I have enough trouble with distractions, Adobe

Adobe feeling free to grab the focus anytime it thinks I need an update is so obnoxious I can't begin to believe it. But it's time I wrote that gripe down, because it just happened again.

I saw a *NAMED* invited talk at AGU, dozens of PhDs having travelled thousands of miles to see a great man talk about great research, brought to a screeching halt by adobe grabbing the focus from PowerPoint. The net value subtract to the world of that single interruption was probably tens of thousands of dollars.

Most interruptions are not that impressive. But they all subtract value.

Hey, Adobe, how about prompting me WHEN I START YOUR APP?

I think they are preparing a special place in Hell for the schm*** who though this was a good idea. Really. I'm not joking. Each incident is (usually) small, but the number of brain cells wasted on this crap...

Crappy UX in Secrurity settings for downloaded app

Download Kompozer. Apple won't let me run it. Says my security won't let me.

Go to security settings, where it offers a "run anyway" button. Push it. Get same "security won't allow" message.

Try again - unlock the lock icon. Hit "run anyway" again. Fails as before.

Change security to "run anything from anywhere". Works.

Shut Kompozer. Change security back to a reasonable setting. "Run anyway" button reappears in security window. This time press it and it works.

Start Kompozer from Apps folder and it works.

This is crap, Apple. Just crap.

Safari is not suitable for serious writers

Often when writing I want to dig up a reference to link the reader to it. This is stupidly broken in Safari. To set off a search, you just put the search term instead of the URL in the address bar.

Double using the URL bar as the search bar is tolerable enough. Chrome does it fine.

But if you want to cut and paste the URL, that is not possible in current versions of Safari. I usually just reload the page. People have written bookmarklets and such to get around it. But it's an insane misfeature and it has persisted through several versions of Safari.

Just another small example of Apple software stepping on serious users to make life easier for novices.

Dedicated Time Machine vs Power Saving

Every time I restart my computer from power save mode it gripes at me that I didn't eject the time machine drive.

More iCloud Problems

Not even keeping track of this anymore. But the file that wasn't showing up on "iCloud" was showing up on "All My Files", a view I have usually ignored as it is baffling to me. And the "get info" said it was on my iCloud.

So I moved it to my desktop. Now the iCloud is properly being used to backup my phone and nothing else, and I will be setting up Google Drive soon.

(Good news is I finally hooked up a backup system and Time Machine appears to be working smoothly. 15 minutes left to end of initial backup...)

Then I'll jump through the Python 3 and Django hoops and will finally be off to the races...

Dictation

Works just barely tolerably. Various bad UI decisions, in my opinion, and the recognition isn't that great. It might be better if there was a training period, but ease of use uber allies, I suppose.

UPDATE: I do not find it useful for the way I compose text. Cursor moves are a PITA.

Related, I can't get a grip on when it thinks I am giving a command and when it actually executes a command. God help you if you ever want to type "go up".

Heh