Me: chooses English for language, French for keyboard (because that's what my keyboard happens to be), speaks Dutch natively

Windows: oh great! You've told me to display everything in Windows in English. So I'll just show you the Windows store in Dutch, French and English (edit, and Russian in one of the Store tabs, for God knows why), all at once! Because who cares about your language settings anyway, right. You appear to be from Belgium from your IP, so obviously you speak both of these languages despite your personal preferences. Additionally, have some Candy Crush Soda Saga that you've never asked for.

And the application that you wanted to install - Ubuntu? Fuck you, you can't install it, for "reasons" that we've conveniently put in French, because you obviously speak that, right.

HOW ABOUT YOU FUCKING GO FUCK YOURSELF, MICROSOFT?!

"Hey nephew, why doesn't the FB app work. It shows blank white boxes?"
- It can't connect or something? (I stopped using the FB app since 2013.)

"What is this safe mode that appeared on my phone?!"
- I don't know. I don't hack my smartphone that much. Well, I actually do have a customised ROM. But stop! I'm pecking my keyboard most of the time.

"Which of my files should I delete?"
- Am I supposed to know?

"Where did my Microsoft Word Doc1.docx go?"
- It lets you choose the location before you hit save.

"What is 1MB?"
- Search these concepts on Google. (some of us did not have access to the Internet when we learned to do basic computer operations as curious kids.)

"What should I search?"
- ...

"My computer doesn't work.. My phone has a virus. Do you think this PC they are selling me has a good spec? Is this Video Card and RAM good?"
- I'm a programmer. I write code. I think algorithmically and solve programming problems efficiently. I analyse concepts such as abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web development. No, I will not fix your PC.

Just bought a Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard/mouse combo, it's actually quite awesome and I'm learning how to properly type with 10 fingers!

I somehow feel conflicted though because I'm using something from microsoft :sweat_smile_

One of the things I really hate on Windows (and Microsoft software in general) is that the keyboard shortcuts are localized therefore are different from 90% of the apps that I use on a daily basis.

Two examples of this (EN-US vs PT-PT):
- "Save" is "Gravar" while "Underline" is "Sublinhar". This means that whenever I press Ctrl + S to save a doc in MS Word I underline a word instead of saving the bloody document.
- "All" is "Tudo" so when I want to select all the itens on a folder in the File Explorer I have to press Ctrl + T, the same shortcut I press in pretty much every single tabbed app to open a new tab.

This is terrible for the user experience because different languages provide different keyboard shortcuts to the user which goes against the concept of the usefulness of a keyboard shortcut: perform an action from anywhere without having to know its menu or menu description.

I do not like the direction laptop vendors are taking.

New laptops tend to feature fewer ports, making the user more dependent on adapters. Similarly to smartphones, this is a detrimental trend initiated by Apple and replicated by the rest of the pack.

As of 2022, many mid-range laptops feature just one USB-A port and one USB-C port, resembling Apple's toxic minimalism. In 2010, mid-class laptops commonly had three or four USB ports. I have even seen an MSi gaming laptop with six USB ports. Now, much of the edges is wasted "clean" space.

Sure, there are USB hubs, but those only work well with low-power devices. When attaching two external hard drives to transfer data between them, they might not be able to spin up due to insufficient power from the USB port or undervoltage caused by the impedance (resistance) of the USB cable between the laptop's USB port and hub. There are USB hubs which can be externally powered, but that means yet another wall adapter one has to carry.

Non-replaceable [shortest-lived component] mean difficult repairs and no more reserve batteries, as well as no extra-sized battery packs. When the battery expires, one might have to waste four hours on a repair shop for a replacement that would have taken a minute on a 2010 laptop.

The SD card slot is being replaced with inferior MicroSD or removed entirely. This is especially bad for photographers and videographers who would frequently plug memory cards into their laptop. SD cards are far more comfortable than MicroSD cards, and no, bulky external adapters that reserve the device's only USB port and protrude can not replace an integrated SD card slot.

Most mid-range laptops in the early 2010s also had a LAN port for immediate interference-free connection. That is now reserved for gaming-class / desknote laptops.

Obviously, components like RAM and storage are far more difficult to upgrade in more modern laptops, or not possible at all if soldered in.

Touch pads increasingly have the buttons underneath the touch surface rather than separate, meaning one has to be careful not to move the mouse while clicking. Otherwise, it could cause an unwanted drag-and-drop gesture. Some touch pads are smart enough to detect when a user intends to click, and lock the movement, but not all. A right-click drag-and-drop gesture might not be possible due to the finger on the button being registered as touch. Clicking with short tapping could be unreliable and sluggish. While one should have external peripherals anyway, one might not always have brought them with. The fallback input device is now even less comfortable.

Some laptop vendors include a sponge sheet that they want users to put between the keyboard and the screen before folding it, "to avoid damaging the screen", even though making it two millimetres thicker could do the same without relying on a sponge sheet. So they want me to carry that bulky thing everywhere around? How about no?

That's the irony. They wanted to make laptops lighter and slimmer, but that made them adapter- and sponge sheet-dependent, defeating the portability purpose.

Sure, the CPU performance has improved. Vendors proudly show off in their advertisements which generation of Intel Core they have this time. As if that is something users especially care about. Hoo-ray, generation 14 is now yet another 5% faster than the previous generation! But what is the benefit of that if I have to rely on annoying adapters to get the same work done that I could formerly do without those adapters?

Microsoft has also copied Apple in demanding internet connection before Windows 11 will set up. The setup screen says "You will need an Internet connection…" - no, technically I would not. What does technically stand in the way of Windows 11 setting up offline? After all, previous Windows versions like Windows 95 could do so 25 years earlier. But also far more recent versions. Thankfully, Linux distributions do not do that.

If "new" and "modern" mean more locked-in and less practical and difficult to repair, I would rather have "old" than "new".

Sometimes, I really fucking hate Windows.

Having trialled Linux for a week on a spare HDD, I wanted to move to a proper dual boot with Windows on my SSD, and I decided I may as well downgrade to Windows 7 at the same time (10 had started to really annoy me).

Booting into the initial USB yielded an unresponsive mouse and keyboard. Hmm, not a great start. Turns out the Windows install USB doesn't like the rear USB ports or the wireless mouse. Strange but plugged in a spare USB mouse into the front and could install Windows.

This install was very unhappy about not having SP1 - to the point where I couldn't even install the network drivers so I could download SP1. Fine, I just downloaded an ISO with SP1 on my Mac.

Then I discovered that you can only really make a Windows USB with Windows. But I've just removed both my Windows and Linux partitions so I can reinstall them ...

After hours of searching and trying to create a bootable USB on my Mac, I finally give up and install a trial of Parallels. So I ended up using the same ISO to install a VM of Windows on my Mac, so I can create a bootable USB, so I can install Windows on my desktop. Well done Microsoft ...

And then I needed to install various drivers for the install to be even remotely useable.

To top it all off: Linux just worked. The keyboard and wireless mouse worked when installing. I didn't need to do any additional set up to be able to use it all. It can even use all 3 monitors, rather than just the 2 that Windows recognises for some bizarre reason.

Thanks to Windows being special, I've lost a day of productivity 😡

During the majority of my career, I've been the stereotypical pissed off guy with earphones in mashing away at his keyboard.

During lunch hours, I absolutely love listening to other pissed off devs. Their tales of buggy Microsoft products, oblivious project managers, dangerously unqualified directors, and severely disabled bosses are often the only thing that put a smile on my face in a workday, and here in Tokyo a workday is often your whole day. I don't feel there's anything wrong with it - the targets of their abuse often really are leeching tons of money while contributing little to nothing, so I feel like they deserve the abuse.

However, I don't like it when devs trash-talk other devs. I sympathize with those guys, even if they wrote bad code. I know writing good code is really, really hard, and I know that they were trying to do it under extremely difficult circumstances (in an office). If they're junior I sympathize even more because they're often better than I was when I had the same amount of experience.

So in conclusion, don't hate your fellow dev. Don't let hatred control you and poison your well-being. Direct your hatred where it belongs, at project managers.

I just got a phone call from "Microsoft" because there are Trojans on my pc. The broken English (and the content of the call) told me that it was scam, but I wanted to have my fun, so I continued the call.

After I told them that I am on my Computer, I was forwarded to an "expert", and now the funny part starts 😁

Scammer: you have your keyboard in front of you??
Me: yes
S: you see the strg, control ctrl button on the bottom left
M: yes *rly?*
S: what button. Is next to it?
M: fn
S: ...
M: ... *XD*
S: and next to it?
M: that's the windows button
S: ok, press that button along with 'r'
M: ok
S: what do you see?
M: *telling him what I see on my GERMAN pc*
S: ok, type 'eventvwr' *spelling it like hell*
I did so. Just while this spelling I could have hit my head on the desk... It was hilarious

He navigates me to the error and warnings and tells me that those are Trojans 😂 and that this is the reason some programs (especially my antivirus software) aren't running properly.

Well I told him that those aren't Trojans and that all my programs are running properly. I don't know if that was the reason, he stopped the call, but I wasn't able to connect to their 'headserver'.

In the end I am sad that I wasn't able to f*ck him up more. Maybe I would have been able to get some more information about their company to kick their *****.

Next time I will be (more) prepared

I think that two criterias are important:

- don't block my productivity
- author should have his userbase in mind

1) Some simple anti examples:

- Windows popping up a big fat blue screen screaming for updates. Like... Go suck some donkey balls you stupid shit that's totally irritating you arsehole.
- Graphical tools having no UI concept. E.g. Adobes PDF reader - which was minimalized in it's UI and it became just unbearable pain. When the concept is to castrate the user in it's abilities and call the concept intuitive, it's not a concept it's shit. Other examples are e.g. GEdit - which was severely massacred in Gnome 3 if I remember correctly (never touched Gnome ever again. I was really put off because their concept just alienated me)
- Having an UI concept but no consistency. Eg. looking at a lot of large web apps, especially Atlassian software.
Too many times I had e.g. a simple HTML form. In menu 1 you could use enter. In menu 2 Enter does not work. in another menu Enter works, but it doesn't submit the form it instead submits the whole page... Which can end in clusterfuck.
Yaaayyyy.
- Keyboard usage not possible at all.
It becomes a sad majority.... Pressing tab, not switching between form fields. Looking for keyboard shortcuts, not finding any. Yes, it's a graphical interface. But the charm of 16 bit interfaces (YES. I'm praising DOS interfaces) was that once you memorized the necessary keyboard strokes... You were faster than lightning. Ever seen e.g. a good pharmacist, receptionist or warehouse clerk... most of the software is completely based on short keyboard strokes, eg. for a receptionist at a doctor for the ICD code / pharmaceutical search et cetera.
- don't poop rainbows. I mean it.
I love colors. When they make sense. but when I use some software, e.g. netdata, I think an epilepsy warning would be fair. Too. Many. Neon. Colors. -.-

2) It should be obvious... But it's become a burden.

E.g. when asked for a release as there were some fixes... Don't point to the install from master script. Maybe you like it rolling release style - but don't enforce it please. It's hard to use SHA256 hash as a version number and shortening the hash might be a bad idea.

Don't start experiments. If it works - don't throw everything over board without good reasons. E.g. my previous example of GEdit: Turning a valuable text editor into a minimalistic unusable piece of crap and calling it a genius idea for the sake of simplicity... Nope. You murdered a successful product.
Gnome 3 felt like a complete experiment and judging from the last years of changes in the news it was an rather unsuccessful one... As they gave up quite a few of their ideas.

When doing design stuff or other big changes make it a community event or at least put a poll up on the github page. Even If it's an small user base, listen to them instead of just randomly fucking them over.
--
One of my favorite projects is a texteditor called Kate from KDE.

It has a ton of features, could even be seen as a small IDE. The reason I love it because one of the original authors still cares for his creation and ... It never failed me. I use Kate since over 20 years now I think... Oo

Another example is the git cli. It's simple and yet powerful. git add -i is e.g. a thing I really really really love. (memorize the keyboard shortcuts and you'll chunk up large commits faster than flash.

Curl. Yes. The (http) download tool. It's author still cares. It's another tool I use since 20 years. And it has given me a deep insight of how HTTP worked, new protocols and again. It never failed me. It is such a fucking versatile thing. TLS debugging / performance measurements / what the frigging fuck is going on here. Take curl. Find it out.

My worst enemies....

Git based clients. I just hate them. Mostly because they fill the niche of explaining things (good) but completely nuke the learning of git (very bad). You can do any git action without understanding what you do and even worse... They encourage bad workflows.
I've seen great devs completely fucking up git and crying because they had really no fucking clue what git actually does. The UI lead them on the worst and darkest path imaginable. :(

Atlassian products. On the one hand... They're not total shit. But the mass of bugs and the complete lack of interest of Atlassian towards their customers and the cloud movement.... Ouch. Just ouch.

I had to deal with a lot of completely borked up instances and could trace it back to a bug tracking entry / atlassian, 2 - 3 years old with the comment: vote for this, we'll work on a Bugfix. Go fuck yourself you pisswads.

Microsoft Office / Windows. Oh boy.
I could fill entire days of monologues.
It's bad, hmkay?

XEN.
This is not bad.
This is more like kill it before it lays eggs.
The deeper I got into XEN, the more I wanted to lay in a bathtub full of acid to scrub of the feelings of shame... How could anyone call this good?!?????

WHY THE FUCK DID MICROSOFT INSTALL A NEW KEYBOARD LAYOUT AFTER THE LAST WINDOWS 10 UPDATE AND IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO REMOVE IT?! fuck it for fucks sake

So I enventually spent 2 years working for that company with a strong b2b market. Everything from the checkouts in their 6 b2c stores to the softwares used by the 30-people sales team was dependant on the main ERP shit home-built with this monstruosity we call Windev here in France. If you don't know it just google and have some laugh : this is a proprieteray FRENCH language. Not french like made by french people, well that too, but mostly french like the fucking language is un fucking french ! Instructions are on french, everything. Hey that's my natural language okay, but for code, really ?

The php website was using the ERP database too, even all the software/hardware of the massive logistic installation they had (like a tiny Amazon depot), and of course the emails of all employees. Everything was just handled by this unique shitty and so sloooooow fucking app. When there was to many clients on the website or even too many salespeople connected to the ERP at the same time, every-fuckin-piece of the company was slowing down, and even worse facing critical bugs. So they installed a monitor in the corner of a desk constantly showing the live report page of Google analytics and they started panic attacks everytime it was counting more than 30 sessions on the website. That was at the time fun and sad to observe.

The whole shit was created 12 years ago and is since maintened locally by one unique old-fashion-microsoft dev who also have to maintain all the hardware of all the fucking 150+ people business. You know, when the keyboard of anyone is "broken" cause it's unplugged... That's his job too. The poor guy was totally overstressed on a daily basis and his tech knowledge just saddly losts themeselves somewhere in the way. He was my n+1 in a tech team of 3 people : him, a young and inexperimented so-called "php developer" who was in charge of the website (btw full of security holes I discovered and dealed with when I first arrive at the job), and myself.

The database was a hell of 100+ tables of business and marketing data with a ton of specific logic added on-the-go during years. No consistent data model or naming. No utf8. Fucked up relations that ends with queries long enough to fill books. And that's not all, all the customers passwords was just stored there uncrypted. Several very big companies and administrations were some of these clients. I was insisting on the passwords point litterally all the time, that was an easy security fix and a good start... But no, in two years of discussions on the subject I never achieved to have them focusing on other considerations than "our customers like that we can remind them their password by a simple phone call if they lost it". What. The. Fuck. WHATTHEFUCK!

Eventually I ran myself out of this nightmare. I had a few bad jobs already, and worked on shitty software already. But that one really blows my mind (and motivation for a time too). Happy it's over.

"Keyboard error, press ENTER to continue" -Microsoft Windows

I HATE SURFACES SO FRICKING MUCH. OK, sure they're decent when they work. But the problem is that half the time our Surfaces here DON'T work. From not connecting to the network, to only one external screen working when docked, to shutting down due to overheating because Microsoft didn't put fans in them, to the battery getting too hot and bulging.... So. Many. Problems. It finally culminated this past weekend when I had to set up a Laptop 3. It already had a local AD profile set up, so I needed to reset it and let it autoprovision. Should be easy. Generally a half-hour or so job. I perform the reset, and it begins reinstalling Windows. Halfway through, it BSOD's with a NO_BOOT_MEDIA error. Great, now it's stuck in a boot loop. Tried several things to fix it. Nothing worked. Oh well, I may as well just do a clean install of Windows. I plug a flash drive into my PC, download the Media Creation Tool, and try to create an image. It goes through the lengthy process of downloading Windows, then begins creating the media. At 68% it just errors out with no explanation. Hmm. Strange. I try again. Same issue. Well, it's 5:15 on a Friday evening. I'm not staying at work. But the user needs this laptop Monday morning. Fine, I'll take it home and work on it over the weekend. At home, I use my personal PC to create a bootable USB drive. No hitches this time. I plug it into the laptop and boot from it. However, once I hit the Windows installation screen the keyboard stops working. The trackpad doesn't work. The touchscreen doesn't work. Weird, none of the other Surfaces had this issue. Fine, I'll use an external keyboard. Except Microsoft is brilliant and only put one USB-A port on the machine. BRILLIANT. Fortunately I have a USB hub so I plug that in. Now I can use a USB keyboard to proceed through Windows installation. However, when I get to the network connection stage no wireless networks come up. At this point I'm beginning to realize that the drivers which work fine when navigating the UEFI somehow don't work during Windows installation. Oh well. I proceed through setup and then install the drivers. But of course the machine hasn't autoprovisioned because it had no internet connection during setup. OK fine, I decide to reset it again. Surely that BSOD was just a fluke. Nope. Happens again. I again proceed through Windows installation and install the drivers. I decide to try a fresh installation *without* resetting first, thinking maybe whatever bug is causing the BSOD is also deleting the drivers. No dice. OK, I go Googling. Turns out this is a common issue. The Laptop 3 uses wonky drivers and the generic Windows installation drivers won't work right. This is ridiculous. Windows is made by Microsoft. Surface is made by Microsoft. And I'm supposed to believe that I can't even install Windows on the machine properly? Oh well, I'll try it. Apparently I need to extract the Laptop 3 drivers, convert the ESD install file to a WIM file, inject the drivers, then split the WIM file since it's now too big to fit on a FAT32 drive. I honestly didn't even expect this to work, but it did. I ran into quite a few more problems with autoprovisioning which required two more reinstallations, but I won't go into detail on that. All in all, I totaled up 9 hours on that laptop over the weekend. Suffice to say our organization is now looking very hard at DELL for our next machines.

Just an update : never fucking install windows 7 on a new desktop without first reading , fucking piece of shit won’t detect my SSD , tried different solution over the Internet to no success, after 3 hours of nerve wrecking debugging I read a post on the Internet that “some”(not sure which) versions of windows just don’t detect an SSD,
Finally done by installing windows 10,
But nooooooo will windows let me die in peace, noooooooo
Every fucking time I restart my PC “ windows is installing updates
I mean fuck you , how fucking many bugs do you squash in a day.

Probably some engineer at Microsoft will be “ oops o dropped a donut on my keyboard, let just press ctrl + z” to undo changes and upload , lol “

New job, new laptop, which happens to be 2k euro MS surface crap.
It comes with win10 S which only allows store apps to be installed, so yeah no making bootable linux for me untill windows drag my ballsack through 2 hours of updating to a pro version.

Wanted to do a nice sweet new debian on it - nope, keyboard not supported in the installation.
I restart...and the fucker completely denied me untill it does another update, which is taking an hour..for now.

And wtf only one usb and mini dp port? In such an expensive laptop?
Cant even plugin my display untill my dock arrives.

Guess I'll have to suck it up and get used to windows for developing for now.

Thx microsoft

Has anyone tried the "Connect app" on windows? To be able to screen cast for example android screen to windows.
What in the fucking fuck are those guys in Microsoft smoking? It fucking hijacks your mouse and keyboard with no way to control your PC. Only thing that works to go back to your PC is ctrl+alt+delete. Wanna close it? Alt+F4. No fucking UI except some broken pseudo setting. Srsly it seems like some intern did it. WHAT THE SHIT??

I will keep this short. I fucking hate Windows 11. There is nothing I like about it after over four weeks of having its fuckery drip down everything I do on my laptop like radioactive maple syrup. None of my apps from Windows 10 work. I google troubleshooting and I'm not going to go through 10 hacks to solve a problem created by Microsoft. The screen moves all over the place for no reason. I hate it. Not as much as I hated Mac, but I'm going to revert back to Windows 10 if I can. I don't wish to separate my laptop screen from my laptop keyboard again. The only person I know who can fix it tried to steal a hundred and twenty bucks from me. Thank you for reading this rant I'm living a charmed life otherwise, but snipping tool just fucked up and I'm fucking fed up. Peace out.

!rant from a support guy

I was tasked to migrate an Exchange 2003 server (yes, those are still used) for an upcoming Office 365 deployment. There are no direct upgrade path from one another, as far as we know

My task was to export PSTs from mailboxes. Great, a native tool exist for that in 2003 (exmerge). But only for less than 2 GB mailboxes because ANSI/Unicode! Half of our mailbox busts that limit. Oh, it seems Exchange 2007 has a PowerShell command for exporting to PST as well! But pre-SP3, that command relies on a local installation of Outlook on the server (DAFUQ), and has been superseded by another "standalone" powershell command. So I install a bogus Windows 2012 server only for that purpose, with Exchange Management Tools (which, by the way, is bundled with the Exchange installation setup and REQUIRES to have IIS installed on the target machine. Also, if you install ONLY the Exchange 2007 Management Tools and wish to uninstall them afterwards, you can't because the uninstaller wants me to select an Exchange Role to remove, which are all unchecked in my tools-only setup). Never worked, and Google-fu says that the newer Exchange 2007 New-MailboxExportRequest command seems to have removed Exchange 2003 support.

So i'm back to installing a pre-SP3 Exchange 2007. Then the older Export-Mailbox powershell command whines about 64bits and 32bit incompatiblity-- actually I ***HAVE*** to have the whole OS/software stack 32bit ONLY. Don't ask me why!

Some article I found says I could fire up an XP virtual machine for that, I go for Win 7 x86. "Sorry, Microsoft Exchange won't be installed on a workstation environment because reasons." All right then, let's go for an old Windows Server 2003 x86. Have you tried to boot this up in an Hyper-V environment where mouse and keyboard support for Windows Server 2003 are apparently optional? No keyboard AND mouse events sent to the guest machine at all.

* Sigh *, let's use a Windows Server 2008, but WATCH OUT! Microsoft has discontinued x86 support on their W2008 R2 release, so non-R2 for me. Even then, mouse event wasn't sent until I installed guest additions.

After all, export-mailbox ended up working, but that costed me two days of banging my head against the wall. (Oh, and I take internal calls inbetween as well...)

And that's why I aspire to be a programmer. Thank you for nothing, Microsoft!

!rant

guys what do you think of microsoft ergonomic sculpt keyboard?, does it feel good?, i think its pretty cool

Teaching advanced IT topics like programming or system management has become much harder in only about five years, because many 20 year olds do not know how to effectively work with the file system. I don't blame them: the Microsoft Office applications nudge you strongly towards storing everything in the Cloud (saving files locally requires extra clicks), and on Windows, the folders C:\Users and C:\ are almost hidden in he respective dialogs (open file, save file). Same on macOS. Students also keep loosing files. This used to be an excuse for not doing the work; nowadays, you're able to find the files on their systems by using appropriate tools (e.g. `find`, installed with Git Bash on Windows). And don't get me started on touch-typing... hell, those kids were fast ten years ago with a proper keyboard! Now they're fast with their smartphone, but painstakingly slow on an actual keyboard.

Microsoft is fucking kidding me with the fall creators update, default onscreen keyboard is so tiny (that little black box below the login form) that the letters are rendered indistinguishable and you can hardly touch them with your finger. WTF?!?!

My new Microsoft keyboard 😍

Its great for 🔟 fingers typing👌

Is this a technological metaphor?

For some Hacker challenge I was reading up on different keyboard layouts, Dvorak and stuff. And the technological lock in is baffling me: The rationale for qwerty was to reduce jamming of the typewriter letter arms. Today that doesn't make sense anymore, yet we stick to it. Wondering how much of today's tech is dragged down by things like that.

This stuff often also makes me weary of the first decisions, like choosing a protocol or data base - its kind and layout, because we might be stuck with it for reasons of backwards compatibility.... Like when Microsoft opted for the backslash as a directory separator..

My mouse/keyboard(+numpad) combo.
Why does Microsoft think that everyone needs a dedicated key to open the calculator?! I have one on both my keyboard (top-right) and the separate numpad. I used to press the calculator button by mistake when going for backspace - remapped it now.

I hate Microsoft.

I got my new laptop from work today. Pretty nice, 4 cores, 8 threads, an SSD.
It also came with the upgrade to Windows 10.

I work quite a lot on virtual machines, so my work laptop ends being an email and RDP client.

So, I connect to my usual VM, open up vscode and begin working.
But I quickly realize, that for some reason I can't do the Ctrl+Alt+DownArrow combination anymore, even though it worked on my old win7 machine.

Turns out that these keys are reserved, and I have absolutely no way to work around this.
I have to stop using a keyboard shortcut, that I use every few minutes.

Thanks for nothing.

I remember that when I was about 8 years old, my dad brought a desktop computer home one day.

I don’t remember any specs, but it had a huge ass CRT monitor, a very loud clicky keyboard, a mouse with a real ball inside, and a CPU that uses floppy discs and CDs. Nope, CDs, not DVDs. And on that computer, it ran Windows 95. There’s was no internet most of the time (it was still quite expensive and unnecessary and dial up was troublesome to set up back then).

I remembered playing bootlegged games sold in CDs that my dad bought during his trips to China back then. Duke nukem, Command and Conquer Red Alert 2, Microsoft solitaire and GTA 3. Those were the games I played.

As a kid, it was glorious, looking through a box on a table, seeing and interacting with so many different worlds, stories, characters and games. I really miss those simpler times.

These days, every time I open my laptop, and I see that new mail that need to be dealt with, that homework that’s about to be due and a reminder of my next class in 15 min. Well shit.

Some interesting keyboard shortcuts that are lesser-known but can be quite useful:

1.Windows Key + . (Period): In Windows 10 and later versions, this shortcut opens the emoji panel, allowing you to quickly insert emojis into your text.

2.Ctrl + Shift + T: This shortcut reopens the last closed tab in most web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge). It's handy if you accidentally close a tab and want to retrieve it quickly.

3.Ctrl + Backtick (`): In some text editors and IDEs (like Visual Studio Code), this shortcut toggles the integrated terminal window, allowing you to quickly switch between editing and running commands.

4.Ctrl + Shift + Esc: This directly opens the Task Manager in Windows, skipping the intermediary step of opening Ctrl + Alt + Delete and selecting Task Manager.

5.Alt + Drag: In many graphics and design applications (like Photoshop), holding down the Alt key while dragging an object duplicates it. This can save time compared to copying and pasting.

6.Ctrl + Alt + D: This shortcut shows the desktop on Windows, minimizing all open windows to quickly access icons and shortcuts on your desktop.

7.Ctrl + Shift + N: In most web browsers, this shortcut opens a new incognito or private browsing window, useful for browsing without saving history or cookies.

8.Alt + Enter: In Excel, this shortcut opens the Format Cells dialog box for the selected cell or range, allowing quick formatting changes without navigating through menus.

9.Shift + F10: This shortcut performs a right-click action on the selected item or text, useful when you can't or don't want to use the mouse.

10.Ctrl + Shift + V: In many applications, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Word, this shortcut pastes text without formatting (paste as plain text). It's useful when copying text from websites or other documents.

++ if you like this

Got really happy that I could use the new Boolean work item templates fields in TFS 2017 after upgrading from 2015....Turned into bludgeoning my head against the keyboard when I realised Microsoft decided it was a great idea to not including any way of validating said Boolean field. Time to go back to using Yes/No drop downs, or resort to dirty hacks....

Out of interest does anyone else have a Microsoft keyboard, and does it just die (requiring it to be plugged out and in again) every now and again? I honestly thought VS and Outlook were bad until I got this piece of crap

I just helped my friend setting up Laravel on her machine. The npm is giving me headache because of the fucking permission issue. WHY THE FUCK chmod DOESN'T WORK ON WINDOWS IF POWERSHELL RECOGNIZE THE COMMAND?? Then composer says that it cannot find the autoload.php. I thought it was another permission issue end up it's because composer fuck up installing on Windows. Wasted 2 hours for this shit.

Oh and the default language she uses is French. The keyboard layout is entirely different. French is totally awesome but the typos in command is getting really annoying. :(

I'm not saying Windows is bad for general use but I think it's a bad idea for developing non-Microsoft product on Windows. I don't understand how can one bear with so much shit on Windows. Most dev tools tutorials are written in Unix system so fucking get a Mac or Linux at least!

I really have a keyboard problem. I have 6 keyboards and constantly change them. From mechanical to low profile, with or without numpad. This night i ordered microsoft wireless desktop 900.