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Lifehacker's Top 10 Computer Annoyances and How to Fix Them

lifehacker.com — From the irritating "Access Denied" message when you can't remember your 147th password, to all the useless email that clutters your inbox, to IT lockdown restrictions that keep you from getting your job done, let's take a look at 10 of the more common gripes amongst computer users and our humble suggestions for fixing them.

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  • AngeloM3, on 07/16/2008, -11/+1uhhh ha uh ha....... you said widget!
  • binorgog, on 08/07/2008, -1/+911. Abacus.
  • santa7, on 07/17/2008, -15/+2Ehh satellite radio is mostly useless, just listen to your own music
    • danthepiercer, on 07/17/2008, -8/+1i think the point is listening to something at random, *****.

      "...just listen to your own music"...*****.
      • santa7, on 07/17/2008, -0/+1Try using a new feature called shuffle
    • Lunarbunny, on 07/17/2008, -1/+1Pandora via iPhone...
      Or maybe KEXP.org (or 90.3 FM if you have a radio and you're in the Seattle area)
  • ErrorLoading, on 07/17/2008, -12/+1What are a computers?
  • surfacewound, on 07/17/2008, -2/+36"...to IT lockdown restrictions that keep you from getting your job done..."

    Right, we just love preventing users from doing things their job requires them to. No, installing iTunes on your work machine won't make you more productive. Deal with it.
    • Lunarbunny, on 07/17/2008, -0/+10I worked as a desktop support monkey for 3 months. I always groaned when somebody had some stupid program downloaded on their computer. The one I remember was birds walking across windows and the taskbar. I never said anything to them since I wasn't exactly in charge but it was annoying nonetheless.
      • surfacewound, on 07/17/2008, -0/+7Oh yeah, I can relate. Re-reading my post I realize I came across as a fascist admin, but I'm really not. I actually don't even lock down our workstations; I create pristine Ghost images that include everything they need for work, but they're free to install Firefox/iTunes/etc.

        But whenever someone complains about their system being slow, I won't hesitate to remove anything that they've installed themselves or just re-image the drive (I'll give them the opportunity to back stuff up from it of course, even though I tell them from the beginning to never save anything personal/important on their work machine).

        Ultimately I think this is the most pragmatic solution for a small company like the one I work at (~100 users); I'll make it clear that I reserve the right to clear anything and everything on someone's work machine if necessary, but that otherwise, as long as it doesn't have any adverse effects, they can have their alternate browsers and media players and what not for all I care. Plus people won't automatically harbor that little bit of resentment against you for denying them their favorite little whatever.
    • ryusen, on 07/17/2008, -0/+2my best was when i was called by a user of a co-worker while he was on vacation. the user asked me to give him admin rights, because he needed it for certain software and one of the techs took it away from him. i told him i'm not going to grant him admin rights w/o the blessing of his offiical support analyst or his manager...

      i later talked to the tech in question who said he found several pirated/cracked pieces of software on his PC, whcih is why he lost admin rights.
    • jaredcat, on 07/17/2008, -1/+3my solution to this problem is to remotedesktop/gotomypc/webex to my home pc.
    • nittanylion06, on 07/17/2008, -1/+5Meh, installed Firefox on work computer because they were still using IE 5.0 and was about to blow my brains out

      / IT Dept restrictions can blow me
      • Commodore13, on 07/18/2008, -0/+1That also makes no sense that they would want IE 5 on their company computers.
        Just because they think they're so cool because of their super firewall and UTM system doesn't mean that they should be flagrantly committing security faux pas.
    • Culyt, on 07/17/2008, -4/+1Why the iTunes hate?, stuff like that can make you more productive, remember people aren't robots, listening to music can increase things like concentration and creativity and at the very least improve morale.

      I always hate those kinds of stupid restrictions, but I know enough to get around them. Often things can be useful for other reasons than you think of, and having to fight a computer to do something basic can kill productivity.

      ☢
      • Commodore13, on 07/18/2008, -0/+3Do you really need iTunes specifically on your work computer? You can't carry around a DAP, or politely ask if a simple minimalistic media player would be all right?
  • 1shawn, on 07/17/2008, -0/+3An even better solution to #10 is to just disable Dashboard all together. Take it off your account's start up items list and you're Dashboard-free. I found Dashboard more annoying than useful, so that's what I did.
  • Yashar, on 07/17/2008, -2/+6In response to #9, if you have those nosy friends over who use your computer. They might just go look at your saved passwords in Firefox. So to prevent this get Public Fox. It can make your browser require a password to access the options menu which contains your passwords.
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/391 ...
    • drunknmunky1, on 07/17/2008, -0/+5Or you can just set a master password if all you're concerned about is passwords.
  • noogymmij, on 07/17/2008, -3/+0Can I PW protect bookmarks in firefox? or a folder of bookmarks?
  • paulmer2003, on 07/17/2008, -11/+8I love how 40% of these annoyances are problems with Windows. lol @ Windows.

    :)
    • thefinger, on 07/17/2008, -6/+3Were you born a terd or did you have to learn it?
    • neFariou5, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Every OS has annoyances don't be stupid. I use nix and windows and each has flaws.
  • Slade605, on 07/17/2008, -1/+4This is like the 2nd 1 pager today. We're on a roll!
    • neFariou5, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Technically gripe 1 is another page of software recommendations.
  • getashovel, on 07/17/2008, -9/+5"Windows Vista, in general" LOL
  • dragonhell, on 07/17/2008, -1/+1A different set of solutions to the same problems:
    http://unstyled.co.uk/text/top-10-computer-annoyan ...
  • antoniuk, on 07/17/2008, -6/+3Buried for mentioning Mac.
  • 84productions, on 07/17/2008, -7/+1Hey Bro I DIGG IT, PLEASE DIGG MIne !!

    http://digg.com/microsoft/How_To_Permanently_Delet ...
  • RaulMuadDib, on 07/17/2008, -8/+0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ____________________
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  • eggballs, on 07/17/2008, -2/+7Anyone else sick of Top 10 lists?
  • LilRabbitFooFoo, on 08/11/2008, -1/+6#11 stupid meaningless ad generating "articles" from sites like Lifehacker...
  • iridesce, on 07/17/2008, -2/+1Try and Digg a link in the page ... http://lifehacker.com/384545/superior-alternatives ...

    - Digg says the topic is not valid ...

    They must run on linux
  • Rotzooi, on 07/17/2008, -2/+2***** LAME. As validated by the almost 800 diggs but hardly any comments.
    • j0ker666, on 07/17/2008, -2/+1Calm down mate.
    • Commodore13, on 07/18/2008, -1/+2Hey, you don't have to bring LAME into this. I happen to love listening to mp3's in Linux.
      (It was too hard to resist, the way you spelled it with all caps.)
  • proverbs17, on 07/17/2008, -4/+0Dumb list didn't even mention my biggest computer annoyance, which is slooooooooowwwwwwwwwww internet access. Most of the stuff on this list is trivial compared to that. Where's my 100 MB/sec like they have in Korea?
  • neFariou5, on 07/19/2008, -0/+1Sorry but this list is nothing special at all. Basically the only gripe - #1 - is a list of software and only its basically stuff like vlc firefox and foxit. So nothing new here.
  •  

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