Google Talk - Uninstalled
If there's one big problem I have with software it's when whoever wrote a program decided that custom drawing all their own windows is a much better way of doing things than having the operating system take care of it all for you.
Given the amount of work that's gone into writing an operating system, can a developer really hope to get it right all for themselves? I'm yet to see it.
But really, what's the point? An application written for windows should look like a windows application. That sentence can be rewritten for each OS out there. If you go and write a swanky new program that has a completely alien look to any other application on windows, what have you proved? To me, all you've proved is that you've learned how to hook all the drawing and windowing calls, and almost every time sacrificed time on things like making sure your program actually does what it is supposed to do.
Quicktime has for the longest time looked different to any other windows app. Strangely, I'm yet to have a quicktime install on my machine that doesn't' crash randomly.
Windows media player looks awful.
In fact it seems to be mostly in multimedia applications - I really hate it when I see round or oval windows, especially when most of the time it means most of the surface is used to move the window around (really, just give me a damn title bar!).
And so now specifically to today's whinge. Google have even succumbed to it now. I installed Google talk when it first came out, interested in the idea of having a useful IM service. The integration with email was a big bonus, but mostly it's the IM. I really don't like messenger, and I won't touch yahoo with a 10 foot pole. ICQ is all I'm left with, but it's multi monitor support is terrible.
And so what have google given? A custom windowed app that is almost as bad at the multimonitor support, it looks terrible (I just don't like skins, alright?!), and the email stuff is not as good as the GMail Notifier application. Why couldn't they join the two codebases together?
So, Google Talk is now uninstalled, and the old notifier put back on. While I'm whinging, I might as well mention that I've also uninstalled google desktop - over the last few months I've discovered that I just really don't need to search my hard drive.
The notifier and the Google Toolbar, and I'm a happy camper.
Have a great day everyone :)