Pourquoi les manuels du matériel informatique sont souvent si nuls?!

• Achat nouvelle imprimante HP WiFi pour pouvoir imprimer depuis tous les ordis de partout dans la maison.
• Lancement du logiciel sur le Mac, bloqué à l'étape de sélection de l'imprimante: aucune n'apparait.
• Recherche Google: connecter par USB.
• Là ça marche, sélection WiFi possible, mais le champ de saisie pour le mot de passe WEP permettant la connexion au réseau n'est pas sélectionnable dans la config par défaut?!
• Sélection manuelle du réseau sans fil: là tout marche, imprimante installée.
• Sur le PC, dans l'installation par défaut, on se prend une barre d'outils Yahoo dans le navigateur sans avertissement :-( qui en plus squatte le moteur de recherche par défaut!
  
• pas bien, HP!

The online Tool - ToT

I wonder, as more and more people spend more and more time connected to the internet, why there still isn't a "one tool does it all" software?
Start when you boot, retrieve all the latest infos, and manage everything "www"...

Firefox + Sage gets you browsing and RSS, you still need an email app', a calendar with task management preferably, and if like to work with music, some app like Win MediaPlayer, WinAmp or other.. At the top/bottom/side a bar for instant messaging (preferable integrating Trillian or Jabber).

I would like just one software, which stays open all day (and night.. ;) ), with tabs for quick switching between tasks:

• browse/
• mail & contact manager/
• feeds/
• calendar&tasks/
• notes
• a welcome page which includes an audio player (either local files or online streams), reminders and list of tasks for the day, "my image of the day", horoscope, biorythm, links to bank accounts, links to my Amazon pages (orders, affiliate) notifications...

and which will show taskbar pop-ups (like the Thunderbird "new mail" notifications) for everything (configurable depending on "i don't want to be disturbed now" or "it's ok"): mail, rss feeds, current song, IM...

It should of course be able to synchronize with other apps (mobile devices..), export data (tasks, playlists, contacts..), be skinnable (I'd want a "panther" or "milk" look to start with), open to extensions (maybe Picasa/Hello/Blogger integration? is there anything missing?), never crash, minimize to taskbar and of course be open source!

(just kiddin' on that one, I'd be prepared to pay for something like that! but don't tell!)

Working in France

If you want to live and work in France as a EU resident, you need two things:

1. a resident card to get work
2. work to get a resident card

How is one supposed to go about that..?

Supermarket

Why is that every time i queue to pay in the supermarket, I end up in the slowest queue because either (pick one):

• someone before me forgot his credit card, has no cash, and starts a huge fuss
• the credit card terminal stops working
• the roll of paper for the reciepts is empty
• the price for item X is missing, and someone has to go check
• some old lady insists on paying to the exact cent amount by rumaging through her purse for hours, trying to find just the right coins (but she forgot her glasses..), and No thanks, she does not want anyone to help her, she's fine!
• the girl cashing in forgot to remove an alarm from some clothing because she didn't realize instead of the usual 3 beepers, this one had one more, so security is running towards the client and unfortunately, we have to wait..
• ... (add your own)

Mother and Fathers day gifts

I always wonder why shops (at least here in France) adverstise only useless junk such as cooking and cleaning devices for women, add some jewellery and flowers, for mothers day?
And high-tech gimmicks and alcohol for fathers day?

Is that really market research and based on actual demand (or are these offers creating and directing demand towards such products..?), or just some stupid old-fashioned stereotypes?

In todays consumer societey, what's considered acceptable gifts anyway?
Culture means CDs, DVDs and books, nothing else?
Next fathers day, offer me a new domain with great hosting :)