Slashdot Mirror
PC World's 20 Most Annoying Tech Products
Craig Sender writes to tell us that PC World has compiled a list of the 20 most annoying tech products of all time. Topping the list was AOL's ubiquitous free trial CD's. "This list hardly covers every annoying tech product ever made. But where did this list of 20 come from? [PC World Readers] picked the worst ones by voting in our Annoyances Poll, and you'll see your Top 10 most annoying products flagged with icons. Just for fun, we've added 10 more products that didn't get enough votes from you in our poll but that we found particularly irksome."
Can they possibly cram any more ads and ugly navigation into that abortion of a website. Blech!
Blar.
No reference to the Cue Cat?
That was one of the most annoying, dumbest, biggest debacles I can remember. For those that do not recall the Cue Cat was a bar cade reader in the form of a cat, that clever marketeers thought consumers would use by scanning barcodes on print ads in magazines and newspapers.
Cue Cat was mailed to *all* Wired magazine subscribers.
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
There are a lot of really stupid ideas out there that I wouldn't put on a "most annoying" list because no one used them.
The Cue Cat is one of them. No one forced you to use it. The bar codes on the ads didn't cause leprosy or make your eyes bleed.
Of course, if I was one of the investors who paid to send out thousands of the things for free, then I'd have cause to be annoyed.
I'd put Microsoft Bob on the list too. The ads and promotions were annoying, but again, no one forced you to install or use it.
Too much emphasis on software, not enough on hardware, and non-computer items.
Also too much emphasis on marketing flops.
I am SO glad that floppy disks are just about finished with. I threw away hundreds and hundreds of them last year (3.5") and two years ago (5.25"). They still pop up now and then. I hope to eliminate all of them except for emergency boot CDs and the like.
That list is all Jacked up. Considering the Zune has been out for what, 6 months and it's ranked higher than the Apple Pro Mouse? That thing was beyond annoying. Where are "Jazz" drives on this list? They crashed every month and were garbage. Tape drives aren't on there either! I'm guessing he and his buddies got together and made up the list. I don't argue with most of them, but a product that's been out for 6 months is rated up with Windows ME? I just don't consider some of those "ALL time" annoyances, rather than "recent and minor" annoyances. Just because they're happening now, doesn't mean they're worth being in the all time annoyances.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
The "print" version puts grey bars at either side of the article to ensure that the contents are wider than your window (I didn't check what mechanism they used).
You can manually position the page so that all the content is visible, but then the text is hard against the edge of the window.
Nice trick to annoy people into reading through the ad-filled multipage version.
That'd be my number one annoyance these days. The actual content of the article only takes up about one-third of the page and then they break it into 7 pages so you are bombarded with annoying adds and clutter. The other two-thirds of each page is full of adds and cluttered up links to other parts of their site. Their site is just as annoying as any of the 20 products they profile.
How about a nice clean layout that lets you actually read the article and not be distracted?
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
But there's nothing more important than human life.
If you're talking about "human life" in general -- get a grip, the species isn't going extinct just yet.
If you're talking about a (or even several) human lifes -- get a grip, there are plenty of things more important (to some people) than individual human lives, sometimes including their own; if not, nobody would risk their own life for anything.
-- Alastair
I think the caps lock key is one.
It takes valuable space on the keyboard and rarely gets used.
I like the old control key there instead.
But there's nothing more important than human life.
What a silly statement. Imagine a population of 1000 slaves. Suppose that by the death of one, the remaining 999 will be released to live free lives. You're saying that the life of that one person is more valuable than the freedom of the other 999?
Annoying pop-over ads. Like in the article. Irony, anyone?
A couple of days ago, 62 people were killed in Iraq in a single day's "senseless mass killing".
I doubt either of you even noticed.
pop-up ads. Heck include pop-under ads too please. Why didn't they consider this? Given consideration, I bet it would beat out AOL hands-down. If you really want to go that route including things like antivirus software, why not just include a Viruses and a Spyware category? Maybe viruses wouldn't get a ton of votes but spyware? rock the charts.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Uh, hello? Spam? Anyone, Bueller? Spam is by far the most f*#cking annoying and should be high atop the list.