All software is quite useless according to Tim Berners-Lee

[boyofbadgers]

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make backspace a keyboard shortcut for back in web browsers?

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make backspace a keyboard shortcut for back in web browsers?

I'd have thought Marc Andreessen and co at the NCSA in Illinois, given they invented browsers as we know them and that that's been there since Mosaic 1.0...

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I suspected that it might go back that far, but since I've never used the shortcut intentionally, and that it's been at least 14 years since I last used Mosaic, I hesitate to trust my own memories of lost form data.

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

It's becoming rarer and rarer these days to go on a website where back does what you think it should do/is any use at all. Ruddy Ajax, etc.

Does anyone get that thing with LJ in Firefox where it thinks the last three historic pages are all the page you're on, so you have to hit back 3 times to actually go back 1? Doesn't happen in IE.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Aye. Bluddy fancy pants web designers.

I've not had that problem on LJ, but some other sites seem to require multiple clicks to reverse out of particular pages.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

OTOH i quite like the cute trick of using the # fragment bit of the URL as an AJAXy page history holder thing

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

I don't know but it confuses the living bejaysis out of me on a regular basis.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

I use the backspace as "go back an page" all the time, since I worked out thats what it did! :)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Stop encouraging them!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

But that's what it's for!

[sbp.livejournal.com]

No it's not. That's what meta-leftarrow is for, for your local value of meta.

Sorry, this has turned into a javascript rant.

[kake]

My pet hate (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, FLICKR) is when people use javascript to put the cursor in an input field on page load. This breaks meta-leftarrow and is intensely annoying.

I also hate the way that Bloglines resizes the text after the page has loaded, when I've already bumped the font size up manually because I know in advance that their text is too small.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Some browsers let you turn this off these days.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

it's amazing just how capable computers are of RUINING EVERYTHING.

[celentari.livejournal.com]

Argh yes - yesterday I had to re-tag a WHOALE LOWDE of Facebook pictures, having nearly got to the end of them all, when a misplaced backspace, arghwhy, took me back to the page before and lost all my tags. RAARGH.

Lex, I finally listened to Too Many Licks the other day and am in disbelief that you rly played it at a wedding?!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

As am I! It turned out that the RUDERY was not the problem as everyone was too drunk to hear them. What was the problem was the simulated orgasm in the second verse which cause QUITE A FEW people to look up. I have the lyrics off by heart :D

I can't even talk about computers. I'd had such a nice working day planned: work from home in the morning, doing some monitoring on the video stream of a committee hearing blah blah blah. Was going to be really nice doing this in relaxed environment, not having to get up early or be stressed, and could write it up while listening to music and generally sorting the flat out. Then come into the office in the afternoon for meetings etc. Of course the video stream decided not to work (it always used to!) and my housemate's computer wouldn't even connect to the internet for NO REASON and I spent three hours getting increasingly angry and panicky, and that work still isn't done and I have no idea when it's going to get done unless I stay in the office until, like, midnight. THANKS A FUCKING BUNCH, TECHNOLOGY. On the one day I needed it to work.