IT Pet Peeves

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xpd

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#112586 13-Dec-2012 11:01

List of Pet peeves I obtained from Spiceworks forum..... pretty sure all professional "geeks" can relate...

===============================
My pet peeves:

1. Auto-hide on the Taskbar. Seriously? What practical reason is there for that in the year 2012?

2. By default, Windows 7 hides most of the icons on the notification area. I un-hide these every time I get on a user's computer. Half the time I un-hide these, I see java and adobe just waiting to be updated!

3. Control panel, must be in classic view!

4. Taskbar, please keep it on the bottom!

5. Outlook. For the love of all that which does not suck, WHY on earth do people insist on keeping the left pane massive, and the right pane tiny?(or top pane massive and bottom pane tiny) The meat of an e-mail is the actual contents of the e-mail, not the little place that tells you who it came from.

6. Hiding file extensions by default. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Okay, I get it. People will go to rename a file and cut off the extension. I understand that. However, a pop-up comes up every time you change a file extension telling you that the application may not work. Yes, I know people don't read pop-ups, but at least it gives IT ammo to say, "Read the pop-ups."

7. Why folders are set to default to view everything as huge icons is a mystery to me. A view that shows more icons, with the last time it was modified, and how large it is? Or....a 24x74 icon with just the name of the file or folder. Seriously, Microsoft?

8. Personalized menus. You know....the one that hides everything you're actually looking for just because you haven't used it in the last 0.038 seconds?

9. Seems like everyone has their one pet peeve that goes against the grain of most people here. Mine is tabbed browsing. Tabbed anything, for that matter. Can't stand it. I have been moving my cursor to the upper far right corner to close things without having to look for longer than many people have been driving a car. I don't know that I'll ever be able to get over that one.

10. Fixing the same problem for the same user on a daily basis because they do not want to work.

11. Users not able to apologize for saying the wrong things to people trying to help them.

12. Users that blame you for the problems they are having even though most of the time THEY are the problem.

13. Users who beat their mouse against the desk because "it" doesn't work, even if the mouse is working fine and a web page isn't loading.

14. Users who want to argue with me they didn't do anything wrong, but I must have because that file/folder is now GONE!

15. Users thinking IT is just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring while playing solitaire or typing in some forum. Wait a minute....

XPD / Gavin

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tonyhughes

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#731900 13-Dec-2012 11:06

Users who take it as a personal affront when asked to turn their devices off, and back on again.

geekiegeek

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#731920 13-Dec-2012 11:24

tonyhughes: Users who take it as a personal affront when asked to turn their devices off, and back on again.

And the ones that lie and say they have. You spend a whole bunch of time on the issue only to find that a restart fixes it.

tatbaird

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#731935 13-Dec-2012 11:29

Message body in the subject line of an email.

Brevity in support emails, "My printer doesn't work - HELP" from a user you don't know, at a site with 1000 users and tons of printers. How do ignorant souls like this even get a job?

Installations default to "Don't Agree". Just so I can reconsider my position?

Apple fanboys and girls. Great products, but I hate you anyway.

Well let me just quote the late-great Colonel Sanders, who said "Im too drunk to taste this chicken." -Ricky Bobby

freitasm

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#731936 13-Dec-2012 11:35

Or if you are "Supporting your family and friends" (TM) and they install toolbars even when you tell then not to install toolbars and leave Windows UAC turned on.

"I was away and searched for 'free streaming rugby' and the first result was this toolbar that let me watch free TV on my browser but it never worked. Now my Internet Explorer crashes every time I start it. Can you fix?"

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robjg63

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#731955 13-Dec-2012 11:56

People who just use 'reply' in a random piece of email you sent them once whenever they want to email you.
They never change the subject heading so its never related to the email contents they are actually sending.
The body of the email has discussions from at least the last 3 years....

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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#731956 13-Dec-2012 11:58

freitasm: Or if you are "Supporting your family and friends" (TM) and they install toolbars even when you tell then not to install toolbars and leave Windows UAC turned on.

"I was away and searched for 'free streaming rugby' and the first result was this toolbar that let me watch free TV on my browser but it never worked. Now my Internet Explorer crashes every time I start it. Can you fix?"

I find quite often you ask about the 8 toolbars in their web browser and they swear they have never noticed them until that very second!

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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#731985 13-Dec-2012 12:36

I had a support call once from someone whose issue was the "the Internet has gotten too small". It ended up being 10+ toolbars making the IE 6 viewframe tiny.

bigreddog

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#731986 13-Dec-2012 12:38

Best support email I ever received:
"my computer had an error today, can you fix it please"

amanzi

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#731991 13-Dec-2012 12:45

I don't think users can be blamed for installing toolbars - heaps of valid applications are bundling toolbars and crap in their installers now, and often it's easy to overlook the checkbox that says "Also install this amazing extra feature..." The other pet peeve I have is the number of valid companies that are bundling McAfee's security scanning software, even if they've alread got valid AV software installed. Bing Desktop is another one that gets unintentionally installed often - through seemingly valid Windows Updates, or some other application installer.

All these companies are taking advantage of unknowing end-users and at the end of the day they are making life worse for the customers they're trying to win.

amanzi

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#731994 13-Dec-2012 12:48

My pet peeve as far as users go, is when a user has no interest in learning why something has gone wrong and how they can avoid it in the future. I have no sympathy for a user that says to me "I don't care what's happened, just fix it!"

I don't care if you don't like computers, but learning to use your tools better will help you do your job better. And if you can't see that, then you deserve the computer troubles you're destined to have.

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#732009 13-Dec-2012 13:20

Tabbed browsing in Opera is very good with thumbnails in the tabs (think some plugins on other browsers may have now copied this). Tabbed browsing in other browsers is painful, especally firefox, which scrolls it's tabs if you have too many open. You can probably get plugins to fix this, but more fiddly.

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#732012 13-Dec-2012 13:24

2. By default, Windows 7 hides most of the icons on the notification area. I un-hide these every time I get on a user's computer. Half the time I un-hide these, I see java and adobe just waiting to be updated!

Actually prefer this to be hidden, I get notifications anyway if something needs to update. Besides I'm sick of the 100th odd update for flash player.

3. Control panel, must be in classic view!

Use to think this with Windows XP but since using Windows 7/8 prefer the newer style.

4. Taskbar, please keep it on the bottom!

Have my taskbar on the right hand side as I usualy have quite a few programs open during the day and find it easier at a glance to work out whats what.

9. Seems like everyone has their one pet peeve that goes against the grain of most people here. Mine is tabbed browsing. Tabbed anything, for that matter. Can't stand it. I have been moving my cursor to the upper far right corner to close things without having to look for longer than many people have been driving a car. I don't know that I'll ever be able to get over that one.

Love tabbed browsing, dislike have multiple copies of IE or said browser open. Actually IE10 is great for tab's with it's thumb nail preview.

15. Users thinking IT is just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring while playing solitaire or typing in some forum. Wait a minute....

Wish I had it that easy :-( The IT dept. is the dumping ground, server builds, desktop builds, network patching, hardware purchasing, switch configs and more...

Agree with everything else though :-)

xpd

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#732036 13-Dec-2012 13:49

amanzi: My pet peeve as far as users go, is when a user has no interest in learning why something has gone wrong and how they can avoid it in the future. I have no sympathy for a user that says to me "I don't care what's happened, just fix it!"

2 ways this can go though depending on the tech.... (lets say the fault is user unable to reach internet)

1) My way - this caused it (in laymans terms), so now you know.

2) Workmates way - Each technology has its own convention for transmitting messages between two machines within the same network. On a LAN, messages are sent between machines by supplying the six byte unique identifier (the "MAC" address). In an SNA network, every machine has Logical Units with their own network address. DECNET, Appletalk, and Novell IPX all have a scheme for assigning numbers to each local network and to each workstation attached to the network. On top of these local or vendor specific network addresses, TCP/IP assigns a unique number to every workstation in the world. This "IP number" is a four byte value that, by convention, is expressed by converting each byte into a decimal number (0 to 255) and separating the bytes with a period. For example, the PC Lube and Tune server is 130.132.59.234.

An organization begins by sending electronic mail to Hostmaster@INTERNIC.NET requesting assignment of a network number. It is still possible for almost anyone to get assignment of a number for a small "Class C" network in which the first three bytes identify the network and the last byte identifies the individual computer. The author followed this procedure and was assigned the numbers 192.35.91.* for a network of computers at his house. Larger organizations can get a "Class B" network where the first two bytes identify the....blah blah blah blah....

Was wondering why people prefer dealing with me....

XPD / Gavin

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