Improvements

I was talking with my wife about a piece of software that I was installing at work, and I used the phrase ‘...and then they improved it.’ By which she understood that I meant "they took a piece of software that worked in a perfectly obvious way (or at least, in a way that I had learned to use) and made changes to it 'in the name of improvement’ that I regard as having been made ‘in the name of impediment’.

That phrase came to my mind this morning as I was looking at the backup software that we use routinely. It’s been having some problems -- announcing that it can’t back up files which, when you manually start the job, it then goes and does; occasionally having two copies of the job running at the same time. I’ve been thinking of removing it, cleaning it out entirely, and then reinstalling it. Only, its not quite that simple. For one, it seems to think that it needs to be running all the time (or at least resident all the time), and so if it is invoked, and finds that it’s not in the startup list for the PC, it adds itself. Even if there’s another instance in the list that was unselected, it does this. So when I remove it, that unselected option is still going to be there, with no apparent way of removing it. (Short of going into the registry, an exploit that I view with as much equanimity as going for an audit.) I’m sure that the people who put that hook into the software regarded it as a Good Idea -- an Improvement -- but I don’t, and it irritates me that I can’t just say ‘don’t do that.’ As a semi-software guy myself, I know why people don’t give users the option to make decisions like that, and I usually support that idea. But there are times when you want to slam your fist down on the keyboard and say ‘just DO it, dammit!’ -- but you can’t. I know this isn’t a big deal, still, it is an irritant.

It always impresses me when something really does get improved, or when people give thought to design. Useful design, not 'oh isn't that cute' design. I don’t hear of it happening that often -- the only instances I can think of are that Volvo concept car that was designed by a crew that was predominantly women, an office printer (don’t recall if it was HP, but I think so) that would note when it was first used in the morning and, over time, would turn itself on five minutes before then, so that you didn’t have to wait for it to warm up. (I hate waiting for the printer -- in our office, when I go by, if its sitting there in ‘power saver’ mode, I always hit start, just so the next person won’t have to wait.), and the Mozilla suite of software. Those are good improvements. They make (or have the potential to make) my life better.

But generally, I think -- Improvements. Fah.