Computers

Bug Name: Laptop "hard kill" switches

 

Reported by: BTS

 

Products: Laptop computers

 

Discussion: It befuddles me why laptops are so difficult to power down and reboot,

especially after a hard crash or freeze.  When they're plugged in, you have

to resort to unplugging them, then sometimes removing the battery after a

hard crash.  Even then it may not work, as some batteries have a third power

source-- an embedded battery.

 

Proposed Fix: Add a mechanical switch, hidden under a plastic cover, that says "TURN

OFF, DAMMIT-- I MEAN IT!!!".  You open the cover, flick the switch, and

viola! the power is cut.  Definitively.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Bug Name: Mac: Bend-Over ON, Mouse OFF

 

Reported by: Noah

 

Duration: since 2001

 

Supplier: Apple

 

Alias: Bend over to turn me on

 

Product: Every Mac Keyboard/Mac desktop computer combo

 

Bug: No ON/OFF power button on Keyboard

 

Class of Error: My way or...actually, just my way.

 

Principle: Why implement a feature that your manufacturing doesn’t support out of the box? This forces the consumer to spend money on third party solutions if they want to use that feature.

 

Proposed Fix: Put a 4¢ button on the keyboard. If it’s a power issue, put a rechargeable battery in the keyboard. Sheesh!

 

Discussion: They stopped putting power buttons on the Apple keyboards...something about USB not being enabled until the computer is powered on. But my MacAlly keyboard works just fine. Go figure. In order to turn a machine ON, I have to press a feedback\-neutral button. In order to turn it off, I have to use the menu...unless it crashes, in which case I have to hold the same feedback-free button for an undetermined amount of time. This, by the way, is a source of another Bug: what happened to the interrupt key? It’s not as if my machine NEVER crashes these days. Sometimes I need to perform a hard reset. Am I venting?

 

Bug first observed: uhhhh...

 

Bug reported to Supplier: Someone must have complained before me...

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Drivers

Bug: Missing Drivers

 

Reported by: Phunky Monkey

 

Duration: >10 years

 

Supplier: All

 

Slogan: "No, I don't have the driver disk; find it yourself!"

 

Alias: Plug-n-Pray

 

Product: All

 

Bug: Driver hell

 

Class of Error: Lack of organized effort

 

   Principle: When something doesn’t work, ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

 

Proposed Fix: Let there be a universal internet driver database, where all OSs can automatically go to download the newest drivers. This way, even outdated hardware, hardware from vendors who have gone under, and hardware I've lost the manuals/disks for can be used with ease. Also, OSs should perform the entire discovery, install, and configuration process by themselves, requiring minimal user intervention.

 

   To ease this process, Hardware manufacturers and OS vendors should form and adhere to more standards, so that more universal drivers can be written, more OSs can be supported, and the entire computing experience can be easier and more consistent all around.

 

Discussion: Since the beginning of the PC era, adding peripherals to a computer has generally been a nightmare of drivers and software. Even when Microsoft offered up "Plug-n-Play" in Windows 95, most devices still required a magical voodoo dance to be correctly installed. With the advent of the internet, vendors have been shipping unfinished drivers with the products, forcing users to hunt down drivers online and go through the laborious process of updating them.

 

   Today, this is less of a problem in some areas, and more in others. For example: I can plug in a USB or Firewire hard drive to any of my PC, Mac, and Linux computers, and they all are able to use it without any effort on my part. But... when I plug in a new USB inkjet, the Windows computer requires me to install 150mb (!!!) of drivers, the Mac doesn't support it, and the Linux box catches fire.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Keyboards

 

Bug: QWERTY

 

Since: 1868

 

Myth:  QWERTY was designed to slow typists.

 

Mythbuster: http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

 

Discussion: Complaints about QWERTY were the single most popular “design bug” reported.  I certainly did my part to perpetuate the myth in years past, but by 1990, we knew better.

 

There has been no demonstrable difference shown between QWERTY and DVORAK beyond a certain level of increased “comfort” with DVORAK

 

Christopher Sholes, in designing the QWERTY keyboard, may indeed have been trying to keep keys from jamming (no one knows for sure), but a way of doing that without slowing typists down is to arrange keys so that the typist alternates fingers.  As it turns out, that’s a good way to relieve stress on the typist, as well..

 

The Mac has been “Dvorak-ready” since 1984.  Few people have ever taken advantage of it. 

 

Myth on list since:

 

Bug Name: Windows keyboard layouts

 

Reported by: Mat Bergman

 

Duration: Since the early 1980s

 

Supplier: PC manufacturers

 

Alias: “Where’s the ÔAny’ key?”

 

Product: Most Windows & Linux PC’s

 

Bug: PCs still use a keyboard standard with roots in IBM’s 1981 PC-AT. It’s loaded with mystery buttons (scroll lock?), obsolete commands (SysRq) and lost opportunities (who uses all twelve of their fuction keys?)

 

Class of Error: If it ain’t broke...Oh, wait a minute!  It is broke!

 

Principle: Unnecessary complexity saps user-productivity

 

Proposed Fix: Remove unnecessary keys from the keyboard.

 

Proposed Fix from Tog:  Do as Mat suggests, then add a few useful ones, like a second set of Return and Delete keys on the left side of the keyboard, so you can use the mouse and keyboard at the same time, etc.  It’s time to rethink this thing.

 

Discussion from Tog: Keyboards are the stepchild of today’s computers.  It’s time they got a workover by human computer interaction designers empowered to do something about them.

 

Mat also raised the “Where’s the ÔAny’ key?” question, one I haven’t heard in many years.  In the 1970s, everyone would tell their users to “Hit any key to continue.”  My programming partner and I used to go around to the different booths at the computer shows.  We would sidle up to some running demo that was demanding we hit any key.  JD would start pounding on one shift key while I kept pressing the other.  We would turn to whoever was personing the booth and them “it isn’t working!” Of course it wasn’t: The shift keys weren’t on the list of “any keys” allowed. Of course, the poor booth person didn’t know that.  Usually, they’d freak out and reboot the thing, which, depending on how crude the computer was, could be quite a task, Ah, those were the days.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Bug Name: Obscure Apple keyboard symbols

 

Reported by: Terry Lawrence

 

Duration: 20 years and counting...

 

Supplier: Apple Computer

 

Alias: What Command Key?

 

Product: All Apple keyboards.

 

Bug: Failure to print the Word “Command” on the Command key, and failure to print the shortcut symbol on all other modifier keys.

 

Class of Error: I know what key it is, so you should too.

 

Principle: If it isn’t obvious to you, you’re too dumb to own a computer.

 

Proposed Fix: Print the word “Command” on the Command key, and print the Menu Bar shortcut symbols on all the other modifier keys.

 

Discussion: All Apple literature refers to the key with the Apple symbol and the four-leaf clover squiggle thingy on it as the Command key, but fails year after year and keyboard redesign after keyboard redesign to actually print the word Command on the key. How difficult is this? If they can print Shift, Option, Control, Delete, Caps Lock, Tab, Enter, and Return on those modifier keys, why is it not possible to print the word Command on the Command key? How is a new user supposed to figure out which key the literature is referring to when it asks them to hold down the Command key and press whatever?

 

Conversely, this is the ONLY key with the Menu Bar keyboard shortcut symbol on it. Why is in not possible to print the outlined arrow symbol on the Shift key, the railway siding symbol on the Option key, etc? How is a new user supposed to figure out which key those obscure symbols in the Menu Bar keyboard shortcuts refer to? The bottom line is that the people designing the keyboard already know the shortcuts and symbols, and it simply never occurs to them, or they don’t care, that new users, or Windows switchers, don’t.

 

Discussion by Tog:  Terry is dead-on on this issue. Here’s some history behind it:

 

The Apple symbol was added to the command key in 1985, when Apple moved to a single add-on keyboard usable on the Apple II and the Mac.  All Apple computers before the Mac had used the Apple symbol, but Mac had had to be different.  It resulted in a collision when the company was brought back together upon Steve’s exit.

 

The industrial designers had always held sway over the keyboard and on more than one occasion demonstrated a total ignorance about and disregard for the users.  For example, they screen printed the letters on the keycaps for the Apple IIe computer, a system with a prime market of elementary schools, in italic lower-case.  They were finally stopped when we assembled a line-up of teachers that explained to the designers that these kids didn’t know how to read italic lower case.

 

I’m betting that at this point no one left at Apple has any idea why that Apple symbol still adorns the Command key.  Why else would it grace the PowerBook keyboard?  I don’t think you can use a PowerBook as an Apple II keyboard.

 

Yes, the Command key needs to say, “Command,” and the standard fonts need to have the other symbols, so “regular programmers” can tell people what key to press.

 

Bug first observed: 1984

 

Bug reported to Supplier: Various times to no avail to date.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

Bug: Apple PowerBook Keyboards

 

Reported by: Tog

 

Duration: <5 years

 

Supplier: Apple

 

Product: PowerBooks

 

Bugs:

 

1. Excessive heat
2. Unusable f1-12 keys
3. Missing support for other keys

 

Proposed Fix:

 

1. Get over the anti-fan mania
2. Install full-size f1-f12 and make them directly-accessible
3. Connect the keys on the keyboard to the software

 

Discussion: Keyboards on Apple PowerBooks serve two purposes—character entry and heat exit.  Yes, they pump a high percentage of the heat from inside the computer up through the keyboard, ideal when typing at the South Pole, painful elsewhere.

 

They further advertise a “Full Keyboard!” which is skimming the edges of a blatant falsehood, given that they have sawn the f1 through f12 keys exactly in half, making it virtually impossible to type on them.  Even if you could, they’ve made their functions inaccessible unless you hold down the fn button while pressing them.  They’ve instead given users instant access to such frequent operations as brightness and num lock.  I use the brightness key every two years or so, making it not much of a trade-off for access to f1 and f2.  As for num lock, I press than only to turn it back off when I’ve accidentally turned it on.

 

On the 12” PowerBook, it makes some sense to at least have the keys sawn in half, just to make room.  By the 15”, however, there’s plenty of room, and the 17”, still with the same keyboard, just looks silly. Not only does it have the unusable function keys, but it also lacks the numeric keypad.  The definition of a “full keyboard” gets more and more twisted.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Bug: Right keypad button missing

 

Reported by: Tog

 

Duration: >10 years

 

Supplier: Apple

 

Myth: “We use a one-button mouse!”

 

Product: PowerBooks

 

Bug: User-productivity takes a major hit on PowerBooks due to the absence of the second most critical mouse button

 

Class of Error: Ostrich syndrome

 

Principle: Purposely damaging the productivity of users is generally a bad idea

 

Proposed Fix: Split the current single button on the TrackPad

 

Discussion: In the late 1970s, Larry Tesler, of Xerox PARC and later Apple, carried out an experiment using test subject who had never heard of a mouse.  He found that, in the first hour of use, a single-button mouse produced fewer errors than a two-button mouse.  Thirty years later, billions and billions of people have hundreds and hundreds of hours of experience with mice.  Apple uses, in real life, a five-button mouse, yet Apple stubbornly clings to the myth that they have only one button on their mouse.

 

The five buttons are click, command-click, option-click, ctrl-click, and shift-click.  Of the five, ctrl-click has the simple, predictable, and universal definition of “bring up a context menu,” just as on Windows.  Unlike with Windows, however, the naïve Mac user has to learn a special way of accessing these menus which requires using the eyes to guide the hands to two different objects—the moue and the ctrl key.  (Yes, a handful of people can touch-type Control, but few do.)

This mossback design can be circumvented rather easily for mouse users:  You spend twenty bucks on a real mouse.  The TrackPad, however, is forever.  Given that the TrackPad is approximately twice as slow as the mouse anyway, this further assault makes it useful only in emergencies.

 

Bug first observed: 1986

 

Bug reported to Supplier: 1986

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005

 

Bug Name: Keyboard / Phone keypad layout bug

 

Reported by: Roman Bielski

 

Duration: 50 years at least , since push button telephones and adding machines appeared

 

Supplier: Every telephone manufacturer, every keypad manufacturer

 

Alias: The upside down numbers bug

 

Product: Telephone keypads and computer keyboards

 

Bug: Computer Keypads and telephone keypads have numbers in the opposite order

 

Class of Error: Grandfather Clause

 

Principle: Do not invent opposite interfaces for identical functionality

 

Proposed Fix: Re-order the numbers on the computer keypad

 

Proposed Fix expanded by Tog: Apple has always offered a Dvorak keyboard layout for the Mac.  OSs can likewise offer inverted numeric keypad layouts.  Keyboard manufacturers should then be encouraged to offer easily-removable keycaps, so the numbers can be rearranged. (Dvorak users touch type; few numeric keypad users do so.)  After a few years, the telephone layout could become the default.

 

Discussion: Every single desk on the planet has 2 things, a phone and a computer. Why are the keypads upside down? This bug first drove me crazy when computers got Fax Modems and contact lists. When the telephone wire met the computer, you were literally able to “dial” using your keyboard. WOW!

 

 Except you couldn’t; because the freaking numbers were upside down! Every five minutes of every day, decades of phone dialing collided head-on with decades of typing. It’s like driving your whole life in the US and then renting a car in England, except it happens every time you’re sitting at your desk and move your hand 12 inches to the right.

 

Discussion by Tog: I did some research on this back in the 1970s, when some of the original people were still at Bell Labs.  Their official position was that usability studies showed users better able to dial using their new, inverted keypad than the traditional adding machine layout.  I suspect that either they or their test subjects, faced with a keypad on a phone, favored a layout patterned after the dial it was replacing, with the lower numbers on top.

 

We can learn a lesson from all this.  The guys at Bell Lab never expected that adding machines would become widespread—bean-counters were their exclusive users—and they never, ever expected people would be dialing with their adding machines. I’ve found it to be a useful assumption that all technologies may eventually meld, and I always look far a field for precedents when attempting a new design.

 

Today, we actually have around half our computers with the numbers high to low and the other half with the numbers low to high. The ones with low to high we call cellphones.  It’s time to straighten out the mess.

 

Sidelight:  England was the first country to set up an emergency call system.  Many countries have followed, but none have used England’s number, which is 999.  They chose 999 because it required a highly deliberate act on the part of the dialer in that pre-touch tone world.  Not so anymore. The countries that followed have chosen codes such as 911 that limit accidents such as this, as archived by the BBC:

 

Lovers spark emergency response

 

 A County Durham couple sparked a police emergency when they accidentally called 999 in the throes of passion.

 

 Officers became concerned when a call came through but all they could hear was the sound of a woman apparently in distress, and a man in the background.

 

 The call was traced to a house in Stanley and officers, believing it to be an emergency, rushed to the scene.

 

 The alert ended after a disheveled couple came to the door, reassuring officers no crime had been committed.

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005 

 

 

Printers & the Windows OS 

Bug: Hello!!! I'm off line!!!

 

Reported by: Daniel Mordecki

 

Duration:  at least from 1981 - 23 years

 

Supplier: Microsoft and all printer manufacturers (I don't know, but may be it is present at other Operating Systems)

 

User’s favorite saying: “I hate my printer!!!”

 

Product: Microsoft DOS and all its sons and daughters

 

Bug: When the printer has a problem, it enters in an "I don't want to talk to anybody" status, and the operating system reports a Printer off line message. No paper status, no ink cartridge status, no information at all can be retrieved.

 

Class of Error: It was always done like this, why change?

 

Principle: Users need more information, and useful options when things go wrong, and subtle positive feedback when thing are going OK.

 

Proposed Fix: change printer drivers sdo they work when the printer is off line (are there any printers nowadays that indeed go off line?)

 

Discussion: When the original PC was born, it came with a dot matrix printer, usually an Epson FX 80. This printer had a stepper to feed paper in little increments. It had a plastic knob to feed the paper manually, but since both manual and electrical feed couldn't work at the same time, a key was provided to toggle between modes:

 

 ON LINE. The computer had the control.

 

 OFF LINE. The human had the control. If you asked the computer to feed paper, the computer answered: "Didn't you turned off line the printer? You have the control now, do it yourself".

 

More than 20 years later, printer don't have a paper feeding knob, nor an off line key, but they still go stupidly off line when any error appears.

 

Bug first observed: decades ago

 

Bug on list since: Jan 2005