Windows Woes: Window Focus Debauchery

Importance is one thing, but focus is another.

Okay, I've been sick and feeling rather unwell for over a week. Now it's time to get back into the game. And what better than to do so with a short but sweet rage post on how Windows is terrible? This time, I'm after Windows' tendency to steal window focus.

So you're typing/clicking/going about your normal business in everyone's favorite operating system then suddenly...

OH MY GOD, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

Okay, it may be over-exaggerating the situation just a bit, but the point is that there are some very devious things that Microsoft Windows is known to do (and versions past XP have done a bit to fix this issue). This particular issue is focus theft.

If you are typing in or otherwise using a program in Windows and one of Windows' services wants your attention, it doesn't have to scream and cry. It makes you listen to it. And it does so by using one of the worst attention grabbing mechanisms ever: not silently opening another window or service, not even blinking in the task bar to steer your eyes to the situation, but putting you in its context.

What can this lead to? If you're calmly and innocently minding your own business trying to do your work in Microsoft Word, and you just let Windows Update start its updating 10 minutes ago, well...Windows Update just finished. And it wants your attention. So it grabs it, and you accidentally hit that dreaded 'n' key. Look at the image above, and look at a single instance of the window. IF YOU HIT THAT 'N' KEY, THEN BABY, YOUR COMPUTER IS ON A ONE-WAY TRIP TO RESTART REALM. It doesn't matter if you were typing innocently in Word just mere nanoseconds ago, you hit Enter or you hit the 'n' key, you just sent a message to Windows telling it to restart now.

I swear, I have had this happen to me more times than I have fingers on my own two hands. I've been mere moments away from a restart, then quickly realized what was going on and cancelled it before Windows could enter shutdown mode. It happened today, even. It closed all of my programs and brought up the "still waiting for slow as hell services to slowly close...slowly" screen. I stopped it, but had to reopen everything I was working in. Fortunately I have Chrome and Firefox set to remember my tabs, so not too much was lost. But still!

It does it when you don't want it to, and more than just in cases of Windows Update. For example, Windows Live Movie Maker will, upon finishing its movie processing, steal the window focus from you and demand that you answer it ("Would you like to play the movie you just made?"). And this is just the icing on the spoiled cake for the equally spoiled operating system.

Please get it right, Windows. Don't steal focus, it's bad practice. And being an attention whore isn't good for your reputation.

Get It Right: "Mac" and "PC"

For years there has been a battle between Macs and PCs, and a clear separation between both.

Apple recently revealed the new iPhone 5 and new iPods. While catching a glimpse of the story unfolding on CNBC's Fast Money, I heard one of the so-called techie reporters mention a comparison between the new iPhone and PCs.

 Okay people. Let's get this straight.

Macs are Macs. Windows machines are Windows machines and have since been designated as "PCs". The battle raged on since home computers were popularized and cheap enough for most families to own them, and is still raging. Apple and Microsoft are still at war with Microsoft still holding quite the computer operating system monopoly, but Apple seems content with doing its own thing.

Now, part of what helped this along was a series of advertisements put out by Apple a few years ago. These ads revolved around putting Macs against PCs, where each was represented by a different person capable of doing different things. The bias in said ads was obviously towards Mac computers, and the ads showcased not only various applications and functionality that a Mac computer was capable of running and supporting, but also the general mindset of Mac users vs PC users. The guy representing Macs was more modestly dressed with a button-up shirt and hands in pockets. Likewise, the guy representing PCs was more formally dressed with a suit and tie and had neatly combed hair. The former seemed to be much more capable, and the latter more flamboyant but not having the credibility or capability to back up what he said.

Of course, I prefer a more truthful, relevant (and of course biased) representation of this rivalry:

Ha, take that! No one expects the gaming compatibility inquisition!

This whole separation is both a cause for concern and not a concern at all. The problem comes from the fact that, by and large, Windows machines dominated in the 1990s as they were cheaper and just as efficient as Mac computers then. Only when the iMac (which ironically used the PowerPC G3 processor at first) came out did Apple start to gather much more momentum as far as personal computing goes, and now they're doing a fantastic job in the computer market by capturing all levels of computer users. However, Microsoft still holds the home computing monopoly and thus you are much more likely to find a computer running Windows in an average household than you are a computer running MacOS.

So why is this a problem? There are many computer users who don't need to use computers much, or don't need to know a lot about the computer and operating system they use. Many even probably think that their computer and operating system are one and the same, and the scale slides up from there. In fact, let's look at MY estimate of how computer knowledge goes as far as the levels of computer competence go:

Farther down is more computer-savvy. This is purely my opinion. I know, how dare I.

It should be pretty obvious that the above flowchart is speculative and observation-based. And really, who can blame me? Some people just aren't good at using computers. Most of them are products of a different era.

But I digress.

For some reason, computer users started collectively distinguishing between Macs and Windows computers (or rather, Macs and everything else): The catch phrase "I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC." says it all. Macs were Macs, and everything else was a PC. Even now it's fairly obvious that there's a dividing line with the general population, and reasonably so: Apple doesn't want to be compared to the lot of most personal computers.

Aha, there's the term again. Personal Computer, or PC. What exactly is a PC? It's a computer that is used for personal reasons like checking email, chatting with others, playing games, surfing the web, watching videos, listening to music, what have you. They're in places ranging from the average household to the palm of your hand on the go with smart phones and tablets, among other devices. Wikipedia has a definition of it right here.

Now I must ask: where does it say that Macs are not PCs? Guess what: they are. Macs are PCs too. In those Apple-biased commercials, they distinguish between Macs and "PCs" because saying three and two letters respectively is a hell of a lot shorter than saying "I'm a computer that runs the Macintosh operating system. And I'm a computer that runs the Windows operating system." Because heaven forbid they say something that has a risk of not being understood by most TV viewers ("durr, what's an operating system?").

Conclusion

So where does this all lead to? With all this talk about Linux and Windows and Mac OS, what does it mean?

It means use your own computer for whatever the heck you very well please. But if you're using your own computer, you're using a PC. Macs are PCs too. This has nothing to do about which OS is superior. They're all--

--whew. I almost didn't stop myself there. Except for Windows, all operating systems are pretty good at fulfilling the capacities that they offer (and despite being slow, bug-infested and generally restrictive, even Windows has loads of compatibility due to its frequent usage, to its credit). I own several dual-boot Windows/Linux machines, all of which run Windows 7 and run a mix of Fedora, Linux Mint and Ubuntu Linux distros; my father owns several Apple computers including an iMac and a Macbook Pro, and he has an iPhone 4 to counter my Droid 3. Honestly it's operating system potpourri all up in this...house. Sure we jab each other about superior/inferior operating systems, but it all boils down to two facts:

1) No operating system is just plain bad. Windows may possibly be an exception, but they all let us do so much. Each person has their own uses for computers, and many reasons overlap.

2) People, you use PCs. Accept it. Yes, even you Mac junkies who think you know everything (or lack thereof). I'm especially talking about the ones who sat in the back of my introduction computer science courses at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo arguing about how Macs are superior. Get outta dodge, seriously.

This issue really boils down to people thinking they know what their computers do and how to label them, but they don't. Most people don't even know what Linux is (I've heard someone ask me if you can rent it on Netflix), but should it matter? Yes, but only to the extent of bare minimum knowledge. Not everyone needs to use Linux, but being aware of it is a good thing. And same for the other operating systems.

Except maybe Windows.

No wait, who am I kidding--everyone knows what Windows is. Unfortunately.

Windows Woes: Windows Update Updates & Text Selection

The Windows operating system is and probably always will be an untamed beast of a problem.

Being a Windows user, one who spent money on a copy of Windows and use it often, I believe I have the right to complain about it. Windows Woes will be a category of posts that should be very self-explanatory. I will (usually) rant about some poor or unconventional feature of the Windows OS.

This first one is a twofer; I'll highlight two issues that just straight-up bug me this time, but usually each Windows Woes post will just contain one.

Windows Update...Update?
Windows Update. Update this, update that. Windows loves updates, and usually Microsoft releases new updates every week or so. Lots of fun with restarting and configuring your computer, and then restarting again, and then updating again, then restarting yet again, etc.

But what if you can't update, period?

This problem was amazingly unfun and stupid to fix.

If you can't update at all, what do you do? You try to fix it. I did everything I could look up and find for fixing this issue: restarting all the proper services, running the Windows Update troubleshooter (located at Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Troubleshooting\System and Security), restarted five times in total...problem still remained.

So I start trying random things. I go to change my settings for Windows Update and switch my updating to "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" from "Install updates automatically (recommended)" and apply the settings.

Suddenly I can use Windows Update again! My random tweaking worked, thank goodness.

But what's this?

Yeah. You read that right the first time.

What the hell? Windows Update needs an update before I can even update Windows? And to make matters worse, I have to restart my computer before I can do anything?

Oh no you don't. What an awful operating system mechanic. In Linux I don't have to restart my computer to do anything involving update manager updating (not like it matters, Linux is lightning-quick every day, all day). Why should I have to go through yet another restart/configuration sequence just to update Windows Update?! It's stupid!

Open/Save File Name Selection

This one is more hidden. It's very specific and more of an annoyance than a bad problem. You know those Open... or Save As... windows that pop up? Here's an example for context:

See that "File name:" field?

Yeah, you know what this is. You see it all the time when saving and opening files, among other things.

But you know what's annoying? If you click in the "File name:" text field, Windows automatically highlights all of the text.

I click in it once, this happens.

If I want to rename the entire document, I'll select all the text myself! I want the cursor to go to the spot I click at without highlighting anything. It's simple to select all the text in the text field anyway: Ctrl+a, Home+hold Shift+End, End+hold Shift+Home. It hardly takes any time and it isn't difficult to do.

This is especially annoying if I'm in Photoshop and I want to name a series of images the same with numbers at the end of each image's file name such as windowsisbad1.png, windowsisbad2.png, etc. I just want to save each image with a similar name, but change the number at the end. I should be able to click at the far right end of the file name, hit Backspace and then put the new number. But no. I have to click twice, once first to select all the text as Windows stupidly defaults to, and then a second time in the same spot to deselect all of the text and put the cursor at the end of the text line. And you have to wait a brief moment in between the first and second clicks, otherwise Windows will deny the latter.

Conclusion

What other conclusion is there? Windows is annoyingly full of flaws. Microsoft is lucky that I basically have to play and emulate games on Windows, otherwise I would burn every copy and remove every installation of it that I own.