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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?
Going from 31 dead people in a senseless mass killing to yet another top 20 list from a worthless site.
Worthless? Dude, you got first post!
Trolling is a art,
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.
I've got a better idea for an article: "Slashdot's 20 most annoying duplicate articles."
#1 AOL CDs. I used to work at the post office, they some people decorated entire walls with undeliverable AOL CDs.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
The thing that really gets me, is that when you click the "Kill the dog" option, instead of instantly vanishing, like any reasonably annoyance, they have this obnoxious beast do a little animation.
Look, you clueless fools, if I like the dog, I would not be getting rid of him. You KNOW I don't want him, but you senselessly subject me to the EXACT kind of animation that I told you I disliked.
What's next? If I tell you to turn off the sound, will you up the volume to maximum and play a recording of "SHUTTING SOUND OFF NOW!" in a really whiny voice?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
In terms of pure annoyance, not just bad or lousy tech, I would rate CD burners before they were reliable and "click-of-death" zip disks as some of the most exasperating things that I have had to deal with.
I must have wasted dozens of hours with 1x and 2x CD burners before they became mature. I can still remember staring at the little progress bar.
95% completed -- 96% completed -- 97% completed -- 98% completed -- FAILURE BUFFER UNDERRUN.
AAAAAAAGH!
Best Windows Freeware
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.
Before CDs, AOL used to send floppies. I liked that. It was the backup-disk-of-the-month-club for me. I didn't have to remember, I didn't have to buy a floppy; it just arrived every month so I could backup.
those 'Read more' links on /. that don't work when you click on them in Firefox? Or better still, the 'automated' phone menu systems that force you to 'press 1' or 'press 2' a squillion times before giving up and hitting a random number to get speaking to some human being somewhere.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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.
http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,130638 /printable.html#
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.
Yeah, 30 odd people I don't know were killed in a country over 3000 miles away from me. I should be ashamed of gettig on with my life.
Yes, it sucks to be the families of those people who were killed today. Are you one of them? No? Then what the hell are you concerned about? It's just yet more media-induced false grief for people you don't know.
The top ten "short list" can be seen here.
Less annoying, and you can vote there as well.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I could have one icon on the desktop that I click 50 times a day and that so called wizard will still tell me I have unused desktop icons. Even better, when Sally Secretary actually runs this fantastically annoying tool, she calls me ten minutes later to tell me Excel is gone.
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 vote for the "feature" of touch pads that emulates a click with every inadvertent touch.
-
oops (f*ck), my cusor moved to some random place mid-sentence,
oops i selected and deleted a section of text.
oops, i clicked on something.
addesso touchpad-keyboards suck because you cant turn this shit off.
let's just say that doing taxes online with an adessa touchpad-keyboard is a bad idea.
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.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
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?
The 1-button mouse was to keep developers from relying on extra buttons, thus adding to the probable confusion of the end-user. Unfortunately, a vast number of ports never bothered adjusting for that, so eventually Apple caved in and started bundling multi-button mice (and probably because of Boot Camp as well) which are wonderful in theory, and freaking annoying in practice. My Mac Pro came with a Mighty Mouse. The scroll ball is really neat, but the fact that if you hold your mouse like an artist tends to (only using your fingers instead of laying your entire hand on it) it tends to interpret left-clicks as right-clicks.
As for the puck mouse the original one sucked, but the one that came with the G4 was awesome. If someone made a multi-button version of it with a scroll wheel, it would be my favorite mouse. I had no trouble at all using it back in the day, as it had the dimple on the button so you could actually tell which end was the front, and it was a lot easier for me to work with due to its small size and light weight. I seem to be the exception to the rule, though; I also prefer modern Apple keyboards to the IBM Model M.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
I was shot and killed today, you insensitive clod!
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.
#21: Those annoying PC World ads that pop up whenever you visit their articles.
-William Brendel
Uh, hello? Spam? Anyone, Bueller? Spam is by far the most f*#cking annoying and should be high atop the list.