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10 technologies that are just plain broken

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Your customers will appreciate that they don't have to download a megabyte or two to be able to read your sales pitch.

You should qualify that comment John_Li. Most people who can't handle Domino support just don't know the product. Most of the time dislike or fear oof something stems from ignorance. I can have a Domino server running and begin dropping mail files into the running system in 15 minutes. The mail files are automatically recognised as the copy completes and an online consistence check is run. I have had Domino servers running on the same metal for 5 or 6 years ore more. Don't criticise what you don't understand.

If you are talking about the email portion of Lotus and not the appication part, then I agree that Outlook/Exchange is better. But Lotus is underrated when it comes to the app side. I worked for 2 companies that utilized it and it was almost endless as to what you could do with it.

At my office, we've never had a major problem with Exchange/Outlook - every once in a blue moon, the connection drops, but there isn't much more to it than restarting Outlook. Maybe you don't have the best handle on the platform, being a Linux evangelist? The IT staff we've had, outsourced and inhouse, were not great geniuses, but they had and have Exchange/Outlook working just fine.

Consumer A/V isn't the problem - it's the moron users. I haven't had a virus for 15 years. I've been using Avast for 4 years or so, and it's almost bullet-proof. Symantec EP, on the other hand, is godawful. It doesn't work well with Win7x64, it doesn't detect things it really should (keyloggers and forkbombs come to mind), it doesn't appear to scan compressed archives, it bogs the system down to being almost useless when it kicks off a scan. If you miss an automatic scan, it doesn't prompt, it just starts, nearly bringing the PC to its knees.

As for browsers, I use Opera and it's nearly perfect. For the rare site that won't play nice, IE9 (or even 8) works fine. FF has lost my trust, and I never trusted Chrome in the first place. Yes, I keep FF & Chrome around for dev purposes (unlike some, I do actually test on all major browsers) but I never use them for surfing.

As to the others techs I'm familiar with, I'll go along with those. Flash sucks and needs to die. Desktop multi-touch is beyond retarded. Predictive typing feels like I'm being trolled by my phone.

Why did you lose your trust with FF? Works well for me. I'm using it right now.

Try programming against a new release every 6 months. We have stopped updating Firefox and we will not test our web sites in it until they stabilize. Atleast with IE6/7/8 we know the enemy's limitations and release schedule.

I hate to say it, but I agree that the frequent update changes to Firefox are a problem.

I am using Firefox, and I love it, but, I don't like the constant changes when the updates are used. I can really see why it would cause problems in a business setting.

You should consider having users with Firefox update only at certain times.

If your business is web related, then you can't ignore the Fox, as 1/4 of the web uses Firefox right now. That looks to be a long time stable number. Chrome is growing at the expense of IE. The rest can be ignored.

The best thing for you might be to just write for HTML5. IE claims to be going there, Firefox is too. Chrome says they want to be the standard HTML5 reference. Webkit is taking Safari there, and Opera is very good in complying with W3C standards.

Once both Apple and Microsoft bring aboard MP8 support, then HTML5 will be where you need to be.

Yup, we also thought the author was on the far side of the moon on that one. SEP for us was horrific on our primary domain controller.

More horrific was what we perceived to be Symantec covering the issue on the first months in the forums by making such search of the keywords to have no results. Given it was some years ago, we feel to have been scarred by life since we were blamed for the problems until we pinpointed SEP11.

SEP was awful. A resource hog. It didn't pick up as many issues as our current AVG. Backup Exec was pretty good until Symantec got hold of it.

I agree with Mark. Anything Symantec is a resource hog. Want a good antivirus solution with a small footprint? Try Vipre Business from Sunbelt Software. I can run full scans on workstations from the console and users don't even know it is scanning.

We have been using VIPRE Enterprise for three years now. All users hate it and I as admin hate it too. We have upgraded all hardware, we have not a single machine that is not core 2 duo and has less that 2GB or RAM; still this sucker takes couple of hours to run a regular ("quick" they call it - what a joke!) scan (not a deep one) and hogs the PCs down. My laptop (a Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM and running XP Pro SP3) with only FF and TB open will slow down to a crawl when the scanner kicks in.
One of the reasons we dropped Symantec Enterprise AV years ago was that beside not covering as many threats as other AV solutions it had a pretty bad admin console. We bought into VIPRE mainly because of its claims of being light on the resource (the fastest and lightest - their adds claim) and for having a good central management console. The latter is good, no questions; but the engine sucks!
I've submitted many support tickets over the years and after upgrades of hardware and software and promises of the program to get better at not being a resource hog, we gave up. We are thinking to drop VIPRE and find another solution, but so far we have no candidate for a substitute.

These negative rants always bring out some really good comments. Veritas was great before symantec got it. Endpoint Protection failed repeatedly side by side with Corporate Edition at detecting viruses (even when their website stated specifically the updates would catch it). Something changed in the scan engine and it also became a huge bloatware that caused server problems from the central console. I even "contracted" a virus and spent 3 days on the phone with them (knowing all along how to kill the virus) to see how they would handle it and why it wasn't prevented to begin with. They had me do registry hacks and use 3rd party software I'd never heard of and I ended up formatting and reinstalling and they said "oh, it's a new variant" which it wasn't. I even requested several other techs get involved on the case to be sure it wasn't a newb. That solidified leaving them for good and I had documentation to prove it! I use MS security essentials now, but no central console. One single virus got by in the past year which was a trojan dropper type and was part of Adobe flash install so MS didn't react properly to it - I contacted Adobe and it was removed from their site 4 hours later and they disavow any knowledge of it of course.

I was surprised he didnt bash avast, but I agree with you, its a pretty solid AV, doesnt hog resources like Symantec or McAfee, which McAfee is quite possibly the worst one out there, I have had McAfee bring disaster recovery exercises to their knees because all the machines would kick off a scan at the same time in the middle of the exercise, and since most end users arent intelligent enough to kill a process on their own, I get to go around ending the scan on about half the machines when the user is incapable of following a simple direction..

I am surprised he bashed AVG.

I left them years ago simply because they went commercial, but until then I had never had a problem with their software, and it worked hand in hand with Zone Alarm.

I currently use Avast! and have never had any problem with them through two laptops and three desktops. And Zone Alarm still works great!

I stay away from Symantec and MacAfee products because they are so prominent that they themselves are targets of the malfeasants. And their updates are late. I usually get at least two updates a day on Avast! (I'm on 24/7)

I helped a couple people with slowing issues after installing AVG free. Had to add some RAM to get the machine working properly again (old slow machines). I've had people get viruses while running AVG, but I think that can be said for any antivirus software.

Bill

14 - ChromeOS - When I first heard about ChromeOS I had no idea that it was going to be a "firmware" OS. I've always felt that is should have been more tablet oriented, rather than netbook oriented. Recently, I was thinking, that ChromeOS would make a great Set-Top OS. Anyone remember WebTV? A ChromeOS box with a blu-ray player strapped to it would make a nice Television Web-Interface.

ChromeOS is still around and google has released also a version of Android for the X86 platform. Personally, I say scrap the ChromeOS and make Android into an OS that works on all devices across the board. Apps will work everywhere.

Google has released that they are working to make an android-style OS for the desktop environment. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/156267/startup_founders_turn_android_into_desktop_os.html

I have found Outlook to be the best email client, ESPECIALLY when paired with Exchange.

I suggest substituting printing to shared printers in a mixed 32/64 bit environment in it's place.

I believe there is one missing technology : email (in general).

Spam...
Lame attempts such as SPF, DomainKeys, SenderId to make it reliable...

Oh, and not as important as email, but ftp is also some broken technology.

" What we need is a desk with a built-in multi-touch display on a horizontal surface."
...just see what that would do to your neck and back! Would such a device come with free for life chiropractic treatment??

Oh, you mean like you get in a traditional draughting office?

You just need the ability to tilt the desk to a comfortable angle.

This is something I've wanted for years.

Your monitor should be at eye level. If your bending your neck down, up, or to the side to see the monitor, your stressing it.

Touch as we know it will never work on the desktop. Maybe a touch pad on the desk or some kinect like control.

Agreed. Touch / kinect has a lot of potential to help. A horizontal desk top is a horrible idea. That is just like using a tablet with no stand. Google "ipad neck pain" and you'll see this is an issue. I have experienced it myself.

I would agree that in most cases, a horizontal desk will do more harm than good. However, it would have some advantages. A friend of mine claims to own a prototype of one (I have yet to see it for myself) that he uses for music purposes (he is a member of a techno group). I can see the advantage for that type of use, as well as architectural and artistic use; but otherwise it should at Least be tilted (and I was told by the same person that it Can tilt when needed).

That in conjunction with a laser-driven display such as is available for some keyboards, where a small laser projects an image onto any surface and the user then, in this case, types as if on a regular keyboard and the pickup unit "sees" which keys you used and tells the CPU what to type onto the screen and into the program you're using. Then your "touchscreen" could be as big as you need it to be; just refocus the pickup unit to the size of the work area you need. The technology then would be affordable by more people including moderately well-heeled individuals.

"eye level" (fremonty) you're is the correct usage.
"Do you want to save your password" (Chris Theta) I have used Outlook at home (no Exchenge) and it saves my password with no trouble. It has been years since we had Oultook/Exchange here at work and here they frown oin saved passwords.

than the horizontal keyboard and mouse we use now? Some tilting options would be nice, but it really isn't much different than our current method of entry.

Sitting at a keyboard and mouse while looking at a vertically oriented monitor is a natural sitting position. Hunching over a horizontal display which is also your typing surface would result in worse posture than writing on paper.

Anyone that has used a proper drafting board knows there is a way to do this. Tilt the desk!

Why does everyone get hung up on the shape of desks? This stuff is not set in stone and it's obvious we'll need to change the way we do things if we want to make the best possible use of technology.

We all had to learn how to use a mouse, how to use a keyboard,... Why would you possibly think you'll never have to learn a new interface in you life? Why would you think the first one you learnt is the best? Why aren't you happy to spend as much time learning a new interface as you did on the first few?

I think the reluctance is that time is precious, and as the number of interface "solutions" explodes, you've gotta pick the changes that will have a net gain of time, or you'll spend all your time learning new things without doing. Once a user becomes proficient in an interface, they will become much LESS proficient (and efficient with their time) when adjusting to a new one (for awhile, anyway). If you want to accomplish a task, and one interface lets you get exactly the end result you want, then "good enough" is, simply, good enough. The interface newcomer really needs to show a substantial time savings (or feature improvement) to justify the time, IMO.

In my experience, it was a resource hog that rolled over for just about any type of virus. The amount of computers I had to reformat while using Symantec was absurd.

Printing has been mentioned - can we just label the entire printer industry as broken? Although I'm sure the manufacturers think it's just fine, I'm having trouble thinking of an entire computer-related industry that is as anti-consumer, what with the exorbitant ink prices and built-in countermeasures to prevent cartridge reuse.

# iOS

You buy a device, that you can't do what you want with. You use it Apple's way, or you don't use it at all. Hang on a minute, this is 'my' device ... right?

I believe PDFs are ill suited for document delivery and consumption.

1. Good for documents that you are ultimately going to print but really poor for online usage.
2. Usually wrong orientation (A4 versus being built for the display)
3. Poor experience on a mobile. Scrolling to death.
4. Top down navigation is not best metaphor for information discovery and usage.
5. Adobe viewer is big in terms of install etc.
6. Often has security loopholes and patches.
7. Documents tend to be bigger in size than other available technologies.

Royal Mail use it for buying/printing postage online - WHAT A TOTAL UNMITIGATED DISASTER THAT IS - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHH!!

Absolutely 100% with you there. What an amazingly dumb time to decide to completely overhaul your website - less than a month before Christmas! Now it's down more than it's up and even when it's up, it's like some twisted game whether your postage will get to the point where you have to play lucky PDF readers to actually print it! I used to be a supporter of Royal Mail, but if this is how they see customer service, the sooner the monopoly is broken, the better.

I think the PDF format is very good for distributing a document to a lot of people without having to worry if the formatting will be different. The more recent versions make it nice for the end user to fill out a form and save/print it. I can't think of a single technology that does these as consistently as the PDF format.

If you have concerns about the security of adobe reader then simply use a different free viewer. There are lots out there even though I find that the Adobe reader properly supports all the capabilities and is more consistent than most other readers. HUD has switched official support from Adobe reader to the Nuance reader, but I don't really look to them for advice on software.

Bill

The unfortunate reality is that it isn't so much that browsers are broken - it's HTML. HTML is a stateless, static text formatting standard. And it's pretty much the same as it was in the mid-nineties. Technology has moved on hugely since then - but HTML is still there, still, well, just sitting there - It just has lots of JavaScript friends surrounding it to try and make it look good.

I like HTML5 and Html+css. It's useful when you need a kick web-interface for a project.