The Vent and Rant Thread

[wodin]

You could always save it 'til winter and burn it to heat your house. What no fireplace? Just put it on a credit card.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The problem with Windows 10 (and worse, 8.x) is that they are into design fads, such as "flat" and "material". You know how those graphics are normally called? Retro. I think, when looking at Windows 8.x and 10, that I'm seeing an early 1990's operating system with all the flat, solid colors.

I've been saying the same thing - and that they're using such large text because they're assuming *everyone's* accessing their websites from tablets. It feels like we're back in the 800x600 screen size days.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

At the bank I once worked for, there was a VP in charge of handling Presidential complaints. His staff looked at letters that hit the President's office, figured out who had to fix the complaint, and sent it there, and they tracked resolution. Prompt handling of Presidential complaints was one of the things the bank's internal auditors rated you on, and if you got a failing grade, kiss your place on the fast track to senior management goodbye.

Yeah, we call it "Executive Resolution" where I work.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I've been saying the same thing - and that they're using such large text because they're assuming *everyone's* accessing their websites from tablets. It feels like we're back in the 800x600 screen size days.

I think it's ridiculous to use both huge and tiny text in one dialog, or on one page. It means that you can never get it to scale correctly. If you scale up for the tiny text, your huge text becomes unusably huge; if you scale down for the huge text, the tiny text becomes unreadable.

I also think it's ridiculous that, three years ago, I could do all of my work, comfortably, on a 1280x1024 screen. Now there are some programs that I can barely get to fit on a 1920x1080 screen because there are so many panels and controls. Previously, these would have been in menu's or button bars.

Previously: you had a menu that was about 1,5 letter high. It contained everything you needed, always in the same place. MS tried adaptable menu's in Office 2000, but everybody I know always turned that off ASAP.

Take the Ribbon, in troduced in 2007.

Now: you have a huge button/text bar, with buttons of varying sizes and locations. If you resize the window, the Ribbon adapts. Everything you need has different sizes and locations depending of the size of the window. If fully opened, the Ribbon uses about 2x times the space an old fashioned menu + button bar combo would have used.

===============

With regard to credit cards, I don't understand any of it. Honest.

I have one credit card, issued by my bank. It is connected to as few places as possible: Amazon, and one other store. If I have to pay internationally, I'll pay using Paypal if possible. I only use the credit card if there is no other option.

If I pay something, let's say € 30, or € 50 or whatever, then that amount is charged at the end of the month. I haven't ever paid any debts or rates or whatever... the credit card is just a 'delayed payment', so to speak. I've never paid more than what I expected.

The only thing I'm paying is a yearly amount to actually have the credit card, and currency exchanges are a bit worse. For example, now I could get $1.13 for €1, but when doing a currency exchange through the credit card, I'd get something like $1.10 or $1.11. It's the same with Paypal.

[Cinisajoy]

Found stepdad a smartphone.
He will be going with Sprint. The store is close to his house.

[Cinisajoy]

We don't have yearly fees on our credit cards.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

We don't have yearly fees on our credit cards.

This is not to say that they don't *exist* over here. They certainly do. But I, like Cinisajoy, only get cards that do not have a fee.

edit: Just because your statement could have been taken to mean "we" as a nation.

[Blossom]

It could be worse, with pre-paid cards you pay a monthly fee to keep it open. I'm still mad at Wal-Mart for cancelling mine and keeping the money on it. I have a PayPal pre-paid but haven't paid the monthly fee in a very long time to reopen it. I just use gift cards or our debit card if necessary.

Sent from my Nexus 7

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

This is not to say that they don't *exist* over here. They certainly do. But I, like Cinisajoy, only get cards that do not have a fee.

edit: Just because your statement could have been taken to mean "we" as a nation.

Thanks deb. Much appreciate the correction.
Not thinking real clearly this morning.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

It could be worse, with pre-paid cards you pay a monthly fee to keep it open. I'm still mad at Wal-Mart for cancelling mine and keeping the money on it. I have a PayPal pre-paid but haven't paid the monthly fee in a very long time to reopen it. I just use gift cards or our debit card if necessary.

Sent from my Nexus 7

Now I don't know if you have them that far north, but do NOT ever buy a Stripes gift card.

They changed cards and we like to have never gotten our $14 and two clerks at two different stores looked at me like I was trying to steal from them.
Finally found a store that the manager actually knew how to transfer the money from the old card to the new card.
And corporate didn't give a damn.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Now I don't know if you have them that far north, but do NOT ever buy a Stripes gift card.

They changed cards and we like to have never gotten our $14 and two clerks at two different stores looked at me like I was trying to steal from them.
Finally found a store that the manager actually knew how to transfer the money from the old card to the new card.
And corporate didn't give a damn.

For corporate, $14 is small potatoes. They probably saved some large amount by switching cards (or some reason like that). Glad you got it solved!

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

For corporate, $14 is small potatoes. They probably saved some large amount by switching cards (or some reason like that). Glad you got it solved!

They probably did, but I did not appreciate that clerk looking and acting like I was trying to steal something because as the good manager told me all the clerk should have done was grab the phone that was right beside the register and verify there was money on the card.
Not tell me to leave, then call the number on the back of the card and bring her back a nonexistent number.
That card didn't give verification numbers as confirmed by the other manager.
Mind you the actual process to change the card took less than a minute.
Take old card, call number, get amount, put amount on new gift card. Give new card to customer.

The other reason is they never give a card balance on the receipt.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

I've been saying the same thing - and that they're using such large text because they're assuming *everyone's* accessing their websites from tablets. It feels like we're back in the 800x600 screen size days.

My gripe is attempts at one-size-fits-all UIs that can be viewed on anything you happen to use. The UI for a tablet tends not to scale well to a really large screen. I looked at, and passed on, the Unity UI Ubuntu now uses as the default for Ubuntu Linux installations. Fortunately, Linux doesn't stick you with the distro vendor's default. You can download and install something else instead, and there are a lot of something elses. (I have Gnome Classic, Lxde, XFCE and Enlightenment installed here aside form Unity, and can pick which to use from the Login dialog.)
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

This is not to say that they don't *exist* over here. They certainly do. But I, like Cinisajoy, only get cards that do not have a fee.

Same here. We laugh at landfill that talks about annual fees in the offer.

We did have a go around on one credit card. We have an Amtrak branded card that gets used for transport related expenses. The card offers Amtrak points as rewards, and we do enough Amtrak travel to make that useful. (At one point, we had accumulated enough points to fund a round trip journey to New Orleans, and the SO was tempted. Then Hurricane Katrina happened, and scratch that idea. )

Amtrak's agreement with the previous card issuer lapsed and they got a new deal with a different vendor. We would get replacement cards automatically. But the replacement card carried a fee, and the previous one hadn't. We had a "The fact that the new card carries a fee should have been mentioned when you made the announcement. Had we known about the fee, we would have simply cancelled the card. We are now more inclined to cancel because you didn't mention it." go around with them.

Amtrak said "Oops!", recoded our account as a higher level that didn't carry a fee, and the vendor issued yet another set of replacement cards.
______
Dennis

[Katsunami]

This is ridiculous. Apparantly, you still need a €700 monitor if you want a good image without serious defects.

I've bought the Dell U2414H on the basis of its stellar reviews, thinking that this 'good enough' monitor would suffice for normal office work and games, so I could sell the Eizo CS240 (and the color calibrator) and thus recoup a few hundred euro's.

Impossible. The impossibly huge and dated looking Eizo with its 3cm bezels is not only better than the Dell monitor (for its price, it better be), but it blows it completely out of the water.

While working with the Dell, I 'saw something'; it looked like some sort of shadow in the corners of the image; like a vignette. After researching this, it turned out to be the dreaded 'IPS glow'. I've seen this mentioned, but all reviews said that the IPS glow on the Dell was 'minimal' and 'not distracting'.

Well.... the Eizo CS240 makes the Dell U2414H look like a fracking TN screen. When I move off-center, the IPS glow becomes so strong at around 160 degrees that the viewing angle is not much better than a TN panel. At around 170 degrees or so, the image disappears has very heavy shadowing indeed.

Do I sit like that in front of a monitor? Of course not, but because of my poor eyesight, I do sit very close; at around 10-14 inches depending on the day. This makes my viewing angles much steeper than normal. A TN-panel is *very* hard to use for me (that is why it took me halfway into 2007 to finally switch to an LCD-monitor from an LCD; at that time, the non-TN screens became affordable enough for me), and I can clearly see the darkening in the corners of the Dell, which, IMHO, is *not* minimal, and is *very* distracting.

With the Eizo, I can keep moving to the side, and at a certain point, the image will obviously disappears completely as wel... but at that point, I'm looking straight at the side of the monitor. This thing actually *does* have 178% degrees viewing angles. No darkening, no glowing, vignetting or anything of any kind; just some loss of contrast after about 175 degrees.

I'm keeping the Eizo and the color calibrator and the Dell will be returned. I can afford it. I also have the photography gear lying around; the bag only holds the camera and two lenses (and one lens on the camera). I'll get a bag that can hold all of the gear and a binder to put all the manuals and receipts into, and store it. As it is a Leica M-type system, it will fit in a very small bag (smaller than the one I take to work every day).

The Zeiss and Voigtländer lenses won't age; actually, they will probably become more expensive over the years. (They were marked up 15% last year alone.) The M-system already exists for 60 years, and with adapters, these lenses can be used on MANY current-day mirrorless camera's from several manufacturers.

If I want to take some pictures, I'll just have to charge a battery and I'm good to go; worst case, I'll have to replace some batteries, or if I feel like it, the camera. The lenses will work as long mirrorless camera's and adapters exists (or I win the lottery and buy a Leica rangefinder).

Still slated to be sold:
- The old Ergotron monitor arm (it just takes up too much space now that the laptop is on the desk)
- The old computer, the old 19 inch Eizo monitor, and external backup hard disk
- The organ (including the pedal board, bench and stand, obviously)

I'm still throwing/giving away stuff bit by bit; everything that isn't likely to be used ever again (10 year old computer stuff, and so on, old clothes that haven't been worn for years, etc).

Maybe I can't shrink everything down to as minimal a proportion as I wanted to, but it will be at least cleaned up, organized, and all the old/useless stuff will be gone.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I tend to advise people to send snail mail the the company's president.

At the bank I once worked for, there was a VP in charge of handling Presidential complaints. His staff looked at letters that hit the President's office, figured out who had to fix the complaint, and sent it there, and they tracked resolution. Prompt handling of Presidential complaints was one of the things the bank's internal auditors rated you on, and if you got a failing grade, kiss your place on the fast track to senior management goodbye.

A friend at the bank worked in the Service and Support Center - the back office that handled a lot of bank processing. She described a case that hit her desk. A bank officer retired as a VP. At that level, when you retired, you got to keep bank employee rates on services the bank sold. He was going over his bills, and discovered he was being overcharged. (It was a branch error, because they failed to properly code the product as issued to an employee when they opened the account.)

He sent two registered, return receipt requested letters to the SSC about the issue, and got no response. So he sent an ordinary first class mail letter the the bank's president:

"Dear Bill,

How are you and how's the wife and kids? I hope we get a chance to play golf the next time I''m in the area.

By the way, I have a little problem..."

The problem got resolved with blinding speed, his payment rates were adjusted, and he got a refund for the overcharges.

The fact he knew the president was just icing on the cake. The bank took presidential complaints seriously.

I advised snail mail because words on a printed page still carry more emotional weight than electronic communication, and are more likely to get attention.
______
Dennis

Dennis,
Come Monday morning, I will be taking your advice.