What's the Worst Technical Feature You've Used?

kooky45 asks: "In an effort to make our lives easier and more entertaining, technology designers pack more and more features into electronic devices, but often they're more nuisance than they're worth. An earlier article on LEDs discussed some of these. Another example is my Nokia 6320i mobile phone which has a back lit screen that drains the battery life at an alarming rate. When the phone is not in use the back light is off; if the battery starts to run low, it gives me regular warnings by beeping and turning the back light on! What other examples of designer stupidity have you seen?"

Re:Honda Stereo Security

[dpaton.net]

Or just call the dealer you bought the car from, give them the VIN, and they'll give you the code over the phone. I've been doing this off and on for a decade, and haven't had to give them anything else.

Speaking of Microsoft...

[mollog]

Speaking of Microsoft (Clippy), back in the days of DOS 6.something (6.2 ?), when upgrading from a previous version of OS, if the Mircosoft installation program detected something besides a DOS partition, it would blithely inform you that it had detected something non-Mircosoft and it would take care of it for you!

That was a disappointment.

I lost a lot of work until I found the work-around.

Handspring World Clock

[njchick]

In Handspring Treo 180, there was a "World Clock" program that could display time in any timezone. It allowed to change my current timezone, but it would not change the time! So I move between timezones, I would need to update the timezone AND the time. Perhaps the software was not tested on real word travelers.

Re:Honda Stereo Security

[RealErmine]

You can also use Honda's online Owner Link [ahm-ownerlink.com] to store your radio code, unless you're afraid someone will hack your account and then steal your stereo. There's a special field for it and everything.

Re:PC Load Letter

[twilightzero]

Most likely your rollers are bad, being that age. Also you probably have a screw or 2 loose inside that holds parts in the paper path together. They're actually relatively simple to repair, but the first thing I'd do is pull the rollers and clean them all with alcohol, then take the printer outside and blow it out with canned air/air compressor. That'll go a long way to making it reliable again. :)

Re:Buttons will be pressed, you know...

[Verte]

Modern Nokias have the same feature- the unlock key is uncovered. Every time my father sits down, the mp3 player starts. That and phones where emergency dialing numbers are dialable when the phone is locked- I've heard "Police Fire Ambulance. Hello?" come from my pants while at work. Rather unnerving. This of course stems from a more common problem: phones don't use open source operating systems, because that'd make these stupid little things very easy to fix. Either give me that or give me a phone that doesn't need its own operating system, thankyou.

Re:Windows Genuine Advantage

[Tatisimo]

Yes, I purchased the legitimate thing from a respectable, authorized seller. I don't download that stuff, and I keep my taskbar empty. I keep a crap ware free machine. I had to turn WGA off in order to keep it from slowing down my real work (which takes up a lot of ram already). But somehow, after 4 months of use, it decided that my copy was illegitimate. So it almost locked me out, till I called tech support to fix it. (Good thing I still had the warranty). Maybe I'm just not Windows 1337 enough for it... I guess I'll go back to DOS. or go on to Linux.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try this: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/getstarted/FX101 938921033.aspx [microsoft.com]

Re:Voicemail

[crymeph0]

I don't know what to do about listening to your voicemails, but I know when leaving a message on most cell phone voicemails, you can just press 1 while the computer is droning on about 'leave a message at the tone or press 2 to enter a recursive menu with no hope of escape', even if it doesn't explicitly say you can press 1 to leave a message, and it will take you right to leaving a message.

Re:Honda Stereo Security

[SoCalChris]

I own two newer GM vehicles, there is some truth to this.

You can easily add an after market stereo, although you will need an adapter. You can get one for about $30, although your door chime won't work (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing). An adapter that keeps the door chime working is about $80.

One nice thing about the newer GM radios though is that the radio stores the VIN in the radio. You can disconnect the power as many times as you want, and the radio will always work, as long as it is installed in the vehicle that it came out of. You don't have to worry about remembering a code like in most other car stereos.

Re:Windows security upgrade

[Dude McDude]

You can change that behaviour using the 'Automatic updates' applet in Control Panel.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Invulnerable Plastic Packaging

[hansamurai]

http://www.myopenx.com/home.htm [myopenx.com]

I've broken scissors too. Never again! Never again!

My windshield washer tank

[Rob the Bold]

Yes. My windshield washer tank. It's a minor quibble, true, but a source of irritation nevertheless.

It's a pretty big tank. One US gallon. Seems like a good idea, since I'm in the US, and windshield washer fluid is sold by the gallon. Just buy a gallon, fill the tank, done.

Except that's not how it works. I've got a "washer fluid low" sensor and light on the dash. It comes on when there's about 1/10th of a gallon left. Plenty of time to put more in before running out.

So I go to the store, buy a gallon, pour in (by now) 15/16ths of the bottle, and now the tank is full. And I'm left with a 1 gallon jug with 1 cup of fluid in it. So the almost empty jug has to sit in the garage or the trunk until I use a little fluid.

Sure would have been nice to have a 1.1 gallon tank.

Re:Auto controls

[compwizrd]

It's a design "feature", so that if someone's standing beside your car on the other side, they can't get into the car when you unlock it.

VMWare

[26199]

I few 'doh' moments using VMWare.

Why does it let Ctrl-Alt-Del through to the hosted machine? It pops up a box telling you that you probably didn't want to do that, since both the server and the host see the keypress; but it sends it anyway. Result: lock your windows PC and reboot your virtual Linux box. Well, fine, I can get around that. (Just stop Ctrl-Alt-Del from rebooting the Linux box).

But why have Ctrl-R reboot the hosted machine? Ctrl-R which is used all the time when interacting with a shell. It's not exactly difficult to accidentally press Ctrl-R when the VM window has focus but the hosted machine itself does not. Gah.

Sigh.

Re:Motorola Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I'm posting as an AC, I doubt this will get seen, but what the heck:

This is not the fault of Motorola, it is the fault of your wireless company. Motorola allows the phone company to add any features to the phone that they want, and allows them to "lock" several features so they cannot be changed/deleted/etc. There is no way to get around this on the phone itself, however if you connect it to your computer there are several utilities that can fix the problem. Check out http://www.motomodders.net/ [motomodders.net] or http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/Motorola [howardforums.com] for details on the fun stuff you can do with a computer link.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[The_mad_linguist]

If you're using microsoft, try Start->Settings->Control Panel->Accessibility Options->Mouse->Use mousekeys

Re:Windows Genuine Advantage

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Funny thing is, I've been.. my FRIEND has been running a pirated copy of Vista since it came out, and according to Windows I have a 100% legit activated ASUS OEM copy. I never have to activate, I never get nagged, and I can download all the Microsoft stuff that require WGA.

Re:Get this...

[diamondsw]

DVD-covers. They are larger than CDs for no good reason.
Except that they fit perfectly, 2 to a spot, in media storage gear originally designed to hold VHS tapes.

No, they don't. DVD cases are necessarily deeper, and for many VHS cabinets, won't work. Of course, they could have adopted the CD jewel case size and fit in the millions of CD storage units. Or they could have used a "slimline" design from the beginning.

Voicemail uses your minutes

[visionsofmcskill]

There is a reason those messages are so laborious with unnecesary pauses and bad order of menu options etc...

The time you spend with your answering machine is money to the Tel-Co. If you have Pay-As-You-Go it DEFINTLY counts as 10c/minute. Considering that they bill you for two minutes even if you hang up at 61 seconds, its a very easy way for them to make millions.

No joke, the more time you spend on the phone going through the various menu's the more time gets racked up, even if your on a plan your still burning minutes just trying to leave a message on someone elses phone.

Text messaging is almost worse in its cost vs value, a singel text message is generally 10-20c (sending party and recieving party), and generally requires at least one reply ... another 10-20c... so one excahnge = 4 minutes of talk time. 4 minutes on the phone could accomplish a lot more... and uses way more bandwidth, but once again the tel-co's have it setup so that the more laborious the process, the more it costs you.

-1, Pedantic

[75th Trombone]

It's actually "Paper Cassette" [wikipedia.org].

Because I know you care. <3

Re:/. editors

[Tatisimo]

As a graphic designer, I often find my own business card too bothersome to make well, so I got for the simple stuff. My carpenter friend normally makes simplistic furniture for his house, choosing not to make wonderful works of art like he makes for other people. With that logic, I should assume that /. programmers would rather be modding NES pads to control their alarm clocks, running linux off a toaster, or reading comics than getting rid of minor annoyances like that one. And I like it that way.

Re:/. editors

[Richard McBeef]

Slide the slider on the left to make them all expanded. What's the problem?

Then it shows all the comments on one page. I just tried that for a story with 3500 comments and it crashed my browser (firefox 2.0) and nearly locked up X. It worked OK in windows (also firefox 2.0), but still all the comments are on one page. So the new system only allows you to see them all on one page expanded or not to some degree. I've tried the new system before. I'll stick with the old system. At least I know its quirks/bugs/crap design and it has never crashed my browser.

Re:Digital vs. analog controls

[Chris Pimlott]

Many high-end receivers have this feature. It's pretty nifty.

Re:SysRq

[Detritus]

It does get used by IBM terminal emulators, which are still being used in many places.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[malsdavis]

Most motherboards these days are pretty resilient to it, but it is still supposedly possible. The main risk is if the connector's pins bend and touch each other (and even then has to be certain ones) as you plug it in, this can cause a short circuit and can completely fry a motherboard (actually it would only fry a tiny 1 cent micro-controller but in today's throw-away-society that of course means the entire board is as good as bust). Never actually seen it happen in front of me, it always seems to be one of those "it happened to a friend of a friend" type stories.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a wild shot in the dark (actually it's not), but could it perhaps be the BIOS?

You must have been deliberately casting magic missile at the darkness, then. The BIOS is a program, stored in ROM, which allows other programs to quickly and easily interact with the system hardware at a high level. Being a program, it consists of sequences of CPU instructions, and you can't very well execute CPU instructions if you don't have a CPU...

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[Skylinux]

Probably for debugging, I program micro controllers every once in a while and use a serial connection to transmit information back to my PC. It is a lot easier reading a message from a terminal screen then it is reading blinking LEDs ;)

Re:SysRq

[knorthern knight]

In linux, read the file /usr/linux/src/Documentation/sysrq.txt and select the following kernel option while running "make menuconfig"

Kernel hacking --->
[*] Magic SysRq key

If your system is locked up, you can at least hit {ALT-SysRq-s} to force a sync to save data before hitting the power button. This can avoid filesystem corruption. There are various commands that can be executed. Read the documentation file I mentioned above for more details.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[Twisted64]

A colleague next to me is swearing black and blue that he's seen the message, and he's never delved into the BIOs error messages. I keep telling him to post it for a +5 informative, but since he can't explain it, I'm posting it as a curiousity.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[vuffi_raa]

yeah I know what you mean- I had an ethernet driver disc that tried to check online for updates before it could install the driver

Re:Microwave

[cpt kangarooski]

You really aren't understanding the issue.

People who are observant certainly remember what is and isn't allowed. The issue is that the device needs to be flexible. If a refrigerator always lights a light when the door is opened, and always turns the compressor on when the door is opened because it's designed to expect that cold air is escaping then, then an observant Jewish person cannot use that fridge at all one day a week. He won't be able to avoid doing prohibited things if he goes to get anything out of it. So he'll have to do without altogether.

It seems like it'd be a hell of a lot easier to just have a switch that puts the fridge into an alternate mode where opening the door doesn't make the light come on, and doesn't trigger the compressor. Then the person can use the fridge. He knows what he wants the fridge to do -- the machine isn't meant to remind him. It's just meant to behave in the way he needs it to during that time.

Letting things work on timers or other automatic systems that are not connected to human activity which occurs on the sabbath is fine. So heat in the winter is left on automatic. It doesn't need to be turned off. There's no prohibition about having a compressor running, or having it switch on or off. The prohibition is against being the one who switches it on or off.

Anyway, this is actually pretty legalistic and rational, if quite conservative in interpretation. Well, at least if you're treating the law you're trying to follow as an absolute given. It is something that you can have a rational discussion about.

Re:Windows Genuine Advantage

[6th time lucky]

I'll see your "annoying pop-up" and raise you an unwelcome automatic friggin' reboot. Turns out if you ignore the popup and arent at your computer it will just shut itself down anyway...

Boss lost a half day's work from that... yes he should have saved the file properly (he insists he did), but *NO* the computer shouldnt have just rebooted on its own while he had lunch!

You can turn this on/off by some group policy... cant remember where...

Re:Great Zombie ... Firefox

[Yer Mom]

How 'bout this... I'm here reading about all these 'features', and another page I was on spawned a pop-up, which due to the settings I have opened in a new tab. The pop-up resizes my Firefox window, and disabled every function of the browser except creating and closing empty tabs, and scrolling (but only by the little knob thing on the scrollbar, the up-down buttons didn't work, nor the keyboard shortcuts)

Go to about:config [about]. Type "dom" into the search box. You can disable all that resizing and button-removing guff from there.

Not so good if there are times when you want those features on, of course...

Re:Where's my god damned "No to all"?

[DruggedBunny]

It's not documented anywhere obvious, but hold Shift while clicking No -- this works as "No to All" on those dialogs. I think my brother found this by accident one day.

Re:It will come up sooner or later...

[evilviper]

Your motherboard has enough brains (somewhere) to bootstrap as far as BIOS config without a processor at all.

A processor is what runs code. Without a processor, code doesn't run. There is no exception.

To run without a main CPU, there would have to be a second processor on the board somewhere, which I can assure you there is not. The northbridge and southbridge chips are advanced these days, but they can't do any processing on their own.

when you screw up the processor overclock settings, it doesn't work, and you can start up and correct the problem usually.

Your BIOS bootstraps at an extremely early stage in the boot process, when your x86 PC is running in an 8-bit mode, and at the speed of an 8088. They simply put a "freeze" check early in the BIOS process, before it's been fully initalized, and use safe defaults to continue the POST process until video is initialized, and the user can be notified.