Sunday, June 04, 2006

Windows XP: Making productivity harder

Generally I'm ok with Windows, but the laundry list of grouses keeps growing.

Windows is awful for non-tech users. Everytime I turn around I hear or see another - 'why didn't they think of the user' type of design. My latest pet peeve is deleting a program. For a normal user, who wants to delete a program, they drag the icon on their desktop to the recycle bin. (Digression- recycle bin - talk about a broken metahphor, if I recycle why doesn't it tell me what I got back 20 bits, 5 meg, something that gives me confidence that recycling really helps!) When the icon is dropped in the bin I get a box to ask me about "confirm shortcut delete". Then it spends time explaining what is occuring & giving me other options for something I'm not sure about. This is soooo wrong - the dialog makes me the innocent user do the work to figure out what is occuring. The system should take care of the work & ask me for the user focused choices.
What should happen - A message appears asking me whether I want to delete just the 'link (shortcut) to the program or the entire program. Don't make me the user figure out that a shortcut is a link or click the 'add/remove program link' and then search for the program, just make it happen!
Note: even as an advanced user where I understand what to do, I find it very annoying that the system makes me do the work.

Resturant: American Diner, Sunnyvale

A fun place to eat
Food 3s, Fun 4s, KidFriendly 5s, Service 4s
American Diner (415 E El Camino Real 408-730-0287) is a really interesting but very hidden place. Catch this place while you can - it is in a location which has seen about 3 resturants over the last 3 years so if you don't go now you'll probably miss it.
This is a great place for kids - in one corner of the place is a foosball table & other toys & books. The salad bar is full of fun finger food and the menu is a broad variety.
The atmosphere is Americana - with signs and objects all over the place. Sitting in the booth I expected to hear 'Star Spangled Banner' playing.
The prices are reasonable & their breakfast special price can't be beat (we did lunch but I'm ready to go back & sample all the breakfast choices). We campled the pot roast melt, the kids spaghetti & meat sauce & the salad bar which were all good.
Summary: Fun place for kids, catch it while it is still there :)