Blog entries with tag “Embarrassingly bad”

Default font smoothing parameters on MacBook Pro 13-inch might be suboptimal

Having received my MacBook Pro 13-inch, I started to alternate between my Surface Book and MacBook, to get used to macOS and keep everything synchronised. Today when I was transcribing my notes to OneNote, I noticed a rendering problem on the screen. Propaganda (from Apple fanboys) has it that macOS supports high DPI displays well (of course including its very own screen), it turns out the story isn’t as true as the propaganda claims. Later, it was revealed that the reason is font smoothing is on (by default for me), and turning it off resolves the problem.

AppleEmbarrassingly bad
25 Jan 2019
25 January 2019
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Beware: Adobe Reader sideloads an app to Windows

Update: I misunderstood how the app was sideloaded. See my further investigation and I apologise for the wrong blames. Hands down! The usage is legitimate and a perfect example of installation on demand (advertisement). Embarassingly bad is for myself.

MicrosoftEmbarrassingly bad
✏ 27 Dec 2018
Created on 1 December 2018, last modified on 27 December 2018
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Struggling with e-mail systems

As a perfectionist, I have been struggling to have a perfect PIM (personal information management) solution. For the personal part, I currently use (Exchange-based) Outlook.com. For the professional (institutional) part, things have been so hard. This entry records some of the problems I have encountered so far, and for certain ones, a solution. Expect this entry to be a mess and full of complaints.

DesignEmbarrassingly bad
17 Dec 2018
17 December 2018
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Windows 10 自动更新重启的观察

我之前在知乎问题“为什么很多人要禁止 Windows 10 自动更新”下多个回答的评论区宣传 ShutdownBlockReasonCreate 这个 API，尝试“教育”开发者正确处（阻）理（止）Windows 10 自动更新重启带来的关键任务被终止的问题，还因为这个被人挂了。一开始我抱着怀疑的态度提出的方法，之后不知什么原因就假设这个 API 确实有效了——我当时已经知道该 API 不能其效果的情况，但是我没料到“大更新”的时候 Windows 真的会用那么暴力的方法重启电脑。本文记录了一些我的观察，并从使用者的角度给出一些关于 Windows 10 自动更新处理上的建议。

Microsoft太糟糕了聪明反被聪明误
2018 年 8 月 11 日
2018 年 8 月 11 日
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Windows 10 自动更新重启的观察

Windows Credential User Interface with secure attention sequence: not even bad

Ever since I used Windows NT (for me, the first Windows NT I used is Windows XP), I’ve been familiar with the importance of Ctrl+Alt+Delete. The combination is known as the secure attention sequence for Windows. In an uninfected copy of Windows, the sequence is handled exclusively by Windows, and is used to thwart trojan dialogs luring users’ credentials. Requiring SAS before Welcome Screen is a quite usable security feature. However, it is not the case for Credential User Interface.

MicrosoftDesignEmbarrassingly bad
16 Jun 2018
16 June 2018
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PowerShell codebase misuses SHEmptyRecycleBin function in Clear-RecycleBin cmdlet

Clear-RecycleBin is a cmdlet that clears your recycle bin. Internally, it calls SHEmptyRecycleBin function. It has been malfunctioning for a long time: when you run the cmdlet for the first time in a PowerShell session with Force switch on, it produces an ErrorRecord. Further investigation shows that it is detecting error status of SHEmptyRecycleBin the wrong way. To make things worse, SHEmptyRecycleBin is really bad at error handling.

MicrosoftEmbarrassingly bad
27 Apr 2018
27 April 2018
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PowerShell codebase misuses SHEmptyRecycleBin function in Clear-RecycleBin cmdlet

How to watch movies on UNITED flights

a.k.a. How to be disappointed again by UA. I was visiting New York University and Carnegie Mellon University. Flying from Beijing to New York, from New York to Pittsburgh, from Pittsburgh to Beijing via Chicago, I chose United Airlines, one that suffers from previous scandals on ‘violently reaccomodating a customer’. It turns out that their in-flight entertainment system is also torturing! This entry was written during the flight from Chicago to Beijing.

JotsTravelEmbarrassingly bad
8 Mar 2018
8 March 2018
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How to watch movies on UNITED flights

Don’t risk losing your purchased music by using Groove Music to store them

Groove Music allows the user to store their music collection, including songs available via Music Pass subscription, those purchased from the Store, those stored on your OneDrive and those stored locally. This gives the users false impression that purchased music are secured by Microsoft’s service so they’re never lost.

MicrosoftEmbarrassingly bad
✏ 7 Oct 2017
Created on 31 August 2017, last modified on 7 October 2017
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清华网络碎碎念：交费死锁

清华网络费用非常高！另外，曾经清华网费有死锁，因为使用了网银；后来采用了微信、支付宝，声称解决了死锁。但我今天一试，发现根本不是这样的！（已更新）

@ 清华大学随笔太糟糕了
✏ 2017 年 8 月 28 日
创建于 2017 年 7 月 30 日，最后修改于 2017 年 8 月 28 日
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清华网络碎碎念：交费死锁