# Other people's annoying computer habits **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 12, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590 "2009-06-12T19:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/21 "2009-06-13T03:56:27Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > My wife does variations on this. I’m sure I’ve told her that \\ adds “[http://www](http://www).” and “.com” around anything she types in the address bar. Holy crap, I did not know that! Learn something new everyday. Now, where’s that “insert” key so I can try that trick? ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/22 "2009-06-13T04:03:21Z")
My ex-SO types “youtube” in his Google search bar when he wants [youtube.com](http://youtube.com). I’ve told him: Ctrl + L, then type. But it’s not the way he’s used to doing it, so it doesn’t stick. I have my own little inefficiencies, sure, but this is the reason I don’t watch him use a computer anymore. He also stabs my LCD with his finger when he points at stuff onscreen. If he hadn’t been the one that bought me the monitor for Christmas, I’d have cut the finger off months ago. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/23 "2009-06-13T04:18:16Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > a) d) Writing your password on a post it. This is just funny because so many people do it. I worked for a couple small companies without an IT person but sort of played that roll when needed. Bob or Sue gone for the day and we need something on their computer? No problem, 5-10 minutes at their desk and presto!. Password written inside the top drawer, up under the desk, or let’s put it where no one will look, under the mouse pad. Got a wireless router? Where should the code be? Well, taped right to the bottom of course. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/24 "2009-06-13T04:24:10Z")
People who have their screen resolution at 400x600. _shudder_ Even worse, though, is having a 15" monitor at 1200x1600…christ, people, learn have to have the proper resolution for your monitor size! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/25 "2009-06-13T04:30:43Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > People who blow all windows up to full-screen “so they can see” - the only way to navigate among windows is via the taskbar. They don’t seem to grasp that the text size remains the same, and a lot of websites just show you the same size block of text, but with huge margins. Really? I like it that way. For some reason, even if the website is huge and I see that it hasn’t been maximized, it annoys me. Partly because it’s so easy to click away to another website if nothing’s maximized. And the taskbar makes it pretty easy to navigate through, what’s the problem with using it? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/26 "2009-06-13T04:40:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > No one ever seems to realize that if you click on the scroll bar, you move up or down an entire screen (I’m betting that at least some of the people posting in this thread have never noticed this). The down arrow only moves you line by line and is much slower. Except in Eve-Online, where it’s proportional and moves you to that spot, rather than page-advances. ☹ But in the non-game world, dragging the scroll bar is even much quicker. Except for certain, stupid programs that don’t live update the display when you drag (more prevalent problem on Windows than on Mac OS, for some reason). * * * I’m a bit of an Access geek. Sure, there’s a learning curve. But there’s an over-use of Excel when Access is really the ideal tool. And people that begin sentences with “but.” * * * Edit: Oh, and meant to add, there are _still_ people that adhere to 8.3 file names! ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/27 "2009-06-13T04:57:46Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > Got a wireless router? Where should the code be? Well, taped right to the bottom of course. That one actually makes perfect sense. The purpose of encrypting a wireless signal is to prevent someone sitting outside in a car, or in the building next door, from being able to tap into the signal. If some outsider actually has physical access to the router, you’ve got bigger problems than an exposed encryption key! The owner of the router needs to know the key so he can set his wireless card with the same key. The best place to write down that key is on the router itself. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/28 "2009-06-13T04:58:12Z")
Also, those who can only go to a URL unless they find it in the drop-down at the url bar … and it chills my brain to hear “this computer hasn’t got Hotmail” …IT’S NOT A PROGRAM!!! ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/29 "2009-06-13T05:01:34Z")
> [@AudreyK](#): > > I’ve told him: Ctrl + L There’s F6 too, one less key stroke. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/30 "2009-06-13T05:01:54Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > People who blow all windows up to full-screen “so they can see” - the only way to navigate among windows is via the taskbar. They don’t seem to grasp that the text size remains the same, and a lot of websites just show you the same size block of text, but with huge margins. Same. I know it shouldn’t matter, but maximized windows annoy me. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/31 "2009-06-13T06:13:45Z")
My pet peeve is people messing with the file structure set up by the bosses on a shared computer. My boyfriend and I started a business last year, and pretty much made up forms etc as we needed them. When we bought a small old desktop for the main reception area, I put the files off my laptop onto the desktop of the reception computer. At least 5 people use this so I thought “lets make this simple.” So things that many people might need, like time sheets, application forms, sales trackers and such are all on the desktop in a file labled “FORMS” and all the file names are FORMS\_timesheet or FORMS\_application. Things that fewer people need are not on the desktop, still in files that are labelled…Proposals, or Contracts, Expenses, or whatever. Also everyone who really had business on that computer had a folder of their own. So after painstakingly setting up this system and posting an explanation of where what kind of files could be found right onto the CPU beside it, what does little tin-hat evening supervisor do? Re arrange the office files, move them all off the desktop, take FORMS and put some forms (application, office policies etc ) into one file, put others into another, so that I cannot find any of the forms. After that she deleted my projects from the computer (since you have your own and its eating memory/slowing down the computer) It only took a month after that for my other half to fire her\*But it was a month where I refused to help him find anything on that computer, and only used my own. \*Not because of computer use, but for other wastes of time/money and the fact that she really didn’t DO anything. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/32 "2009-06-13T10:28:00Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > There’s F6 too, one less key stroke. And cross-platform. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/33 "2009-06-13T11:39:00Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > People who blow all windows up to full-screen “so they can see” - the only way to navigate among windows is via the taskbar. They don’t seem to grasp that the text size remains the same, and a lot of websites just show you the same size block of text, but with huge margins. I’m a maximizer. It blocks out the noise. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/34 "2009-06-13T12:27:22Z")
My boss makes a folder for everything. I mean it, EVERYTHING. He’s working at close to a 1:1 ratio of folders to documents. For example, when I submit my budget report for the month to him, he creates a folder called DELPHICA BUDGET REPORT JUNE 09. It gets more maddening. There are 17 people – seventeen! seventeen! – people who submit monthly budget reports to him. Each one gets a folder. However, he doesn’t name them with any consistency so they don’t even appear next to each other in a list. He’s got DELPHICA BUDGET REPORT JUNE 09 and JUNE 09 BUDGET FROM STEVE and BUDGET JUNE 09 KAREN’S REPORT. I have suggested a few things to him, like perhaps he could make a folder called DELPHICA BUDGET REPORTS 09 and then put each month in there, but no. Or perhaps he could make a folder called BUDGET REPORTS JUNE 09 and put everyone’s budget report in that folder, but also no. All of these folders are in My Documents, not grouped with subfolders or anything like that. The reason it impacts me is that I’ll be sitting in his office during a meeting, and he will want to consult a report from October 07, so he’ll start looking for it, which as you can imagine pretty much makes me want to chew off my arm. It’s like I’m trapped in Insane World. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/35 "2009-06-13T12:39:23Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > **Screen-touchers.** > > By all means, drop by my cubicle to show me that one thing you were talking about earlier. I’ll pull up the web page, or spreadsheet, or source code, or trend plot, or whatever it is, and we can look at the problem together. Nice to see you by the way. How are the kids? > > Ah yes, I think I understand now. The new combobulator script must be miscalculating the — but which values is it supposed to — _Aaaaah! Aaaaaah! AAAAH! You’re touching my screen! You’re touching my screen! You’re getting your fat, greasy fingerprints all over my screen, you clodhopper! Stop it! Do your pointing with a goddamn pencil or something! What is wrong with you?! AAAAH!_ My pet peeve too. I think a programmer I used to work with would purposefully eat a couple of potato chips before coming into my office and smearing his fingers on my screen. I even get after my 6 year old girls about it. I’m trying to instill in them a sense of the pristine. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/36 "2009-06-13T13:05:08Z")
I hate torrents in RAR Files. But that’s probably not really what this thread is about. Anyways, I used to maximise my browser, but since getting a widescreen monitor it started to look wrong, so now I have an extension that will keep it at 1280x960, the ratio I used on my old monitor. I do, however, maximise most other big UI apps, like Photoshop, Lightwave, After Effects, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/37 "2009-06-13T13:06:00Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > My mother opens every link she clicks in not just a new tab but a new _window_. I once was trying to help her find something online and she had _37_ IE windows open. In a row? ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/38 "2009-06-13T13:47:23Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > I hate torrents in RAR Files. But that’s probably not really what this thread is about. > > Anyways, I used to maximise my browser, but since getting a widescreen monitor it started to look wrong, so now I have an extension that will keep it at 1280x960, the ratio I used on my old monitor. > > I do, however, maximise most other big UI apps, like Photoshop, Lightwave, After Effects, etc. Yeah, with a wide screen monitor and Firefox maximized, 5000 word thread replies take up like half a line. Totally worth it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/39 "2009-06-13T15:47:05Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > People who blow all windows up to full-screen “so they can see” - the only way to navigate among windows is via the taskbar. They don’t seem to grasp that the text size remains the same, and a lot of websites just show you the same size block of text, but with huge margins. IMHO, unless you have an immense monitor (well, I’m still on 13.9", so YMMV) or dual monitors, going full-screen is the _proper way_ for a lot of people. Text size isn’t usually the issue to me – it’s the size of graphics that’s more often an issue. Forget the Taskbar – use Alt-TAB to navigate between windows. Hold the Alt key down and tap down on TAB to get where ya gotta go. It’s a breeze. ---
**Author:** ![Audrey\_Levins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Audrey\_Levins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Audrey_Levins)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590/40 "2009-06-13T20:38:44Z")
I don’t like watching “peckers.” People who never learned to type, who have gone through life with their two pointer-fingers doing all the typing. When I ask these people why they never learned to type, they usually say, “Oh, I took it in highschool” or “I tried to learn from a program” but for whatever reason, it never “took.” Typing is such a basic skill–for many decades–that it amazes me that grown adults just couldn’t be bothered to learn how. Not my problem, of course…as long as they get the job done it’s really immaterial…but I just don’t like _witnessing_ it. It frustrates me. As petty as it sounds. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-peoples-annoying-computer-habits/499590.md?page=3)