PoochSo, as you may or may not know, I got myself a new Mac. It's a PowerBook, it's my baby, and I'm pleased as punch with it. One of the nicest things about the Mac is Mac applications. So many of them are carefully designed, thoughtful pieces of work that it's an absolute joy to use them. For example, BBEdit Lite, which I'm typing this in, kicks ass. You can try to disagree with me if you want, but you're wrong. So, I've been enjoying finding Mac counterparts for the PC applications that I've become accustomed to, and for the most part it isn't bad. Granted, this is probably in part because I haven't been looking for the real cutting-edge games, since while the trackpad is excellent for use in the desktop environment, it's not designed for, say, a first-person shoot-'em-up (also called 3D-Whack-a-Mole). There are, however exceptions to this rule. Ther are applications that are such absolute dogs that it's an embarassment for their developers. The Mac port of AOL's Instant Messenger is a complete fucking pooch. Let me fill you in on the specifics of my situation. I've used AIM on the PC for a while, and I don't really trust it on that platform either. More than a few odd freezes and lockups seemed to have AIM as the common denominator, and there was a while were we could guarantee a blue screen lockup just by going to the Buddy Icon tab in the Preferences window. So we're not exactly starting off from the best working base. However, all my friends use AIM, and since AOL backed off from their open standards idealism once they dominated the messaging market, if I want to talk with them, I gotta get AIM. So, I download it and install it. One of the folders that is on the Mac from the beginning is called Internet, and most of the Internet applications are installed there (I'm saying pretty much to cover my ass, 'cause things like the modem stuff is in another folder. Whatever.). So, I spend 10-15 minutes getting everything configued just right, and shut it back down. As an afterthought, I realize I don't want to click all the way down into that folder whenever I want to run AIM, so I make an alias, and drop it onto my desktop. When I ran it from that alias for the first time, it popped up a box to whine at me that it wanted a folder called AIM Files to be located in the same place that it started up from, so it was going to make one, okay? Fine. Make the damn folder. It makes this folder which is now sitting on my desktop. I don't want a folder on my desktop. I like program aliases. But, fine. A couple weeks later (I don't run AIM from home a lot), I notice that it's not making the usual sounds when people sign in and sign out. I check the Preferences screen, and everything's all greyed out. I chalk it up to AIM being a freaky little app, and assume that it'll work the next time I start it up. You know that stupid little saying, "You know what you do when you assume?" Yeah, me, too. The sounds didn't work. Crap. So, I was driving to work this morning, randomly writing and debugging stuff in my head (it's a bad habit, but it's almost automatic at this point), and my brain says, "Hey, you know that pooch of an application, AIM? I bet when it created that AIM Files folder, it didn't move the sound files over. That's why none of your sounds are working." Well, fuck a duck. I get home, look in the AIM Files folder on the desktop, and it has a Sounds folder inside it, but no sounds. In the original Sounds folder? 21 sound files. Click. Drag. Drop. Hey, lookit that! Sounds! As a secondary thing, I rest my mouse over my name on the buddy list (again, it's a debugging thing), and notice that I'm not listed as being able to Talk. I rest the mouse over KT's nick. Yeah, she's listed as being able to talk... I wonder if... Go look in the original AIM Files folder... hey, look, a folder called Parts! (Parts? The best they could come up with is Parts? Not Add-Ons, or Accessories, but Parts?) And inside... hey, look, an extension called TalkLib, that should have been put in the Extension folder WHEN THE DAMN APP INSTALLED ITSELF. Click. Drag. Drop. Restart AIM. Hey, look, I can talk now! Look, it's not hard to write a decent application. And, if you do write a decent app, odds are that people like me aren't going to get fed up some Friday evening, and get pushed into writing some vitriolic screed to vent about what a steaming pile your app is. Please, make me happy. Don't write a pooch. |