is with a Sentra. I’d hate to think about parking here with an SUV or pickup. A Hummer? Forget it!) and (b) accomplishes absolutely nothing. The section is shared by five cars, and two of the doors are double-width, meaning that four of those cars have to share a door with a neighbor:

Image of open garage doors, lightened to showing more clearly that there's no separation behind them.

But what’s really annoying: There are locks on these doors – even the shared ones:

Close-up of a standard garage door lock.

Yes, your neighbor can lock your car in or out of its space by locking his own garage door. Yes, you need to buy your own lock in order to prevent someone else from making your car immobile. No, having the garage door there in the first place does nothing to protect your car – from anything.

What the heck were these people thinking?