Do any models have a “find remote” function, like is common on phones?
I have a part-time job where having a phone ringer go off at the wrong time can lead to being fired or even sued*. I want my cell phone to absolutely silent: no beeps, boops or buzzes, not for incoming calls, email, voice messages, nothing. If anyone calls, I’ll feel it vibrate in my pocket and get back to them later. I’ve successfully turned off all the sounds on my phone, with one exception.
The Death Scream.
When the battery runs out, my phone gives off a piercing fire-alarm shriek that will not stop (well, presumably it stops when the last reserve of power left runs out). Why the fuck do I have the Phone of Roland? What possible benefit is that supposed to provide that’s so fabulous that it justifies overriding all my STFU settings?
Normally, my phone could go well over a week without charging (I rarely us it, and never just to chat), but after some recent water damage (that also blew out the LCD panel on the front cover), it seems to die after only a couple of days. So tomorrow I’m getting a new one, and it will not have camera buttons on the outside (I just love finding my memory space filled with photos of the inside of my pocket)!
*“Do you, Jane Smith, take this man to be your wedded beep… uh, hold on a sec, lemme get that…”
1 foot power cords. Seems most appliances and a lot of electronics have cords of insufficient length to place anywhere except directly beside an outlet. Hello! I don’t want to have to have an extension cord coming out of every single outlet (and there’s not nearly enough of those, either, worthy of a pit itself) in my house.
Anything that beeps at me more than once is eventually going to be smashed to bits in a fit of frothy rage. G-ddamn, I hate beeps! Same goes for blinking lights. Feck off!
Why bother? Make it red & white striped.
My fucking modem and router.
Why the fuck would anybody design equipment that needs to be powered down to reset NO FUCKING ON?OFF SWITCH. who the fuck decided that unplugging them was the best way to go…asshats.
I suspect it cuts their tech support calls 90% - no on/off switch to bump accidentally.
This has driven me crazy for years, especially since I never use the keypad.
I realize that there have been small keyboards like this available for years, but Apple’s small aluminum bluetooth keyboard is absolutely a thing of beauty. Sadly, it works only on my Mac, and I can’t pair it with a PC.
There are simply some instances where software should never be allowed to contol hardware! Period. Paragraph. Sooner or later, a whole lotta people are going to wind up very, very dead because of this and then you can expect the lawsuits to fly.
One of my PCs has only a “soft” power off button (i.e., when you push the button, it tells the PC to turn itself off, rather than actually cutting the power), when it locks up (because of some kind of software incompatibility), pushing the power buttons is utterly useless. The PC just sits there, so you have to reach around to the back and yank the cord out, wait a moment, and then plug it back in. The only reason this is done is to save the cost of a $.30 switch. Frankly, I’d be more than happy to pay an extra dollar to make sure that my PC dies when it’s supposed to.
I think you’ll find that if you hold down that power button for about 10 seconds (I don’t recall how long exactly, but its not that long) the machine will do a “hard” power-off. This was an intentional design change that happened perhaps 8-10 years ago to PCs, on the theory that folks would power off machines while the disk drive was in a bad state, scrambling their data. Like you, I find this change aggravating, but on every PC I’ve seen, you really can do a “hard” shutdown if you wish, by simply pressing the button until the machine goes bye-bye.
Not when it’s good and locked up, believe me, I’ve tried.
Really? If I blue-screen my Dells, the hold-the-power-till-it-dies trick still works. I guess you’re dealing with a stupider level of design. 
(heck, it even works on my Mac)
I actually had an early DVD player (back when DivX meant something different) that would blue screen, and require the cord to be unplugged from the wall. It was Philips box, a brand I’ve never bought since.
I am overjoyed at the ease of use of USB devices. I’m sure nobody would ever want to go back to the days of manually choosing interrupt settings on cards, or using serial/parallel ports to do things they never were intended to do.
But…
When they came up with this great design for a plug, didn’t they consider that many times when people are plugging them in, they are reaching behind a computer in a dusty dark place? At least there are only two possible orientations, but why didn’t they mandate in the spec that there be a prominent bump on the plug on the “top” side so you could feel it with your thumb?
I find USB cords annoying even when I can see what I am doing. So, my wife gave me a bottle of nail polish in “Streetwalker Red” that I use to put red dots or stripes on the top side of every plug I have. Works like a charm.
It’s an eMachine and I’ve had it completely lock up without giving me the BSoD.
minor7flat5, don’t forget the fact that there’s about 4 dozen different forms that the connectors can take. The standard should have been that both ends of the connection are identical in size and shape, with one size available, and the shape is such that it’s obvious as to which direction it goes into the machine. (Maybe make 'em triangular or something.)
Older clock radios have an LED in the upper part for “AM” and in the lower part for “PM” time…or vice versa. Who can eremember? Why not just backlight the letters AM or PM?
Sailboat
Although I share your frustration, I don’t think the 30 cent saving was the motivation behind this design. It was because of the innocents who, used to a switch on every other appliance in the house, would turn off the computer when they were done with it and caused their files to be trashed or their data to not be saved. Making it harder to shut down with a switch encourages users to do it “the right way”, thru the multi-step software procedure.
For the same reason, the reset switch was removed from front (or even back) panels. It was too easy to press and had unfortunate consequences if pressed at the wrong time.
The problem arises when such designers do not acknowledge that computers frequently lock up through no fault of the user and a hard reset is the only way to fix it.
I am well aware of the consequences of power-down at the wrong time but I can’t fix the problems that cause the need, so I often wire up a reset switch on the front panel and I usually pull the plug to turn off my computers since that’s simplier than a multi-stage software sequence. Haven’t had a single problem yet, and it gives me a powerful feeling of control. Take that, you stupid computer.
On my alarm clock, if you forget which dot is AM/PM (and the consequences of doing it wrong are severe!) you have to turn on the room light, since the AM/PM is written in black on black background and can’t be seen in the dark.
There oughta be a law that requires designers of stuff to actually use the stuff they design before selling it. That would provide the feedback loop that is currently lacking.
I hate electronic devices with black cases, in which buttons or ports/inputs are labeled by embossed lettering. Black embossed lettering on a black case.
I dislike device controls that cannot match all of the functions (I’m willing to give up equal convenience) of the remote.
I wish all devices with remotes had a dock for the remote that recharged it.
Personally, I think USB should have been designed so that it works in both orientations. It would have required just two extra pins.
And why can’t devices with timers have an internally-charged backup battery for the timer… or at least a place for an AA cell or two? I never thought I’d see VCRs being on the way out without having implemented this.
All my digital room clocks have a 9v backup battery option, but the battery doesn’t power the display and when the clock is offline it runs about 20% fast. So keeping it from resetting to 12:00 during a power outage isn’t worth the cost of a 9v battery, since you have to recalibrate it anyway when power is restored. And, to add insult to injury, since it runs fast, and the “set time” function only goes forward, you can’t back it up a few minutes if it is only a few minutes fast.