Computers posing as people

Ok, I know this is the up and coming thing but is anyone else really annoyed with the new automated response phone systems that pretend to be a real person talking to you? I hate these things. I hate talking to a machine. The better systems at least give you a choice of whether you want to talk to it or use the keypad. I always opt for the keypad if available.

I know that companies are trying to make their systems more "friendly" but to me it's just an insult to have to "talk" to a machine. I'm afraid "phone trees" are here to stay but I hope we're always given the option to use the keypad if we want.

ActiveSync: Why do they make it worse each revision?

I recently got a new PDA (Pocket PC) and of course the new version of Microsoft's ActiveSync. Of course, each new version touts better connection and syncing robustness so as I have for the past several years installed it. Of course the new version has problems - "features" I'm sure MS would tell you.

First, I noticed the status during the update is not as informative as in the past. Sometimes it tells you the number of items that it's updating and other times it does not. Second, I've not found a way to have it prompt me for conflicts when an item gets updated on both the desktop and the PDA. You can only choose to have one replace the other. The is totally unacceptable. Third, Pocket Quicken no longer gives me the option, when run in manual mode, to right click on the "information type" and choose to do an update. I now have to go find the Pocket Quicken Connect icon somewhere else and force the update with that.

In general, I've found updates to ActiveSync one step forward and two steps back but this time I would say it was 1/2 a step forward and 3 steps back. Can't you ever get it right MS?

First Entry

Hello world.

I don't expect a lot of traffic here but wanted to test this out for possible use in other feeds to websites - maybe even my own blog over on www.pottengerfamily.com so here goes.

Being a perfectionist I find lots of things wrong in the world and my wife, I'm sure, is getting tired of me telling her about them. :) So I thought this might be a good place to vent and who knows, maybe someone will actually do something about them some day.

OK, for my first complaint (and these will likely be mostly about technology as that is what I deal with so much of the time). This is a general observation and I could cite lots of examples (more to come in the future, I'm sure) but have you noticed that more often than not the newer version of things is not as good as, reliable as, work as well as, (you get the idea) the older versions? This is especially true for software but I've seen this principle as well in my microwave (subject for a future post).