Why does Skype hate thier users?

4 05 2009

So like a lot of people I know, I moved from Skype 3.8 – brilliant application, had its flaws but worked well for the most part – to Skype 4.0 – a piece of shit with a fancy user interface.

Seriously, there is a list as long as my arm of gripes I (and others) have with the Skype 4.0.

I originally moved over to Skype 4.0 because I use Skype chat a lot, I communicate with at least 10 different contacts a day and the new interface is much easier to manage my conversations and calls (they got something right). I send files, I paste quotes, I paste links, I have conversations with individuals and groups (group management is much improved in 4.0) and I occasionally forward contacts. Try sending a contact to one of your contacts in Skype 4.0. In 3.8 you dragged the contact you wanted to send into a chat window and viola – contact forwarded. In 4.0 this functionality seems to have been completely removed. I cannot find a way to forward a contact, hell you cant even copy and past a contacts user name when you view their profile. What the hell?

Then there is the conversation history, it works fine, exactly the same as in 3.8 – except when you try and clear the conversation history for a specific chat. In 3.8 you could type “/clear” and the recent conversation history was removed for that chat and that chat alone. In 4.0 your only option it to clear the history of all the chats. If I chat to Thai ladyboys at work while I am chatting to a coworker who is sending me passwords/usernames/URL’s/Code snippets, I don’t want to have to clear all the conversations when I have had enough tranny for one day.

Skype, you got a lot right in Skype 4.0 but you got more wrong in my opinion. Why would you remove useful functionality from a newer version when the same functionality exists in an older version? My guess is Skype were seriously misinformed on how users used their product, specifically Skype chat – there are more than enough call quality surveys but I think they forgot that Skype has become a popular instant message protocol too, or do they even know that?

I will add to this list as I remember what pisses me off (shouldnt take too long), right now I have ladyboys and work to concentrate on.

Harden the fuck up Skype.

EDIT: Anyone else who is unhappy with Skype 4.0 please leave a comment. If there is enough response we could get Skype to do something about it. Or maybe I’m just a whiny asshole and no one will comment. It’s not my fault, I’m a South African.





Elections, Twitter and TED

2 05 2009

Finally another (quick) blog. Everyone go here to support MyMiniCity – another stupid little web game.

So the elections are over, the ANC achieved another landslide victory. Now the fear mongering begins. So the ANC did not achieve the infamous 2/3 majority. Everyone seems to think that this would have made some sort of drastic difference, like 2/3 was the begining of the apocolypse. In the 15 years the ANC has had majority rule nothing drastic has happened, why does everyone seem to think that something will happen now? I think I summed up my feelings regarding the elections pretty well on my favourite web forum. The reply was in a topic addressing supposed vote tampering:

I voted yes, cause I believe the election was free and fair, just like the previous 4 elections. The people have spoken. The conspiracy stories will start crawling out the woodwork. Fact of the matter is that it was a landslide victory, sure tampering could contribute to a few percent, not a 40 odd % lead over the party in second place.

The system is flawed and democracy in South Africa has left a lot to be desired, but it was free and fair. Education or not, the people have spoken and there is fuckall we can do about it. Lets live with it and make the best of it. I am sick to death of white people being fearful of a country run by a man who has had the last few years of his live sensationalized when in reality, nothing will change in South Africa under his leadership. In 6 months time Zuma will be the new Mbeki, the man we love to hate – a mediocre president, but far from a terrible one. Hell, Zuma could even surprise us and be a half decent president.

Stop fucking whining and get on with your lives. Viva South Africa. Viva.

But as South Africans we have to whine, its in our nature, its a national past time. I love this country, its very rarely a boring place to live.

On the political subject, it seems that Mr.Buffoon Melama has shot his trap off again like a little spoiled brat. Calling GottZille a “racist little girl”, sometimes I think the bigot is a lot smarter than he lets on. In fact I think he is a prized part of the ANC arsenal. Well, at least he is entertaining and hopefully the majority will realise that he is just a clown, the ANC court jester. Unfortunately I think he is a court jester with tremendious political clout amoungst the uneducated youth.

Still on the topic of elections (sort of), Twitter absolutely blew me away during the South African elections. Using search.twitter.com I was able to track opinions and get the latest updates on the elections. News24 had a Twitter feed widget on the side of thier elections special home page which was an excellent addition to the page. The evening as the first counts started rolling in I read about it as it was happening. Twitter has evolved as a social networking tool, its scope has changed and it has exploded on the web. A few examples of its evolution are: Indian Premier League updates and Philanthropy. This TED Talk by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams says a lot.

That brings me to TED – a Technology, Entertainment and Design conference that allows invitees to speak about what interests them. Invitees include Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Mike Rowe and Dan Denett. TED ‘Talks’ (video clips of invitee presentations) are availible on the website to either view via streaming video or to download as FLV or high quality MP4. I have spent countless gigabytes downloading and archiving the talks. Here is a list of my favorite talks in no particular order:

TED is an amazing iniative and I will support it any way I can. Brilliant stuff.

Thats it for now, I will try and put together a TyTn II post by the end of the weekend.

Until we meet again internet people, follow me.





WordPress

25 04 2009

So I’m migrating my privately hosted blog to a WordPress hosted blog. The reason for this is that maintaining my privately hosted blog is a schlep. Her is my blogging to do list: TYTN II, Windows Vista, Windows 7 Beta and Twitter. Hopefully next week I will get time to blog about some of the things I mentioned.

Peace internet people.





Coding Music

5 02 2009

Woot, another post. Could you belief it? Belief it ’cause its true!

I have always wondered what other developers listen to when they code. Personally angry music (metal, hardrock, gangster rap etc.) turns me into a laser guided code producing machine. This morning I applied the headset to my head and 2 hours later I took them off and I had practically completed part of my project – no small feat.

Before I go on I have to ‘come out’ about something; I like Limp Bizkit, specifically the ‘ChocoLate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water’ Album. Tease me all you want, they remind me of my early teen years – puberty and teen angst. Things where simpler then – why is this hard? What do I do with it? Why do I want to poke her with it? Why is her chest swollen? Why do I want to touch her swollen chest? Wait, woa, sticking my tongue into her mouth is kind of cool, woa, wait, what just happened, oh god, I hope she doesn’t see my pants. Mmmm, that place feels good, woa, it smells… it smells… kinda good? Erm, is god going to punish me for this? Maybe I should stop. Ok, god, I want to make a deal with you – please let me have this one sin (is it even a sin? Pretty sure it is though) and I will never do anything else naughty ever again… (I did it all for the nookie….. And stick it up your.. yeah! Stick it up your.. yeah!) Good times.

Bellow is a list of my favourite ‘coding’ song’s at the moment:

Killswitch Engage – Life to Lifeless
Killswitch Engage – Rise Inside
Killswitch Engage – My Last Serenade
Limp Bizkit – My Generation
Limp Bizkit – My Way
Limp Bizkit – Boiler
Limp Bizkit – Full Nelson
Rage Against the Machine – Guerrilla Radio
Rage Against the Machine – Bulls on Parade
Rage Against the Machine – Born of a Broken Man
Tool – Hooker with a Penis
Tool – Eulogy

Post your favourites in the comments.

Before I go I have a few things to pimp:

I am a real ‘web2.0′ whore at the moment and the latest of these is Twitter. Youknow has created a cool little ‘Twitter Gadget’ (See bellow). It can be found at blah blah.

Pretty cool eh? Mad props to Ryan.

Another one of my mates (currently the 3rd flatmate) Wesley has helped make these two websites: Wicked Stuff and Epic Fail. Wicked stuff eh? *adds Wez to blogroll* Oh and he’s an up and coming cricket blogger

Later internet people. I go to some IRL now.

Edit: Apparently today is my 3 year anniversary on Systemshock. Happy anniversary to myself.





Oh wow, this still works

4 12 2008

Yes, it’s been fucking forever. A lot has happened, a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same and mostly I am happy. Yes, that is my update. I am happy. No, I’m not on drugs – not that I would mind – I’m just happy. Everything is the way I want it to be, well not everything, and not exactly the way I want it to be, but you get my drift. If you don’t then you are daft, hit <CTRL> + <ALT> + <F4> now or if you are too daft to even decipher that key combination just click the little X in the corner.

 No, that is not my full update, no I don’t particularly feel like typing out a full update, so I will give you the out of town preview version. I am now a software developer – love it, just fucking love it. It has its ups and downs but mostly it rocks. Awesome working environment and lots of freedom. Rocking boss. Rocking co-workers – for the most part. I have a girlfriend, she is real, she does know we are going out; I don’t pay her – well at least not in hard currency. Wait, saying ‘hard currency’ just left me wide open. Meh. I also believe she loves me, and I do believe that I love her dearly. I believe we will marry one day. I also believe in the orbiting teapot, hehe. Michellé is awesome and she is a big part of why I am happy (without drugs). I recently acquired a new laptop – Toshiba Satellite L300-14X – it also makes me happy. Its nothing really to write home about, but I spent the last 10 months using an ancient Mecer with no battery, barely enough ram to run windows all controlled by a CPU that can barely calculate pie – so give me a break for being over the moon about my damn Celeron M. I’m writing this on it as we speak – using Synergy, yes it still fucking rocks. Half the office use Synergy to control their laptops with their desktop keyboard and mouse. 

I also gave up smoking. For a whole 4 months. I started smoking again. Down to about 5-10 smokes a day. Improvement. Still love cancer sticks too much. Thinking of trying Twisp. Anyone every used it?Well yea, that’s the short of it. I’m off again. Enjoy. I will be back soon, but once again don’t hold your breath. In the meanwhile, check out shogan.co.uk – we really love Ryan . Keep it real internet people.

 PS: I am really sad Ryan moved to the UK. He left me behind :(  

EDIT: Believe it or not I am using Vista Home premium. I will give full feedback when I have used it longer than 2 weeks. Also, I have become a massive Dawkins fan and I cant consume his books fast enough. Check out The OutCampaign.





Boo hoo, I’m an umlungu.

15 02 2008

Ye, I know I have failed to keep to my new blogging schedule. I have tried to post every Tuesday, but I was too busy fighting off apartheid sympathizers and other types of white supremacists on my favorite web forum this week.

It’s as if the current problems with ruling government and South Africa as a country seem to have sparked an increase in what I like to call the middle/upper class superiority minority syndrome. Yes, I made it up all on my lonesome and I am rather proud of it. I use the phrase because it perfectly describes the mentality that some of the white middle and upper class (also the minority racial/economic group in SA) seem to have these days. I am sick of these opinionated closet racists who seem think that their severely biased opinions speak for all South Africans. These are the same arrogant cowards who write letters for the newspapers and post on internet forums under pseudonyms pointing out every possible negative aspect of this country and how the ruling government is solely to blame for these problems. They then state that South Africa and life for South Africans was so much better under apartheid rule. They fail to mention the blatant racism, the segregation and the oppression that occurred under apartheid rule – all gross human rights violations, the same rights that allow them to write these articles and make these comments, the same rights that allow them to immigrate and the same rights they are quick to squeal about when they complain about crime. What’s even worse are the deserting expat scum who have even unhealthier opinions on the county they abandoned. Here is a little snippet of a debate on my favorite internet forum, it’s a prime example of an immigrant trying to justify their choice to abandon their country with bitter, baseless accusations – this is a real little gem:

 

But the ANC is already pushing the country into reverse Apartheid and the majority of the population see that as a good thing. The ANC is being kept afloat by an uneducated mob that the ANC is doing their best to ensure they stay uneducated and continue to support them blindly. The wrecking of the educational and police systems was not because of incompetence it was deliberate because it cements the ANC as the untouchables.

AREYOUFUCKINGKIDDINGME? I cannot believe that… Fuckit, you know what, I will let the absurdity of that statement speak for itself. I don’t think I have to even discuss it further.

I came across this interesting article the other day. The article was originally published on a news website and that is where I first discovered it. I applaud the writer for speaking out against the appalling attitudes some South Africans have these days. Give it a read and here is a small extract:

One can’t help feeling that it all boils down to the fact that a lot of them just did not like having to share their country with black people.

After all, why does one see so many old South African flags being waved at SA/Australia rugby Tests in Perth? Why does one keep hearing about groups of South Africans continuing to celebrate apartheid holidays on the beaches of New Zealand surrounded by AWB uniforms and flags?

Frankly, I don’t know why I get so steamed up about these jealous and clearly insecure morons who gleefully leap upon every little thing that goes wrong in this country and scream “I told you so.”

I suppose we should just be grateful that they did leave the country.

South Africa needs patriotism, not the wishy washy proudly South African crap we have. The ‘US-fucking-A-is-the greatest-nation-on-earth’ type of patriotism, the kind where you don’t tell a patriot his country sucks in fear of having your teeth pulled. Don’t get me wrong, I am no US supporter/sympathizer or whatever the hell you want to call it, but when I see a 21 gun salute for a fallen US soldier I get a lump in my throat. I can also point out many flaws with patriotism, but I still think it’s damn admirable.

Anyway, /rant. I am in the process of relocating so my life is now surrounded by last minute arrangements, packing of boxes and the filling out of 2375836385 different forms.

The last time I moved I promised myself I would never pack my own stuff again, yet 8 months later here I am packing the vast amount of useless shit I have aquired of the years. Needless to say I am throwing a lot of stuff out and I am sure the Hanky children’s home will be very fond of me for a long while.

That said I am ecstatic to be moving closer to good friends and family and as of today I will relocate in 5 days. YAY!

On a sad note, a good friend of mine Vissie has immigrated (to NZ of all places) and even though this blog post is basically a scathing attack on deserting racists, Vissie does not fall into this group as she is a open minded individual with a healthy outlook on life merely wanting to explore life outside of her motherland (or is that fatherland?). I wish her the best of luck and a prosperous life in that country filled with scary war dancing, useless rugby players. I’m joking, please don’t beat me up giant tattooed rugby playing Māorian man-mountain.

Anyway, I am of to Jeffreys Bay today, I am itching to play some poker and I am looking forward to the game arranged for tonight. GET YO POKER ON BIATCH.

I have left out a lot of new but I am honestly too busy to write any more and I can gaurentee next week will be too hectic for a blog post so don’t hold your breath.

I will leave you with my favourite quote from possible the greatest comedian/cynic of all time, Bill Hicks. It is titled as “A positive drug story on the news”:

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves…. Here’s Tom with the Weather.





Someone buy me a ticket to Sweden

5 02 2008

Wow, what a weekend! I am still recovering, that how good the weekend was. I don’t have much to blog about except this weekend’s events.

So Friday night started out as a relaxed poker session with the mates. Frank Sinatra, expensive alcohol, cigars and Texas hold em are a very good combination, we felt very sophisticated yes. The sophistication quickly dissolved when we hit the town though… Great fun.

Saturday morning was spent conversing with an ex, had an awesome time and I am glad I have once again formed a friendship with her. You only realise who the real friends are when the shit hits the fan hey.

Saturday afternoon I was off to PE and the festivities began. It was good to see some friends I haven’t seen in a while who had come from far to spend the weekend in PE. Then we hit the Casino, well our original intentions where not to go gamble but instead attend a farewell party/band evening at Supersports which just happens to be in the casino. Needless to say once the alcohol consumption began the gambling started and so did the losing of money. Great fun. My boss and his wife are members of the band that played and even though I might be slightly biased for obvious reasons, they really do perform well and they really entertained the crowd. Aside from that it was also Licia/c0d3r/vissie’s farewell party. I got to finally meet the lovely Vissie and a lot of the other CompRSA devs, even though I know most of them already. I foresee many a fun night out with my colleagues.

The highlight of my evening however was meeting a lovely young Swedish woman who is in PE/South Africa for 6 moths on some type of internship. She was very interested in South African politics and so I spent most of the evening explaining the basics of SA politics to her, with the help of my severely limited political knowledge. There was also dancing involved… What started out as the ‘achy breaky heart’ dance (yes, I danced to a Billy Ray Cyrus song, it was worth it ok), the redneck dancing then turned into a Swedish dance much like langarm and then I pulled out all the stops and threw down some wicked langarm moves. Please keep comments on my dance skillz to yourself, I enjoyed it and most importantly so did the lovely lady. I had a lot of fun with the Swede, in fact the most fun I have had with my clothes on in a while. It was awesome to have an intellectually stimulating conversation with a like minded individual who I also happen to be attracted to, very attracted to.

Unfortunately the evening was cut short and the Swede had to escort some intoxicated friends home. She will be visiting Jeffreys Bay soon though, and I will give her the grand tour… I now also feel the need to visit Sweden, specifically Gothenburg. So if anyone is willing to sponsor me a ticket I would much appreciate it. Alternatively I would also be willing to hide in someone’s suitcase.

The evening then degraded into drunken moshing/dancing at Brooke’s. Fun none the less, except between the langarm and rocking out to Seether/Marilyn Manson I seem to have tweaked my neck bone. I am unable to check the blind spots of my car, so lane changes are a bit of a gamble.

Also: The mates and I have started making plans for the KKNK. I skipped the festival last year and I am very sad about it. This year however I will be making the roadtrip with a crapload of friends and the festivities will be massively entertaining. I will post more details at another time.

Another thing I would like to add: I recently acquired Timbaland’s ‘Shock Value’ album and jeebus, the wigga inside me has never been so happy. Seriously impressive stuff from Timbaland and the vast amount of celebrity collaborators.

Ok, seems I have finally run out of brain farts, so I bid thee farewell for now.

You all have an awesome day – it probably wont be as awesome as mine, but you can try.





Firefox 3 and Fred

29 01 2008

Good day interweb® people, welcome back to this weeks episode of Jahn’s trivialities, thank you for tuning in. In this weeks episode: Firefox 3 Beta 2 and Project Fred pimpage.

Let me introduce you to Fred:

Fred

Fred belongs to Dhiren, and also happens to be the Project Fred mascot – we think Fred is some kind of sex toy. Here is Dhiren’s description of Project Fred:

Project Fred is an entirely pointless program which counts the number of keys you press and the number of times you click your mouse, and uploads these totals to the Project Fred website. You can then compare how much you’ve been banging the keyboard with other users.

Total waste of time, but entertaining none the less. Project Fred was started way back in the PM days and then died off and has finally been resurrected. Great fun, go register and download it.

Now onto Firefox 3: I am super excited that my favorite browser is now has a version 3, well almost. Sunday night I downloaded the Beta2. At first I was very impressed: The visual style of Firefox 3 is pretty much the same as Firefox 2, with subtle visual ‘enhancements’, the new bookmark and history managers are also an improvement and the addition of ‘smart bookmarks’ is a nice new feature. The smart bookmarks is basically a drop down menu that shows your most recently visited pages as well as the pages you most frequently visit. Nice. I am most impressed by the improved system footprint, Firefox 3 seems to be less of a resource hog and does not seem to suffer from the infamous Firefox memory leaks.

However FF3 is still in Beta2 and can be expected to have quite a few bugs as I discovered yesterday. The browser went belly up in a catastrophic way, the crash did not occur while I was using the browser, but rather while I was multitasking with my other everyday applications. Firefox froze and then proceeded to consume system resources like a fat kid in a buffet line. I eventually got the firefox.exe process killed but then dumprep.exe decided to go postal and it too brought my system to a halt with its burning desire to consume system resources. This happened twice, so as you would imagine I am a bit weary of FF3 now. I must once again stress; this is the Beta2, these kinds of things are expected to happen. I will just play with FF3 in the evenings when I will be less frustrated with a system crash.

All that said I am still very much looking forward to the release version of the browser.

Oh, go have a look at the Tech/Programming riddle of the day on PSV. Register and have some fun.

A word of warning before I end this post: Wotan help the person who leaves a comment telling me FF sucks, IE/Opera/Safari is better. Seriously, I will hunt you down and stab you in the face.

Well, that is that. Have very shithole week.

“interweb” is a registered trademark of Youknow





Holy Crap

22 01 2008

Happy frikken new years everyone and merry Chrismukkah.

Yes, its been bloody ages since I made a blog post, I had even started to believe that I had fallen into the blog pit of death – you know, guy starts blog, guy blogs, guy forgets about blog, blog stagnates, blog dies. Well, I am back. Please excuse the inactiviry but the last few months have been abso-fucking-lutely-mind-blowingly-out-of-control-crazy. Here is a quick summary of events over the last 2 months:

  • Broke up with girlfriend of two years. Shit happens and then some people make shit happen. Her loss.
  • Turned 21: It was mediocre, my ex of course had impecible timing. The goverment also took the jam out of my doughnut by amending the children’s act, making 18 the new 21. All was not lost tho, I recieved some awesome presents to mention a few: the Rammstein Volkerball DVD and some TLC*. Both from ex girlfriends. What a coincidence? I think not.
  • Found out girlfriend had affair with a friend: I appreciate the help in rescuing me from the clutches of a disastrous relationship. True friend I tell you.
  • Dad became ill: Turned out to be not so bad, the old man is still alive and kicking and should remain so for a long while to come.
  • Matric rage: It was awesome, discovered feelings for a close family friend – decided not to act on them for a while, its complicated. Had an such good times and awesome parties. I also did not sleep for like 48 hours. I love red bull. Yes, 3rd Matric rage in a row, yes I am getting a bit old for it, yes its still fun.
  • Almost started a relationship with a wonderful woman from my past: Things are best left in limbo for now (watch this space).
  • Decide to go to England for 2 years. Extreme I know, but go hard or go home. Something like that
  • Partied.
  • Partied like an animal.
  • Awesome Christmas: I wont have to buy clothes, socks and boxers for a long time.
  • Partied like a rockstar.
  • Road tripped to Stilbaai for New Years: Eventful, but dissapointing. Great fun though.
  • Fell in love: With Poker, Texas Hold em boys!
  • Went to the doctor for the first time in a year and a half: Nasty stomach virus
  • Found a new job: CompRSA, Junior Developer.
  • Resigned from current job: A job I will miss a lot, but I need to pursue something else for now.
  • Need to relocate to PE: Be afraid PE, be very afraid.

Yes, all that combined with work shit, financial shit and other personal shit crammed into 2 ungodly months. The rollercoaster ride from hell. Oddly enough, I have had the time of my life over the same period. I feel more alive than ever, I am stronger then ever and happier than what I have been in a long time.

I am super excited to go back to PE as well; I’m moving in with my best friend who got a job at CompRSA, as did I. We will be doing software and web development in the capacity of junior developers/general errand boys. We already know most of the staff at CompRSA, friends, fellow students, lecturers and random acquaintances, so we should fit right in. The working environment is comfortable and our new boss is great. I start on the 25th of February.

I have grown fond of a lame saying my father told me: Lewe is soos n niggerball, dis hard, maar dis lekker. Corny and slightly racist I suppose, but I like it so fuck off.

And that covers the end of 2007 – the most insane year I have ever had – and the beginning of a new one: I hope 2008 is as incredible as 2007, if not more. Rock on internet people. Peace


*coitus





Hitman and the Drama Llama

7 11 2007

So the Drama Llama payed me a visit today. Well, more than a visit, the Drama Llama bent me over and made me its bitch today. Ye, long story for another time. In the mean time, give PlanetSystemVault a visit. I hope those of you who know the history behind the name take it humorously, the way it was intended to be taken. Those of you who do not know the history, well that’s another long story for another day – just have some fun. Pretty much anything goes, surprise me.

Anyway, as I have been banned from my favourite IRC channel, I spent the evening stumbling with StumbleUpon – awesome service and immensely fun and at the same time, horrendously time consumin. I can think of no better way to spend one’s office hours. While I was stumbling I came across this site that lists and updates links to the latest movie trailers. I came across these two trailers that particularily struck my fancy: Hitman the Movie and Valkyrie. Both look bloody entertaining. I am a huge fan of the Hitman games. The Movie Box is a rather useful site, give it a visit.

Anyway, while I was browsing the Hitmanmovie site I came across this interesting game:

Have fun, I sure am. Laters.








Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.