Dave Beauvais’ Web Site

I have a question for those who design electronic devices which are powered by disposable batteries. Why do you design your products to use three batteries?! Do you actually shop for batteries? If not, you won’t know that you cannot buy batteries in packages with odd numbers of cells. You can get two packs, four packs, and any of a number of other packs with an even number of batteries. What the hell am I supposed to do with the odd battery that’s left over? Should I wait until I’ve bought three packages of batteries and then use the three “left-overs?” There’s not something you could cut out or redesign to drop the voltage requirement just enough to use two batteries?

Okay, my first post in two months, and it’s going to be another rant. Sorry.

I’m a big user of keyboard shortcuts. More often than not, if I can do something with a keyboard rather than reaching for the mouse, that’s what I’ll do. Every Windows application that I have used since Windows 3.0 — and even some DOS apps before then — has used the keyboard shortcut Alt-F, A to bring up the File menu and select “Save As….” In Adobe Photoshop CS, however, Alt-F, A is “Open As….”

Then we come to Adobe Acrobat 7. In every previous version of Acrobat I could press H or Z to switch to the Hand and Zoom tools, respectively. But not in version 7. No, in Acrobat 7, I must use the mouse to select these tools from a somewhat cluttered and unintuitive toolbar. It’s almost as if another development team took over Acrobat after version 5 and makes it worse with each new release. (Though 6 was by far the worst.)

I’ve become increasingly amazed at Adobe’s arrogance over the years, but this is getting stupid. You don’t just change established GUI conventions; especially not on tools used by thousands of professionals who rely on your software for their livelihood. Don’t force your users to unlearn keystrokes which have become instinctive over years of use. Or if you do, at least give users the ability to edit the menus so they can go back to the standard way of doing things. I’ve been using Photoshop CS for about a year now and I still end up with the “Open As…” dialog almost every single time I use it.

Those four words have been repeated silently in my head countless times tonight as I watch NBC’s coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics. Katie Couric and Bob Costas — and nearly all television news people these days — feel the need to constantly speak. They talked over the music at the beginning of the ceremonies and frequently interject annoying little comments during the parade of nations. Admittedly some of the trivia is interesting, but for the most part I wish they’d just quit talking and let us enjoy the sights and sounds. And don’t get me started on the damn commercial breaks every five minutes.

I live about three miles from where I work. In that three miles, I observed the following during this morning’s commute:

• Seven drivers who ran a red light, three of which were at the same light.
• Two cyclists who crossed at a crosswalk with a “Don’t Walk” light, forcing drivers in a turn lane with a turn light to wait.
• One cyclist wearing studio-style headphones so big, I’m sure he couldn’t hear things around him. This guy rode out into the street without even looking to see if any cars were coming his way.
• Three drivers who whipped around me and cut me off without signaling only to be stopped by the same traffic light I was. That extra car length made all the difference, didn’t it, buddy?
• Sixteen drivers who changed lanes or turned onto another street without signaling.
• One driver who waited until after he changed lanes to blink his signal once.
• One driver who flipped off another driver after the first driver cut off the second. (The bird-flipping should definitely have been the other way around.)
• Three drivers blasting their bass-filled “music” so loudly that things in my car were vibrating.
• One woman putting on makeup while driving — not while stopped at a light.

An interesting observation is that with only one exception — the one who signaled after the turn — the cars at fault were BMWs, Lexuses (Lexi?), a Mercedes, and a couple SUVs of some sort. I am forced, therefore, to conclude that turn signals do not come standard on these expensive vehicles. In fact, they must be such an expensive add-on option that owners can’t afford these extravagant devices after paying for their expensive-ass cars. I also believe that drivers of such vehicles must be subjected to some kind of field that strips them of their ability to drive like a rational person and turns them into assholes. Most were also talking on cell phones.