sparkles

One final comment/observation just because it's so relevant it hurts...Re: StinkedIn as you all know has been bought by Microsoft. Over the past three years I've applied to just under 200 jobs on that site (the ones posted with a direct apply option, not just a link to the posting company's website). Whenever I wanted to review the list of past jobs I've applied for -- which I'd often want to do to make sure I haven't already applied to that company -- I'd click on the "jobs I've applied for" link which would give me a nice LIST of every job that I could scroll down very quickly to review. In a few page-downs I could see all jobs. Guess what they've done to that page...that list has turned into...TILES!!!!!!! And you only get SIX tiles per screen (of course, they're honking huge), and you have to click on the stupid little right arrow to see the next six. Do you know how many times I now have to click to see what I previously got in that old-but-not-kewl list? Grrrrrrrrr...we are doomed. Over and out.

Apologies for the length of this but this hits a sore spot for me... See this article from a few years back (mostly places the blame with venture capitalists)... Don't know if you've heard of the book "Disrupted: My Misadventures in the Start-Up Bubble" by Dan Lyons, came out last April but it pretty much confirms that article, see his StinkedIn post for a good summary of his book. And then there's this one, "Is the hot tech job market leaving its veterans behind?" (Btw, my StinkedIn network remains full of unemployed over-40s, including one mechanical engineer (he took a min wage job at Lowes), two structural engineers and one systems analyst with a PhD.) Interesting quote from the comments section, I'm not a programmer so I don't know if they're correct with this observation (that there's nothing new being coded), maybe someone here can confirm/dispute? Finally, not to scare anyone, but here's one more (something to remember if/when the stock market crashes)... "Wall Street is gripped by something called 'juniorization,' and it is freaking some people out"

Thanks for the pointers, I use AVG and I backup religiously so got those checked off, will look into all the others stuff mentioned. Re: fanbois, that's why I didn't bother posting this anywhere else, because the typical answer everywhere to every issue has been "that's not win10's fault, that's [insert every computer manufacturer's name here]'s fault." The mouse issue really bugs me, because I'm doing stuff in photoshop I need it to work perfectly for clicking on the exact pixel I need, others might not even notice the slight lag/stickiness, no doubt any "helpful response" I'd get on those forums would be "that's not win10's fault, it's Logitech's" or "why on earth are you using a mouse???" Debated buying a new mouse but then said why the heck should I blow more money when I know there's nothing "wrong" with my current mouse...oh well, file it all under planned obsolescence, companies gotta make money somehow I guess...

So...I'm one of the few lonely souls left who is still running Windows 8, I never upgraded to 8.1 despite the annoying splash screen that appears after powering on every other day, because I *swore* after getting duped into trying 8 to never trust MS again...well I just found out that today "support" for Windows 8 officially ends, and I'm not sure what to do here. Should I just give in, take the upgrade to 8.1 followed by being nagged to death to upgrade to 10, and on and on and on...? Are there any other options? Speaking of 10, I bought a new laptop, and it's sloooooooow as molasses. For the first time in 24 years I am actually not enjoying a new system. Initially whenever I tried to open a folder it took a good ten seconds to open, plus the mouse is seriously sticky. I've tweaked a lot of the settings based on what I could find in other forums (lots of mouse complaints), but it's still not as fast as my old machine. Worst of all, on three separate occasions right in the middle of working on something the screen went blank for no reason (the power was still on, it was just like it had gone into screensaver mode). The first time I had to hold down the power button to restart, the second time I just began smashing the keyboard (yeah, I was mad) and it finally came back to life. The third time, I had just read about Win10 removing programs and I had one of the programs listed (AMD control center), I checked to see if it was still there, which it was but it said it needed an update. I started the install and that's when the screen went dead (again, not completely dead, more like how it looks right when you power on but before the logo appears), did a hard restart and it gave me the scary "recovery page" which had me seriously worried for a few minutes, but after another restart everything loaded okay. Since then, I've stuck to my old laptop because a computer with a screen that randomly "dies" in the middle of your work is just unusable imo...

--JorgeA This rant is straight out of Dilbert Season 1 "The Competition" (skip to about 14:30 to see what happens when a marketing department is mentioned)...

Well I'm feeling quite happy I caught the Win10 nagware update before it installed (had turned off auto updates)...did a quick google search of the patch # just to be sure, caught this article with the following observation (apologies if it's already been shared somewhere)...

Don't know how many here are old enough to remember the movie "WarGames"...but just about every day I find myself repeating that line the army guy delivers to Dabney Coleman at the end, I just replace "defense system" with any of our favorite 21st century disappointments. For example, "After very careful consideration, sir, I've come to the conclusion that your new operating system sucks."

Perhaps great minds thing alike? But not to worry. It's true enough to be worth repeating. Cheers and Regards There was a very short-lived Dilbert animated series, I recall the ep where they had bought two companies and were merging them, Pathway and E-Tech, and they needed a new name for the merged company so they simply dropped the "way" from Pathway and merged the two names together...(took me a few secs to get that one)

As I read the whole "how safe is our personal info" discussion I couldn't help but think about my experience searching for a job these past few years. For those who are unaware, the only way to apply for a job these days is via the company's online "applicant tracking system," which "reads" your resume and rejects you based on keywords. One of the common discussions in the unemployment forums centers on us asking just where does all our information go after we're rejected...? You fill out an enormous amount of personal info (just creating a login they ask 'security' questions like your mother's maiden name), some even have the nerve to demand your social security number and if you don't provide it you can't complete the app.Just another example of how screwy things have gotten, and I find myself asking where's the dept of justice or dept of labor or atty general to do something here. (Sorry for going a bit OT here...) (Edited for typos)

Not at all. And I could offer a 4th hypothesis but it would take up a huge amount of space here and is mostly more of my pointless personal ranting so I'll abstain. At the end of the day it's all just speculation, who knows why up is down and down is sideways anymore, plus I learned at an early age ya can't change the world (or, Office 2010 for that matter).Btw, for the longest time my laptop would get that annoying "Upgrade to 8.1" pop up, it was only after reading here a some pages back that it occurred to me the pop up had not appeared in quite some time...D'OH to infinity...

I typically avoid posting on forums due to some srsly bad past experiences, but I *thought* the Ars site was relatively safe. Since so many commenters were bashing MS's "graphic design / art department" I thought I'd share that most likely the work is being done not by graphic designers/artists but by programmers who know Photoshop -- and let me just say that I don't mean to offend anyone who might be a programmer who uses psd for their work. I'm just saying that the field of "design" has gone a bit haywire. Well I must have hit a nerve because I have an "attitude" problem and "the problem is you." Now, c'mon, the very title of the article says these icons are "ugly." So...they were ugly until I commented and now they're not? Why aren't they bashing the author for "assuming everyone thinks like you?" I don't get it.

One more...Windows 10 build 10130 rolled out with slightly less ugly icons To me, there are no "levels" of ugly, kinda like being dead, you're either ugly or you're not...

If I may share my observation (which is more like a rant), in addition to MS completely screwing up their OS, they've also done a pretty good job of screwing up Office on a continual basis, PPT in particular. I could easily hog up this whole thread with complaints about how they've dumbed things down in this program over the years (is there a thread? maybe someone should make one!). For the past four months I've had to get used to 2010 after having used 2007 and, I swear, every day something crops up that baffles logic, has no fix and just makes me want to cry. The latest thing I discovered was with the animations in that they all now have a feathered edge, like the wipe effect -- this feathered edge completely screws up the effect!!!! And, sure enough, just like everything else, I google it, find that I'm not alone in being unhappy about it, and that the only solution is to "deal with it." I'd bet their reasoning was simply "a feathered edge looks kool!" And that's all that really matters in achieving productivity today, right? smh...

Hi all, long-time fan/reader of this group (going back to the old "Windows 8" thread)...over two years on and I continue to despise everything about Windows 8! I thought I'd post a question here as you all seem knowledgable about the latest/greatest updates... The thing that continues to bug me the most about "new" Windows is that the column heading bar disappeared from Explorer -- this is what I'm referring to. I installed the QTTabBar script, BUT this only fixes it in Explorer, *not* within your individual programs. As a designer I'm constantly opening files and needing to switch between how I sort to find what I need. Without that bar, if I'm viewing in "icon" mode I gotta switch to "detailed" then do my sort then switch back to icons again...major PITA and kills my productivity (yeah, I know, who needs that in 2015?). Apparently this bit of functionality had already disappeared in Windows 7 (I went to 8 straight from Vista). So, my question is, has this functionality returned in the latest version, 10 or whateverthehellitscallednow? Meanwhile, the previous link to the Acrobat debacle has inspired me to share this terrific productivity-killer I just encountered (apologies if it's already been mentioned somewhere). I was given the latest version of Adobe CC at my new job (the "cloud" version). When you open files from within Photoshop, the little thumbnail preview at the bottom of the window is now completely gone. So, in addition to not being to see PSD thumbnails in explorer (you just get the dumb generic "PSD" icon, no pic) you can't preview your files within Photoshop itself either anymore! Only alternative is to use that stupid bloated Bridge. Here's the thread over on the Adobe "feedback" page if you're unaware of what I'm referring to. My question here is, who's to blame for this latest bit of idiocracy? Adobe says Microsoft is to blame, MS says it's Adobe...??? Here's another thread on the topic, sharing for this insightful comment:

Remember a few months ago I posted about the WinH8-inspired redesign of Yahoo Mail? I'm seeing a common theme appearing across the comments on the numerous sites reporting about their latest changes... Anger explodes at Yahoo Mail redesign disaster: Key functions removed or broken Best comment from here:

This is a bit OT but I thought you guys might enjoy my story du jour, file it under "Nostalgia"...My last desktop computer (an HP, I think I got it in 2001) was sitting up on my third floor loft which for a while served as my office, but it gets extremely hot due to the lack of ventilation and the sun hitting it directly most of the day, so when I got my first laptop back in 2004 I just stopped going up there and stopped using the computer. For the past 9 years I'd think about that poor desktop and how it's most likely 100% dead by now. Well, today I began the arduous task of preparing my home for sale and went up there to start cleaning stuff out, and just for fun I turned it on...the BIOS appeared on the old CRT monitor which said a long-overdue update was necessary, it thought the year was 2002, so I fixed it, saved and exited thinking it's just going to say there is no working hard drive...lo and behold, Windows XP Professional appeared before my eyes without a hitch! Looking through the programs just made me giggle -- Netscape Navigator! Adobe GoLive! Lightwave! Assuming this wasn't a "last gasp" and it starts up again tomorrow I'm going to bring it downstairs and treat it like part of the family again, although I doubt it'll handle wireless anything (network or mouse). I also found my WinXP installation box (with cd and key), I'm wondering if that's worth holding on to...?

Yep, 45 is the new 65. And "3 to 5 years experience required" means "no one over the age of 30 need apply." I think I got on her bad side when I said I don't own a mac (blasphemy in the design world)... Anyone interested in seeing my old ugly webpage design just pm me (I'd post it but it was an internal site, don't want to get sued). Apologies for momentarily turning this into a jobs forum (going back to Indeed now ).

As an involuntarily-retired graphic designer (after two years w/o a job and only 2 interviews, I've given up and am now applying for clerk typist jobs), it makes me very sad. That second interview in fact was just last week. The woman clearly didn't like me, and as she perused my printed portfolio she stopped at a website design from my previous job and said "was that done some time ago? Because it looks old." By "old" I guess she meant lacking in the flat Playskool look prevalent today...I just wanted to walk out and drive my car off the nearest highway ramp...:-(

Coming out of lurkdom to give my $0.02 on this 1984/internet discussion... First, the positive: My first "internet" experience was back in 1993 when my department at a local hospital got hooked up to the local network -- email, shared network drives, etc. It blew me away, especially the shared network drives (upload your file at your desk, go off to a computer in another building, download your file and continue working...wow, I said, the future is here!). Years later I don't know how I would get my job done without having access to sites like stock media, statistics, annual reports, etc... The negative, part #1: I am fully disheartened by what the ability to comment anonymously behind an faceless keyboard does to people. I pretty much quit the world of online comments and forums years ago after being thoroughly disgusted; yes, I read this forum regularly, but I rarely comment...a few times I began typing a response to a few posts but always chicken out and discard it, even now I am dreading hitting the "add reply" button for fear of what kind of verbal burning-at-the-stake I'm going to receive (call it post traumatic cyberstress disorder). I've often said the internet makes me like people less every day. Can you image if people spoke to your face what they say to you online? And this is what I want to know: How is this a "good thing?" To be able to call someone a [bleep] with no consequences? #2: There's an oft-repeated quote misattributed to Joseph Goebbels, "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth." I see this happen every single day courtesy of the internet and, in particular, Facebook who for no monetary charge at all gives a voice to every stinking raging lunatic on the planet who can post some fake meme full of nonsense (or, my favorite, the made-up famous dead person quote), and before you know it, a million people have "liked" and believe the fake meme. I'm not going to cite specific examples because I don't want to soil this area with politics, but, again, I have to ask, how is this much disinformation a good thing? And we can't blame any government entity for this; we can only blame ourselves. /end of rant

Ya know, over a decade ago I worked for a design agency, we had a huge list of clients who'd hire us for design work...NOT ONCE did the client direct us to create something flat and boring. Even when their brand was flat and boring they wanted something "cool and different." I remember one particular client whose style guide strictly prohibited all the "cool stuff" (absolutely no 3D, no effects, no gradients), and their employees would get mad at us for adhering to their own style guide, it was a constant struggle to explain to them that their corp affairs dept will reject their piece if it doesn't conform to their rules... Speaking of flat and boring, I was recently forced to upgrade to the "new and improved" Yahoo mail, looks like it was made for Win8...if I had put out this kind of work ten years ago my career would've been over...

I love this guy's blog, I popped in today to see what he's been up to and lo and behold he's writing about Win8... Surprisingly only one MetroTurd in the comments section...

This guy calls them "goblin farts."

As a graphic designer, I had been hearing rumors about this for a while...and once again, I find myself excluded from this "majority of those polled" group, first I thought I was too young, now I'm too old...*sigh*... Bill Gates predicts iPad and Android users will switch to PC tablets If he's so good at predicting, why ain't he picking lottery numbers...

Jerks like this "pjmasi" dingus really [bleep] me off... The big deal is that fat heads like ^this^ are now in charge. "There's no need to use more than that." Who the [bleep] are YOU to decide how many programs I should be able to efficiently access on MY [bleep]ing computer??? Sheesh... Have you seen the salad dressing aisle of your local supermarket? Well I think there are TOO MANY damned flavors -- who needs this many choices? I say eliminate all except Ken's, they've got 43 flavors, that should be sufficient to please everyone. Because I say so! And if it's good enough for me then it should be good enough for everyone! And if you still prefer Hidden Valley Ranch and just don't like Ken's, well, you're just being ignorant and resistant to change! Meanwhile, I saw this commercial and thought it was just brilliant..."Sometimes circles just make sense." Take a look at the vids in the As Seen on Television section...the woman on the bike with the oval wheels is me bumping through my day trying to get work done with this pOS. I think I'll have some fun with this and Photoshop for my next blog post. Maybe M$ can "purchase" that line from them and reuse it to re-rebrand a return to the old OS, "Sometimes traditional Windows just makes sense"...? d

Speaking of Fakebook, there are five fb pages with the title "Windows 8 Sucks," the most popular one having ~2,200 likes, along with "Windows 8 Sucks as a Desktop OS" (with 86 likes) and "Windows 8 Sucks Ballz" with 15 likes. There's also a "Windows 8 sucks sucks" page, the title of which I cannot yet interpret as the page is devoid of any content...