PC World's 20 Most Annoying Tech Products 349
Craig Sender writes to tell us that PC World has compiled a list of the 20 most annoying tech products of all time. Topping the list was AOL's ubiquitous free trial CD's. "This list hardly covers every annoying tech product ever made. But where did this list of 20 come from? [PC World Readers] picked the worst ones by voting in our Annoyances Poll, and you'll see your Top 10 most annoying products flagged with icons. Just for fun, we've added 10 more products that didn't get enough votes from you in our poll but that we found particularly irksome."
Psychic powers tingling (Score:2, Insightful)
MS Office (Score:3, Insightful)
1. UI inconsistencies across the suite and even within products.
2. Bugs that have survived at least 7 years and 3 upgrades (upgrade = anot
No reference to the Cue Cat? (Score:5, Insightful)
That was one of the most annoying, dumbest, biggest debacles I can remember. For those that do not recall the Cue Cat [wikipedia.org] was a bar cade reader in the form of a cat, that clever marketeers thought consumers would use by scanning barcodes on print ads in magazines and newspapers.
Cue Cat was mailed to *all* Wired magazine [wired.com] subscribers.
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I don't know how they define "annoying". Someone gave me a free gizmo, I don't know why that should annoy me.
Re:No reference to the Cue Cat? (Score:4, Insightful)
</sarcasm>
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Thus the "annoyance" or "extreme invasion of privacy and civil liberties" part of "annoying" technology.
Dumb, but too short lived to be annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
The Cue Cat is one of them. No one forced you to use it. The bar codes on the ads didn't cause leprosy or make your eyes bleed.
Of course, if I was one of the investors who paid to send out thousands of the things for free, then I'd have cause to be annoyed.
I'd put Microsoft Bob on the list too. The ads and promotions were annoying, but again, no one forced you to install or use it.
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Again? (Score:5, Funny)
Lotus Notes (Score:2, Interesting)
Everything a UI shouldn't be.
Re:Lotus Notes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lotus notes has got nothing on the toy car my two year old son has. It plays Wiggles songs when he pushes it around. It's almost as bad as the little iron that makes stupid sound effects when he pushes it around or the doll that plays twinkle twinkle little star when he sqeezes it's belly. He has a toy aeroplane that sings a song so annoying that even he couldn't stand it and asked me in whimpery toddler speak to remove the batteries.
Whenever I see these stupid lists on /. and then read all the "Tech produ
aol cds (Score:3, Funny)
Backup disks (Score:5, Funny)
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Russian propaganda tapes (Score:3, Interesting)
Free Software is always an improved experience (Score:2, Funny)
Take the aol CDs, you now have Ubuntu CDs which always come with an ubuntu user.
It wasnt bad enough to have all those CDs, you now have to listen for hours how all distros suck and Ubuntu is just
Any old-time Mac users... (Score:2)
The little dog in Windows Search (Score:5, Funny)
The thing that really gets me, is that when you click the "Kill the dog" option, instead of instantly vanishing, like any reasonably annoyance, they have this obnoxious beast do a little animation.
Look, you clueless fools, if I like the dog, I would not be getting rid of him. You KNOW I don't want him, but you senselessly subject me to the EXACT kind of animation that I told you I disliked.
What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?
Re:The little dog in Windows Search (Score:5, Funny)
For the love of god, stop putting ideas in their heads!
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Cell phone manufacturers beat them to it.
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Cell phone manufacturers beat them to it.
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So, like, I'm trying to shut down here. Why are you showing me all these dialogs so that I can shut down faster. If you can shut faster yourself, why not do it without me having to sit and monitor the sodding thing for christ's sake?
At least with the dog you
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the first entry (clears the pagefile on shutdown) is not needed, but is included in every page on this for some reason.
the waittokill is in miliseconds and i like to have it around 5000 personally to give the program a little more time to clue in before it gets killed.
Re:The little dog in Windows Search (Score:4, Funny)
I recently discovered another reason to hate the dog. I had recently started a new job, and hadn't gotten around to all the standard tweaks required to make a new Windows install usable. I had done a search and had kept the search box open behind some other windows while working on other things. For the next couple of days I was trying to figure out why my hard drive or CDROM was making two short but loud seeks every once in awhile.
Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.
Re:The little dog in Windows Search (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually I realized that the freaking dog was scratching himself. Drove me crazy for several days trying to figure out what the noise was, and it turns out to be Microsoft trying to be cute.
Ahh ... the dog had fleas. Proof that Microsoft software is infested with bugs.
CD Burners and Zip disks (Score:5, Funny)
I must have wasted dozens of hours with 1x and 2x CD burners before they became mature. I can still remember staring at the little progress bar.
95% completed -- 96% completed -- 97% completed -- 98% completed -- FAILURE BUFFER UNDERRUN.
AAAAAAAGH!
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I remember them.
I remember multiple head crashes. Data forever lost because I was dumb enough to use them as my primary data drive.
I also remember the sound of plastic and metal shattering when the disk was thrown against a brick wall across the room when it couldn't be read.
Those were the days.
Please excuse me while I go get a drink...
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I was very grateful for the mute button that day.
-Peter
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Biased list (Score:4, Insightful)
Also too much emphasis on marketing flops.
I am SO glad that floppy disks are just about finished with. I threw away hundreds and hundreds of them last year (3.5") and two years ago (5.25"). They still pop up now and then. I hope to eliminate all of them except for emergency boot CDs and the like.
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Re:Biased list (Score:5, Interesting)
Biased list: Windows Centric. (Score:2)
and there's a good reason for that.
This has got to be the first Windows centric article I've enjoyed. That is said as someone who remembers the transition of Byte from a computer magazine to a Windoze product review. In other words, Windows centric articles have bothered me from the very beginning.
Uh, Where is the cell phone?? (Score:3, Insightful)
With the exception of the AOL CD, how many people have ever been "annoyed" by one of the products on this list? It can't possibly compare to the number of people who have been annoyed by a F#*&^%$ cell phone going off in the middle of a class, meeting, or performance event. Not to mention the annoyance of having to listen to 1/2 of an angry or animated conversation. At least the AOL CDs made good coasters, or cou
How about.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Amen (Score:2)
"Please spell you street name"
"C-L-E-A-V-E-R"
"You said B-L-C-A-T-E-R. Is that correct?"
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Bah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bah... (Score:5, Insightful)
As an owner of an original Bondi iMac (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. There's a reason Apple mice were 1-button. (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the puck mouse the original one sucked, but the one that came with the G4 was awesome. If someone made a multi-button version of it with a scroll wheel, it would be my favorite mouse. I had no trouble at all using it back in the day, as it had the dimple on the button so you could actually tell which end was the front, and it was a lot easier for me to work with due to its small size and light weight. I seem to be the exception to the rule, though; I also prefer modern Apple keyboards to the IBM Model M.
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Article on one page (Score:4, Informative)
# = Anchor in URL (Score:2)
what about Bob? (Score:2, Funny)
Very "clever" (annoying) print version (Score:4, Insightful)
You can manually position the page so that all the content is visible, but then the text is hard against the edge of the window.
Nice trick to annoy people into reading through the ad-filled multipage version.
In the other extreme (Score:2)
I suppose the most sneaky pop the print window open to try to tick you into printing the page without being able to read at all.
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1. AOL CDs
2. Windows Me
3. Anything With DRM
4. McAfee Internet Security, Symantec Norton Internet Security
5. RealPlayer
6. Bonzi Buddy
7. MySpace
8. Windows Update
9. Windows Vista
10. Apple QuickTime
Pretty good list, if you ask me. Fair too-- doesn't seem biased towards anything in parti
Flash? (Score:2)
And what about Flash?
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I just finished playing 5 Minutes to Kill Yourself [adultswim.com], and I can tell you, inane videocy is just what I needed. Thank god for flash.
alternately, they could learn some hotkeys (Score:2)
Naturally the quicksilver bit could be some other OS's launcher for notepad/textpad/vi/whatever. (but not emacs because that would be inefficient)
The top ten list (Score:4, Informative)
Less annoying, and you can vote there as well.
Desktop Cleanup Wizard (Score:5, Funny)
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Uncheck "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days"
Most people here probably already know this, but this is for those who don't.
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Now if someone can inform me how to permanently kill that accursed "Windows Update Has Installed Updates" "Restart Now?" "Restart Later?" dialog that pops up every 2 minutes until you actually restart. I don't mind restarting for automatic updates, but jeez, just tell me ONCE willya??
This repetative reminder is highly annoying and infuriatingly distracting when you're in the middle of a 2-hour presentation, or are using the PC to run custom test hardware in the lab and cannot just s
And number 21: (Score:2)
My favorite (Score:2, Interesting)
These stupid things get me every time. It usually takes me at least 3 tries and I think Yahoo's are the worst.
-Paco
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What no Clippy? (Score:3, Funny)
A 7 page article full of adds and clutter? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a nice clean layout that lets you actually read the article and not be distracted?
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touchpad touch-clicking (Score:5, Interesting)
-
oops (f*ck), my cusor moved to some random place mid-sentence,
oops i selected and deleted a section of text.
oops, i clicked on something.
addesso touchpad-keyboards suck because you cant turn this shit off.
let's just say that doing taxes online with an adessa touchpad-keyboard is a bad idea.
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Caps lock key (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes valuable space on the keyboard and rarely gets used.
I like the old control key there instead.
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dammit, i also get the lameness filter . . . why doesn't it stop people when they post in all lower case????
my very favorite part . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Blasphemy! (Score:2)
iTunes (Score:3, Insightful)
If they had created another software package to replicate the services provided by Quicktime just for iTunes people would be lining up to say how it exemplified a lack of faith in the established suite.
Honestly (Score:2)
My vote goes to... (Score:5, Insightful)
ok it's not a poll, but "missing option" (Score:5, Insightful)
#21 (Score:4, Funny)
Spam (Score:4, Insightful)
how about the popup ad on page 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you sure you want to exit this program ? (Score:3, Interesting)
My absolute pet hate are the utter fools that produce code where you close their app and it pops up a dialogue that asks "Are you sure you want to exit ?". Durghhh...
There is absolutely no excuse for this brain dead crap. Of course I'm bloody well sure I want to close your app that's why I clicked thhe close button/the Exit menu item/closed the window etc. etc.
The only reason an app should confirm closure is when there is unsaved data that the user might like to save. There is no other reason to prompt me. I've just effing done something to dismiss your app now be a good coder and tidy up and exit.
Thankfully you do see a lot less of this these days but it's still being used. e.g. I installed Ubuntu Fesity this week, ran Automatix, closed the program and here it comes again. Shame really as Automatix is otherwise top notch (as is Feisty) !
Ho hum... different decade, samme crappy coding.
PC World is pretty damn annoying too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PC World is pretty damn annoying too... (Score:4, Informative)
auto correction sucks! (Score:2, Funny)
i didnt know you could turn the act colloqually slandered as "killing babies" into a website, but i'm sure pc world would find a way to do it!
maybe your auto correction should be taught the word "aberration".
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-matthew
Re:seems empty . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Going from 31 dead people in a senseless mass killing to yet another top 20 list from a worthless site.
Worthless? Dude, you got first post!
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And what will really bake your noodle - this is an everyday experience in the middle east.
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Re:seems empty . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're talking about "human life" in general -- get a grip, the species isn't going extinct just yet.
If you're talking about a (or even several) human lifes -- get a grip, there are plenty of things more important (to some people) than individual human lives, sometimes including their own; if not, nobody would risk their own life for anything.
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Re:seems empty . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
But there's nothing more important than human life.
What a silly statement. Imagine a population of 1000 slaves. Suppose that by the death of one, the remaining 999 will be released to live free lives. You're saying that the life of that one person is more valuable than the freedom of the other 999?
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Re:seems empty . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it sucks to be the families of those people who were killed today. Are you one of them? No? Then what the hell are you concerned about? It's just yet more media-induced false grief for people you don't know.
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Re:seems empty . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Re:seems empty . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of days ago, 62 people were killed in Iraq in a single day's "senseless mass killing".
I doubt either of you even noticed.
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I used to archive everything on those free floppies. All the CDs were good for was cheap coasters and as "throwing stars" when my college roomies were drunk and crazy (which was FAR too often).
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I guess we could all try dying prematurely. I suppose that would address the rampant consumerism at the same time.