Ask Slashdot: New Year's Resolution For Tech Companies? 52
theodp writes: Slashdot has surveyed personal New Year's resolutions in the past. So this year, how about coming up with a list of New Year's resolutions you'd like to see tech companies keep in 2022?
As for me, I'd like to see the tech giants resolve to making their desktop software work in the Cloud (and not just for Business), include a programming language with their desktop and mobile OS, provide the capability to share 'meaningful' file names, and allow developers to cap their Cloud charges. Is that too much to ask for in 2022?
As for me, I'd like to see the tech giants resolve to making their desktop software work in the Cloud (and not just for Business), include a programming language with their desktop and mobile OS, provide the capability to share 'meaningful' file names, and allow developers to cap their Cloud charges. Is that too much to ask for in 2022?
Big fonts (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sick and tired of trying to find serial numbers, model numbers, and anything else of similar vein, and having to pull out my microscope to read dark grey letters and numbers on a black background printed in six point font.
Fonts size should be no less than 14, black on a white surface, and always found on the back of a piece of equipment. And no etching the serial number onto the case itself in the same small font.
What possible reason could one have to make finding this information so difficult to find or read? How many watts is that power brick? Don't know it's either not printed on the item or buried in that six point dark grey font on a black surface. Is that a six or C? Can't tell.
Make your information big and easy to find.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're going for Funny, right? Something about smartphones without their own information in the settings, or too well hidden, or your fingers can't do spreading gestures?
Of course the solution the corporations would favor is to tattoo all of the serial numbers on our bodies. That'll stop the pirates! But in that case I prefer the serial numbers be as small as possible.
Anyway, the joke I was looking for was "Be less evil." Not holding my breath. (And not Funny the way I told it.)
Re: Big fonts (Score:2)
No, it is a serious problem. I also find it near impossible to determine the amperage specs on hardware that has it embossed in tiny print or otherwise. Similarly many apps (Netflix, Kindle and Google app, I am looking at you) have super tiny (3 point?) text in important places (title, description) with no option to enlarge. The solution for me is to use the iPhoneâ(TM)s assistive zoom and its magnifier shortcut to read hardware tags and nutritional info labels. A lot of things are printed really tiny
Re: (Score:2)
I'm taking you as sincere, but I was going for Funny. Such as it was not.
Anyway, I'm sure the "economic efficiency experts" focus on minimizing the costs by using smaller stickers, especially for rarely referenced information.
Re: Big white space (Score:3)
The current 'microtrend, of huge areas of white space or otherwise wasted space that make me wish my phone or monitor was 10 feet tall needs to stop, now.
My ability to operate a program or web page should not be subject to what some drone thinks is the current trend.
I would love to see a customization trend where sites or programs only handle generating the raw output, and the user descides how it's laid out and information density pr. screen.
Re: (Score:2)
I would love to see a customization trend where sites or programs only handle generating the raw output, and the user descides how it's laid out and information density pr. screen.
It sounds like you want what HTML was designed to do, before CSS came along and ruined everything.
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Re: Big fonts (Score:2)
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I'm hard pressed to think of anything where I have had this issue.
Look at the back of a Lenovo or HP power brick. Some of the earlier models had the wattage printed in large font on the back, but no longer. Take a look at Dell monitor serial numbers. Dark grey six point font on a black background. HP printers, while using black font on a white background, have the size in six or eight point font. Xerox printers can be the same way.
I encounter this almost every day and it's a pain in the ass. Even the labels on the side of boxes have smaller than normal font sizes.
Re: (Score:2)
As a follow up to my previous comment, tell me what wattage this Lenovo power brick has [servethehome.com]. Same thing for this HP power brick [ebayimg.com].
Re: (Score:2)
First of all the resolution of your images isn't really conducive to reading the wattages (well the output voltage and amperage really since I can do the math from there) but it looks like the Lenovo is a 45W (maybe 60W as the output current is hard to determine) power supply and the HP is totally illegible from that image.
I do get your point though and have no gotten into the habit of keeping a magnifying glass on my bench at all times.
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I do get your point though and have no gotten into the habit of keeping a magnifying glass on my bench at all times.
Why not just pull your phone out and zoom in with the camera?
Re: (Score:1)
black on a white surface
My cataract says the reverse, though I agree on the font size, and non-serif. And people who use light grey text on white should be banned from publishing anything, anywhere, forever
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Same thing with the contact numbers on the back of my credit cards. At 63, I don't need reading glasses and yet have a difficult time guessing the digits to contact customer service.
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The big font giveth, the small font taketh away.
Much bandying over nothing (Score:2)
Hell we can't even find a website whose "feedback" form does not route directly to /dev/null . The only way they will get the picture if people stop sending them money and good luck getting the masses who call tech support because they can't find the "on" switch to follow suit.
Als, frost pist. Yay?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Compromise, "Only be half evil"
Re: "Don't be evil" (Score:2)
Way easier said than done. Especially with politicians bought and paid for with generous "gifts". And expecting politicians to pass a law barring themelves from accepting gifts? Joke of the century.
A company has to work very hard to get on their bad side these days.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:1)
And I bet you dutifully replaced your "Trump 2020" banner after some neighborhood teens stole the last one.
For tech companies? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Think past the next quarter.
Wall Street won't let them.
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Less cloud pls (Score:5, Interesting)
As for me, I'd like to see the tech giants resolve to making their desktop software work in the Cloud
I want literally the exact opposite. I don't use remote storage and the majority of the software that I use has no requirement to support it. And yet I see a constant push towards SaaS and cloud EVERYTHING to the point where I can't not have it even if I don't want it.
I use Linux mostly but do have a Windows 10 install for certain apps. Can I please uninstall Cortana and remove One Drive?
SaaS makes sense for certain applications. Web-based email comes to mind as an early incarnation. But it seems like almost all software being developed today for mass consumption is a SaaS service. I don't want to subscribe to my software. I don't want my files stored on someone else's computer. I don't like that every time I use my software plus everything I do while using it can be tracked and I also don't like the idea of continuous delivery as an end-user (as a developer I'm a total hypocrite there). CD provides a way for companies to push changes onto you without your consent. This might be OK for security fixes (even then I'd prefer to consent to the change), but that menu item or keyboard shortcut you use judiciously could be moved or just gone one day because the company felt like it, or maybe you were a minority user and it didn't get much engagement.
So my resolution for companies - more non-cloud, non-SaaS, desktop only software please. /rant
Re: (Score:2)
Uninstall Onedrive (assuming you have Pro or Enterprise). https://lifehacker.com/how-to-... [lifehacker.com]
Uninstall Cortana. https://www.tomsguide.com/news... [tomsguide.com]
Fortunately it looks like Windows 11 has Cortana turned off by default.
Re: Less cloud pls (Score:2)
"As for me, I'd like to see the tech giants resolve to making their desktop software work in the Cloud"
Anyone who wants that is seriously out of touch with reality, or they are being paid to astroturf for this.
We moved away from dumb terminals and mainframes for a reason.
Re: Less cloud pls (Score:2)
Here's another thing to consider:
Putting everything in the cloud means having massive server farms that must run as close to 24/7/365(6) as possible, and personal computers that also consume power while being used.
It would be a hellavalot more eco-friendly to just cut out the server farm and have the software run on the PC.
I bet the cloud pushers never think of this.
Resolution (Score:2)
1600 x 900 on my laptop
Re: Resolution (Score:2)
How about no.... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Cloud (Score:2, Insightful)
As for me, I'd like to see the tech giants resolve to making their desktop software work in the Cloud
You're a rent-seeking asshole executive's wet dream. Why don't you just demand to pay a monthly subscription for everything or, barring that, a DRM-enforced maximum product lifespan of 2 years?
Re: (Score:2)
If you are using a data tracker of some sort (bitcoin ticker, etc.) then cloud makes sense, but more and more I want standalone apps that run on my desktop. Sick and tired of cloud security issues, access issues, subscriptions, and daily updates that break things. Just give me an app that works. Unless you are tracking fast-changing data, cloud sucks.
Start with the ISPs (Score:1)
Make them common carriers, or the internet will forever remain a restricted community of Big Tech®
Don't Be Google (Score:2)
Free personal AWS w/Prime (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish Amazon would let me write something for Alexa I don't care about trying to monetize, then let users link its AWS usage directly to their own account (instead of mine), which would be a free benefit of Prime.
Or, failing that... let me set an absolute maximum monthly charge for AWS, and just cut off its users cold if I'm ever in any danger of going over that amount.
AWS billing scares me shitless, because there's literally no upper limit to what Amazon could charge, and their 'usage' monitoring isn't realtime, so you could cut it when your use gets to $n, then ultimately get billed 10000 x $n for use that occurred during the last few hours. That's what's really killing Alexa... it's suicidal to provide free apps, because everything involving Alexa involves AWS, and there's no way to guarantee your usage will get cut off before incurring additional charges if the app goes viral.
NO DUPES!!!!! (Score:2)
No Dupes, and while I'm at it unicode support. And a pony.
Stop just one OWASP top 10 (Score:2)
More transparent, democratic oversight... (Score:1)
Stop sucking up to China (Score:2)
Would US companies do business in and with Nazi Germany? No different.
For the Videogame Industry (Score:3)
Specifically for Activision: Why is a slime like Bobby Kotick still CEO of your company? Shameful. Money above human dignity, I guess.
For the rest of the industry: You're generally doing better than a few decades ago in terms of quality of life issues, sexism, abuse, and other ills, but better is still not "great". Improvements can still be made, and must be fought for company by company.
Stop the annoying virtue signaling on social media (Score:2)
NT
Do something about the scalpers (Score:2)
Leave the 18th century behind. (Score:3)
1. Stop using slave labor, and yes that means stop even if you currently do it indirectly by hiring a company you know is using slaves.
2. Stop the racism. Do not treat customers or employees any differently based on the color of their skin. PERIOD. No excuses, no pretense that the particular racism you are engaging in is somehow better or justified.
3. Stop pretending modern communications do not exist. You cannot tell some people that Taiwan or Israel (just two easy examples) exist as independent countries and then tell other people they do not, and somehow imagine the two target audiences will never communicate or hear the other messages. Same thing on boycotting any US state because "human rights" (the voters democratically made a choice you do not like) and then sucking up to some other country with little-to-no actual basic human rights. People notice these things, and you're just insulting their intelligence.
4. Stop deliberately making stuff un-reparable and thus throw-away, as though the planet is a wide-open unlimited unexplored frontier that can accept getting trashed a bit here and there. People may not all be tree-hugging vegan eco-freaks, but nearly everybody hates junking a mostly good product, most people really don't want to fill the landfills with electronics, and the great explorers have all done their work - we know how big the planet is and it's not unlimited.
Editable History (Score:2)