Grr, Change

Note: This post is not about political "change" (which is apparently the word of the month), because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend one additional second on anything remotely related to politics ever again. People always ask why I remain completely neutral in all political discussions, and refuse to tell anyone where I stand. Really, you can't think of any reason why I wouldn't want to get involved in non-stop rabid propaganda no matter which side you align with?

Not that not declaring a side helps much - basically you then just have both sides assuming you agree with them (because, how could you not? I mean, obviously my side is the right one, anyone on the other side is crazy and I wouldn't associate with crazy) so you get all their diatribes as their very own stump speech. So you just adopt a neutral facial expression, and nod your head occasionally, all the while trying to say the alphabet backwards in your head.

Seriously, I pretty much hate everyone right now.

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But this entry is not about that kind of change, dammit!

In general I hate change. Mixing up your routine makes things complicated, prone to additional errors, and increases the likelihood that you're going to have to end up talking to someone you hate (probably about politics, too). And the worst time for change is always Fall.

Every Fall they rearrange the syndicated TV shows, just as I've finally gotten down a schedule that I like to watch in the background when I get home from work (Until this month: King of the Hill, followed by The Simpsons, followed by How It Works. A perfect afternoon roll call. Now that's shot to hell, as the only thing left in that lineup is The Simpsons and it's at a different time. Grr.). HATE

Every Fall they change the traffic light patterns in central Dallas, I assume to factor in something to do with the school zones. All I know is that my route to and from work becomes 10 minutes longer each time the leaves change, because 5 of the 7 lights that I go through tend to hit red during a normal commute (as opposed to 2 at max during the summer) and the left turn only arrows at the intersection by my office disappear and you have to just shoot for your openings in traffic and pray for intersection mercy. HATE

And this really doesn't apply to anyone else, but Fall is also when mortgage lenders push out their upgrades to their user interfaces and underwriting engines. Which invariably ends up in heartbreak and longer turn times. Why they need to keep expanding the functionality of systems when the number of files available is plummeting to a record low is beyond the scope of my understanding. DOUBLE HATE

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But at this exact second, the change that's annoying me the most? iGoogle.

Which is the most unfair kind of change imaginable - a significant alteration to something that is totally free. So it's not like I can complain, it's a complimentary service. It's tacky to criticize the hand that is feeding you (for free).

Anyways, I'm going to whine for a minute, but that doesn't mean that I'm not really, really, incredibly appreciative of Google for providing the single best internet tool I have ever had in my entire life (A close second being the awesome address bar in the new Firefox. Those two items are pretty much all I need to get my internet enjoyment to maximum capacity.). I have saved so much time and effort using the iGoogle homepage that I roughly attribute at least 50% of my increased productivity at work to it.

But the latest redesign. Jesus.

A left hand tab menu? Seriously? Google is pretty much the smartest company on the internet, yet they don't understand the importance of horizontal viewing space? This isn't so much of a problem on my 24" wide screen monitor at home (which, by the by, still completes me), where I have landscape view width to spare. But at the office, on my 15" CRT, in order to fit that extra couple of inches for those tabs, I lose all readability for the third column of widgets. The only option I have is to switch to double columns, which means scrolling for additional info. But I won't even do that, because it saves the settings globally, and having only two columns at home is like spitting in the face of God and/or Mr. Widescreen Monitor.

Plus, the expanded functionality of the widgets from the tab bar is terrible. The only one that works well is the Google Reader, but since I don't use the additional functionality, it's a wash. Whereas the Gmail tab is actively horrible. Clicking an email brings it up in the widget now, but you can't click on embedded hyperlinks, and can't respond with attachments. Same limitations for composing a new email, or looking at your inbox. The only way to get anything done is to click over to Gmail. So really at this point, the only point to the widget is to see the last 5 emails you've received. Which is nice, but it used to be so much more functional.

And what's the deal with the multiple pages on the bookmarks widget all of a sudden? I mean, maybe it's naive to assume that everyone uses bookmarks the same way as me, but they're generally used for my daily sites that don't have RSS feeds, or that have interactive content that I'll need to access at various points during the day, usually in rapid succession. So it makes zero sense to have to waste additional time clicking over to the page of links I'm looking for, every time you backtrack to the homepage. It's not like they're unmanageable as is; there's maybe 20 of them. Suddenly we're horribly concerned about vertical screen space now? Grr.

It's like that my.yahoo debacle all over again, except this time there's still so much I still love about it that I can't ever imagine leaving. I forgive new flaws when you've got that much functionality left. (Whereas Yahoo pretty much lost me forever with their overdesigning, when you actively have to click three links to actually access the content you see on the screen. Damn, I still wonder to this day how they managed to screw that up so bad.)

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Whew, okay, venting over. I feel much better.

(I'm still pretty bitter about all the politics stuff, though.)