The Elitist

So I was going to write a response to Bob’s comment on my last blog entry “End-User IQ”, and I was about to go on a rant about a typical desktop support scenario. I then realized it that my post was getting way too long for a comment. This deserves its own entry.

The task: User has spyware; remove it.

Alright, time to download Spybot SD.

click Start [start menu briefly appears, then disappears] OMG I hate Windows XP

click Start again wait… where is the web browser icon?

WinKey + R > “iexplore.exe”

[waiting… waiting..] What the hell is taking so l… Holy search toolbars, Batman!

[more waiting… I see http://www.msn.com/ populate in the address bar, and I desperately try to change it to google.com. Why can’t people set their homepage to something useful?]

Yes! Google! At last! “spybot”, [enter key]

Great, the spyware blocked the download page. Why the flying f*** are we still using XP? This user would never have gotten spyware if we were on Vista… Ugh… I can’t believe people fell for Apple’s bullshit advertisements about Vista. Now the whole world is stuck on Windows XP. What was I doing again? Oh, right…

[2 hours of strife and agony later…]

“Ok, I think I got rid of it all. Let me know if you have anymore probl…” [spyware pops up again] FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU************

“Alright. I am formatting your HDD.”

[The next day]

“Ok, I reformatted your hard drive and re-installed all of your apps. Be careful about what you install and let me know if…” [I look around as if there is some possibly physical, visible entity watching me and waiting for me to utter the next few words, ensuring my own demise] “…if you have any more problems.”

[The next day]

User says, “Oh hey, my computer is doing that thing again where…” [I roll my eyes and let out a grunt]

[I reformat again. I didn’t want to do it, but you made me. This time, no administrative permissions for you, Mwahahaa! Problem solved.]

In dealing with computer users, I’ve discovered a method for calculating their intelligence. It seems that IQ has a direct correlation with a user’s web browser. I’ve written an equation that can roughly predict intelligence, shown below:

iq = webBrowser - (5)searchToolbars

Where webBrowser can have any of the following values:

• Internet Explorer (version 6 or less) = 95
• Internet Explorer (version 7) = 100
• Internet Explorer (version 8) = 105
• FireFox (any version) = 105
• Chrome (any version) = 105
• links or lynx (see footnote*) = 115
• Opera = 95
• Safari = 90

searchToolbars is simply the number of search toolbars that the user has installed. This generally only applies to internet explorer. Each toolbar that you have installed removes 5 points from IQ, because in order to let one be installed you have to be retarded or illiterate (which is usually a symptom of the former). It usually happens because somebody has no idea what they are doing, and they can’t read or they are just plain dumb.

Lets use the example below to calculate this user’s IQ:

iq = 105 - (5)4

iq = 85

user = RETARDED

Now, more variables can be added to more accurately calculate intelligence. Variables like homePageURL, favoriteOperatingSystem, spywareCount are all important factors to consider, but are not covered in this post.

*using links or lynx does not implicitly imply a high IQ, but does imply that the user has a working knowledge of Linux, and therefore generously raises the IQ prediction.

If you’ve ever needed to look at browsing history from FireFox 3, without being at the physical machine, as I recently did, you will discover that FireFox 3 stores URLs in a .sqlite file. You can just open the file up in notepad, and you will see some URLs, but it’s not very readable, because it’s jumbled in with a bunch of binary data. I’m going to tell you how to do it the right way.

1. First, download the SQLite command-line utility at their website.
2. Unpack the zip file somewhere on your hard drive. I’ll save it to C:\temp for the purpose of this article.
3. Find your FireFox profile folder. It will look something like this: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<random>.default on Windows XP or C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<random>.default on Windows Vista.
4. Open a command prompt. and find the folder that you put sqlite3.exe in. Ex:

   C:\Users\username>cd c:\temp

5. Now run sqlite3.exe, run a query on the database, and specify a location to output the text file. Ex:

   c:\temp>sqlite3.exe C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\
   <random>.default\places.sqlite
   
   sqlite>.mode list
   
   sqlite>.output history_dump.txt
   
   sqlite>select url from moz_place;
   
   sqlite>.exit
   

6. You should now have a text file named history_dump.txt in the same directory as sqlite3.exe. This contains one URL on every line.

The aforementioned steps will not list dates or times, that would require multiple queries, but at least you have a list of all visited URLs.

I didn’t like the new taskbar (“superbar”) in Windows 7 at first. I tried it for a few minutes, and then promptly found a way to switch it back to the way I like it in Windows Vista, by going into the taskbar properties and checking the “Use small icons” box and changing the “Taskbar Buttons” option to never combine. After I got bored of the same ol’ same ol’, I decided to give the new configuration another chance, and I have to say that I’m starting to like it.

At first I thought it would be difficult to differentiate between programs on the superbar, because there is no text, so you have to identify using the icon only. This is easier than I thought, as I quickly recognize all of the icons for the programs that I use frequently. The nice thing, though, is that when you have several windows open, you mostly look at the thumbnail images that popup for each icon, instead of the icons themselves, and I’ve found that to help quite a bit. What helps even more, is that when you hover over the thumbnail, all other windows go transparent, and the one you are looking at stands out. This makes it easier than ever to identify the window you are about to select.

I have never liked grouped taskbar icons. I always turn that option off. Grouping things together has always made it harder for me to find the window I am looking for. There is too much thought process going on for such a simple maneuver. It’s really not bad now, though, since you see thumbnails of all your windows. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it requires an extra click or a couple seconds of hovering to see the thumbnails. I really like looking through my IE tabs using the thumbnails on the taskbar, it’s awesome.

There is one thing that’s keeping the new taskbar from being useable for me. I don’t know if it’s a bug or some idiot thought it would be a good idea. Usually, when you close a window using the ‘close’ icon on it’s thumbnail, the panel of thumbnails just compacts and continues to show the remaining windows. Every time I close an email message in Outlook 2007, the whole panel of thumbnails closes. This is terribly frustrating, because if I have to close five tabs in IE, I can just click the five ‘X’ buttons on the thumbnail panel. However, if I have to close five emails, I have to hover over the Outlook icon for a couple seconds, find the one I want, click the ‘X’, and repeat four more times. It’s annoying, and it’s ridiculous.

I kind of feel like the thumbnail panel shows up in a weird spot. Maybe I would like it better if the icons weren’t grouped, and hovering over the icon itself hid all of the other windows, instead of having to move your mouse up and over the thumbnail. I’m obviously not the UI expert who gets the big bucks designing the Windows UI, but I still think there are some obvious changes that need to be made.

My overall evaluation: I like the new default taskbar settings more than I thought I would, but I think there is still more efficiency to squeeze out of it.

There are more aspects of the new taskbar to talk about, such as the combination of the quicklaunch bar and the taskbar in a very OS Dock sort of way, but I’ll have to touch on that in another post.