Why can’t the omnipotent software engineers and programmers figure out a way to more accurately display the time remaining for a particular task to finish? I have been re-installing some software and the installation program started by stating that it had 4 hours remaining, that was 45 minutes ago. Now, it states that there is 1 minute remaining. It has stated “Estimated time remaining… 1 minute” for approximately 10 minutes. This is rather annoying. Suppose this was the norm for all other tasks that required you to wait for a period of time…
Say you wanted to buy a hamburger at McDoogles. You enter the store, place your order and are told that your burger will be ready in approximately 48 minutes. You decide to run across the street to buy a birthday card for a friend, after all, you have 48 minutes. McDoogles calls your order number 1 minute and 25 seconds after you placed the order, but you are already gone. You re-enter McDoogles, with 7 minutes remaining in your initial approximated burger delivery time frame. McDoogles lets you know that they discarded your order approximately 20 minutes ago due to your failure to pick it up. They then notify you that the current wait for a burger is estimated at 36 minutes.
I don’t think McDoogle’s would be in business for very long if this were the case. So, I urge software engineers to more accurately predict and estimate the time it will take me to install this software. Oh yeah, I still have an estimated 1 minute remaining…
Tag: Computers
Estimated Time Remaining
Oh yeah, get Firefox
There is a better web browser out there, and it is called Firefox. Why is it better, well it just is, and over 50,000,000 people agree. It is very adept at blocking pop up windows and renders web pages faster. But more important than that, at least to me, is that the browser is not dominant on the screen. It always seemed to me that when I was using Internet Explorer I was looking at a webpage “in” IE. When using Firefox, I feel more like I am looking at the web page itself, and Firefox is just a tool to help me get there. Firefox does not ever get in my way like IE did. It is better, you should try it.
The only downside to Firefox is that a small number of websites will not work with it. But this limitation is not the fault of the community that has developed Firefox, rather, it is the fault of the web page designers who have failed to adhere to accepted web standards and have coded for IE only. This problem was more prevalent in the early days of Firefox (6 months ago?), but as time progresses and more people switch over to Firefox this limitation is showing up less and less. Actually, I haven’t encountered a webpage that didn’t work in quite a while. Although it may be that I just refuse to visit them until they conform (i.e. Launch!).
